C902, K850i, K770i, C702, C903, C904, C905..... etc etc etc... WTF?

It's no wonder Apple have done well with their product - they know how to market stuff.

I'm an apple fan, and I know their phone is not very good. But they DO understand how to sell it.

I upgraded from my K790a last week. Yes Yes I know the question you are asking....... Why did you not get the 850? The answer, because I did not want to lug around a brick in my pocket. I'm happy I made that move. The author in this article is neglecting one very important bit of information about the 850......... BROD..... (blue ring of death). The 850's firmware tends to crap out, for whatever reason, after a few months. What makes the C902 and attractive phone is that the firmware has been rewritten for this device. Menu function is fast and stable. I can browse my calendar while listening to my Bluetooth headset with ease.

The other "upgrade" or change that was commented on is the touch buttons on the C902. I don't know where the author is coming from about "inadvertently switching to video". That hot key is on the top row, and all of the camera features are on the bottom row. It's still an improvement over the touch areas of 850. From what I heard they stay active all the time. God forbid you have a slightly larger ear while talking on the 850.

I think the author did a good job going over all the features of the phone, but I think he may be a Nokia fanboy. I would have at least rated the phone 80% - 85%.

fair play to the 850i, I have had one since October 07 and it has been faultless despite being dropped down a flight of tiled stairs in January! It's a little big I grant you, but the camera and flash combo make it hard to beat.

why has the w900i still got one of the best low light cams, but its years old?

megapixels are useless if they all black.......

2mp in a phone is fine, but unless it can get a shot in a dark store room at the office party, its useless......

The "K" in K850 and previous models is derived from the Swedish for "kamera" whereas the "C" is replacing this nomenclature in future SE models - I assume it stands for "camera" or "Cyber-Shot".

It's worth noting that the K850 firmware, unstable and prone to the BROD as it still is even in its latest iteration, has at least gone through several revisions since launch, each of which upgrades the camera driver. The C902 has only just been released - it would be fair to assume that in time the photo quality will improve in the same way it does with all SE phones as new firmware versions are released.

The lack of a xenon flash in any Cyber-shot handset is disappointing, though...

The K850i was a huge step backwards in comparison to the K800i, I expect this will be also.

I was quiet happy to use the K800 as my only camera for short break holidays this is not the case with the K850 the flash doesnt work properly it cant focus for video the pictures are bigger but worse quality, all of which were good on the K800i I still steal it from the missus and leave the 850 in my pocket.

I dont expect my next phone to be SE. it'll be from a company that doesnt have a camera wing to satisfy. afterall sony sell cameras seperatly.

I want two features from my camera phone, can you guess what they are?? its not an Mp3 or radio!

P.

Isn't that sonys Motto?

Those pictures are terrible! That is just so Foggy!

They look worse than the K800-K850 downgrade.

I bet it wont focus in video mode like the K800 did..

I bet it wont vary flash brightness based on focal length like the K800 Did!

I bet it wont have half the modes its capable of. (like twilight portraight!)

Didn't the K800 have face warp? isnt that face recognition? this has nothing.

This like most recent SE Phones is an Awful piece of crippleware rubbish

Im not getting another SONY EVER!

it's seem a good mobile. I've had it for just over a week now. but I've got two problems with it since Monday it's been losing network signal on 3g and 2g. where as my old k550i has had no problems finding the network. as for the menu system being fast I don't think so it seems to freeze when your going thorough the menu (might be something to do with the orange world software). I don't know maybe it's just faulty phone I've got it don't know. other than that the phone's worked great the rotation of the screen is really handy for using the internet on.

The phone looks great but failed completely after just 2 days.

I have tried to sync the phone with my outlook contacts and calendar but to no avail. Have been told to get a replacement handset (3rd time lucky??????)

Dear Reg, as a respectable IT rag, er, publication, PLEASE...do not join the clueless marketing dolts who market to the equally (un)schooled masses that a "phone has 160mb MEMORY". IT HAS 160MB MASS STORAGE. It is like the hard disk on a PC. For reasons best left to the creators of the school system, even in this e-day and e-age, the masses have never really gotten round to distinguishing between ROM, RAM and a DASD..far less SRAM, cache, registers....

Look, it really gripes me when a phone marketeer tries to tell that a phone has x amount of MEMORY and it's expandable with a MEMORY CARD to xGb. IT'S F'ING STORAGE. If I could add MEMORY (as in RAM) to my phone I'd be a seriously happy camper. And what of all the marketing that "Your phone is your computer" crap......where are the specs!!!!!!!!! WTF is the CPU type, speed, bus speeds etc.... these are all buried probably among the phonegeek sites and even then serious phone review sites RARELY mention this stuff. All we ever hear is that the phone has got MORE MEMORY so you can STORE MORE SONGS...MORE PICS...ad nauseam. Look at the eee...a low power cpu etc..yet RAM, SSD, USD expansion is all clearly stated. And I thought the phone is a computer+radio chip? I own a symbian 9.2 nokia, and you have to use a $$ 3rd party utility like Handy Taskman to tell how much free RAM and FLASH you have, there is no way to even see this information using the built in tools and apps.

Despite having very little love for M$...at least their phone boys got it right and state CPU speed, RAM, ROM, and USER STORAGE + expandable STORAGE. Perhaps that's why Nokia isn't marketing successfully to the US.

Perhaps El Reg can whisper to the phoneboys regarding architecture vs. marchitecture. Hell they are not even marchitecting correctly.

Paris coz I forgive her for not distinguishing between a RAM and a Hard Diks.

Nice rant but you are wrong.

Memory != RAM

SRAM, DRAM, Flash, hard disk, floppy, tape... they are all memory, ie they save state, the main differentiator being access time (although tape is far from random access).

Yes, with a phone they are talking storage not RAM. But it is not claimed that memory=RAM and storage is still memory. And this makes sense for the average consumer...

How to make a great phone:

Take a K800i and add..

- 2 memory slots so when you upgrade you don't have to just replace the old one.

- A Male USB pull-out cord thing so you can interface with computers without carrying extra gubbins

- A less annoying "I didn't have a dictionary reference for the thing you just tried to type in"

- Wi-Fi

- Ability to share Phone internet with a computer (reading on a small screen is hard)

- A laser keyboard so you can prop it up and bash a text out instantly. Maybe.

- GPS (optional)

Any thing that doesn't have at least 4 of those things added on from prior models is a waste of money. If I'm upgrading I want it to be WORTH THE HASSLE. After reading the 950 horror stories and seeing 2 N95s fall apart I'm sticking to my K800i for now.

Sony Ericsson, I love your phones, just make them good rather than slightly-different-with-a-new-quirk.

I have had a C902 for about a week now. I had a K750i and 'upgraded it to a Motorola Rzr then changed back because it was so awful. I then 'upgraded' to a Nokia 6500 Classic because you could increase the text size but I couldn't get the hang of the different keyboard for text and the buttons were not easy to use (and I don't have sausages for fingers). So I went back to SE and got the C902 because of the camera and the keyboard (which looked normal). So far, I have no complaints. Camera seems to work fine, I put a 2Gb card in it and it's working ok and I can browse it with Bluetooth. I don't listen to music on it - prefer not to walk around with headphones hanging - I like to hear the world around me and at home there are better options. My only complaint is the text size which wish was a bit bigger or that it could be adjusted. The penalty of getting older but frustrating all the same.

Oh, and the penguin because not many people choose it and I'm halfway to getting an Asus eee PC soon (maybe).