I have to start off this review by saying that there is so much to this little phone,  it would take pages to write a comprehensive review.  As I don’t have pages, I’m just going to put in my favourite bits, so don’t blame me if you discover something that I haven’t mentioned!

This is a great little phone, a fact that obviously hadn’t escaped its PR people when they assured me I’d enjoy it.  Being a size that’s comfortable for a female hand, fantastic clarity of screen, easy to read commands and so many genuinely useful functions for daily life.  I’d been carrying around a PDA for the last 6 months and would have happily swapped it for the C903 had I known (of course now I wouldn’t exchange my blackberry for nuts).

The C903 is also known as the Cyber-shot, and I’m assuming this is because it has a great 5mp camera.  I’ve had 5mp camera phones before and they never quite lived up to the hype.  The C903 impressed me however, with photo’s that were coming out clearer and much more detailed than my camera phone of old.  In fact on closer inspection you’ll notice that the entire phone is geared around photography with a whole barrage of extra functions just to get that perfect shot.

The camera is turned on with a sturdy slide on the back of the phone.  You get the feeling from the start that it would be very difficult for this slide to open accidently, and when put through the handbag test by me, it didn’t.  The button to switch from camera to video is on the side of the phone, so easy access if you have friends like mine with low boredom thresholds.

Once you’re ready to take a photo there are some interesting functions which I haven’t dealt with before:-

• Best Pic – with one press of the button the camera will take 9 photos in succession, leaving you to choose the best of the bunch.
• Frames – everything from a bathroom mirror, to a notice board, to tiles can be added before you take the photo
• Document setting – useful if you’re like me and like to steal recipes from other people’s books. 
• Face detection – which I have dealt with before but which is always a great thing for a camera to have
• Special effects – such as solarise and negative

Once you’ve actually taken the photo there are a whole new set of options for you to choose from.  By pressing your cursor up, you can easily send your photo via message, email, website or Bluetooth.  Press the cursor down and you can tag or your photo as a favourite, or customise your own tags.  If you think your photo’s need work before anyone looks at them, you can either choose Photo fix, which will automatically improve your image (something which impressed Alex and I no end, and I ended up using on all of my photos), or you can use Photo Dj to manually edit your photos.

But what about when you’re done taking photos of people’s feet and the neighbour’s cat, what do you play with then?  The C903 also has a Music Dj which ate up an entire evening of mine while I was composing my masterpiece, Track ID which can be used to identify any passing piece of random music, and Remote control which can be used to take over any remote which uses Bluetooth.

Quite late in the day I discovered that the C903 also has Video call.  I immediately rang Alex and was gratified when her face popped up on the screen, unfortunately the reverse wasn’t happening.  All she could see from my end was the wall I was facing.  The next 20 minutes comprised of me repeatedly calling Alex whilst getting frustrated as to why I couldn’t turn the camera around.  Finally I gave in and consulted the C903’s User Guide and it finally made sense.  The Video Call is not meant to be a mutual thing.  Instead it enables you to share with your callee your surroundings while you chat - the finding yourself on a warm beach while your friend is standing in the rain, kind of sharing.  If that’s not enough, you can also send them various pictures of your exploits while you talk.  How do I know all of this?  Because of the C903’s very thorough and incredibly handy User Guide.  Set up like a web page and very easy to read, it is a helpful addition, particularly if you’re intent on getting the most out of your phone.

By now you should know that I very much like this phone.  I spent the last week listening to Def Leppard on the radio, taking photos of street corners and failing miserably at Treasure Tower on the tube.  At the risk of repeating myself I shall end with the fact that I shall be very sad when it’s time to let the C903 go home.

Available from www.se-store.com and other retail outlets on various networks (price subject to tariff)