Sleek and elegant ?candy bar?

By Dinna Chan Vasquez

Sleek, suave, and elegant are the first impressions one gets of the Sony Ericsson C902 Cyber-shot handset. It is the thinnest 5-megapixel phone in the market right now. It looks like a typical candy bar but is actually an updated version at 10.5 mm. The keypad is an old-fashioned one that has good-size square keys giving tactile feedback and enabling fast texting.

Although Sony Ericsson has had great success with its Cyber-shot line, older models have iffy keypads and ??joysticks?? that break easily, especially in the case of people whom like to play games on their mobile phones.

The C902 has a five-way navigation pad that just works. The design is a bit old-fashioned but we say that it is a good way. The combination of metal and plastic results in a very elegant finish.

For me, the true test of a mobile phone?s appearance is when I hold it up in natural daylight. Other ??beautiful and elegant?? phones actually look cheap in that light. Not this one. The C902 is like a truly handsome man who looks good in muted or glaring light.

??Ang lalaking walang anggulo,?? a movie writer once said of a matinee idol. The C902 is the same in that it doesn?t only look good at certain angles. I don?t really like whipping out a phone from my bag in public because I am very afraid of snatchers and thieves but this is one handset that you?d be proud to show off. It has a slider that?s definitely a first in the market. The 5-MP camera on the C902 actually lives under a sliding mechanism. A gentle tug extends the top-half of the phone and reveals the camera lens and Xenon camera flash. This is another superb piece of design as it keeps the slim handset streamlined.

Featuring the same multi-shot capabilities of other recent Cyber-shot phones, the C902 also comes with face detection, red-eye reduction and image stabilization. The 5-MP camera delivers superb pictures, especially outdoors and in natural lighting.

The C902 was used by Daniel Craig?s James Bond in Quantum of Solace and although the Bond phone (a company exclusive) is titanium silver, the regular models are no less attractive. The C902 Cyber-shot phone is used throughout the film by James Bond to capture evidence and assist the agent on his mission. The 5-MP camera, with a unique slide-out lens cover, illuminated touch icons providing quick and easy access to camera options, Face detection, Photo flash and Auto focus enables James Bond to send high resolution shots back to MI6 for quick recognition of his enemies. The phone also offers BestPic, which allows users to take nine pictures of a moving object simultaneously and choose the best shot to use, plus Picture blogging for uploading photos to blog sites and PictBridge for printing direct to a printer, without the need for a PC or laptop.

This is not the first time that the company has teamed up with the Bond franchise. Sony Ericsson also partnered with James Bond to launch the limited edition James Bond Casino Royale silver K800i Cyber-shot camera phone and in November 2002 the Sony Ericsson P800 and T68i mobile phones were used by several of the cast in the 20th James Bond film, Die Another Day.

Sony Ericsson has thrown nearly every known camera phone feature into the C902. The camera features a maximum resolution, a range of auto-focus modes including macro and face detection, a photo-light flash which can be set to stay on for shooting video, and a digital image stabilizer setting. Image settings are adjusted using a selection of touch-sensitive icons located around the screen which are activated when the lens cover is pulled open.

The C902 supports HSDPA data speeds for fast Web browsing, and includes a Walkman-style media playback menu. Also similar to other Sony Ericsson handsets, this latest Cyber-shot phone supports Sony?s own M2 memory stick memory expansion, as opposed to the more common micro SD, and headset attachment.

So what else does one get from the C 902? A 2-inch, 240 x 320 screen with an accelerometer-driven auto-rotate system; an FM radio with RDS; TrackID song recognition; Bluetooth with A2DP wireless stereo; a five-megapixel autofocus camera with 30f/s QVGA video recording; the Video, Photo and MusicDJ applications that are now common on most mid-range and above Sony Ericsson handsets; an RSS hub; voice recorder; picture blogging application; three games and support for MP3, AAC and MPEG 4 media. You also get Google Maps pre-loaded and the PlayNow music ringtone purchase Web application.