By Sondra Sneed
...findings have lead Sony Ericsson to access the pool of engineering talent at Sony to find out what works for the camera in a mobile product…
Last fall WDM reported major shifts in technology and the growing value being placed on camera phones. Manufacturer news from CES and Mobile World Congress tells us that the bar has been raised again. British product reviewers have gushed wildly about Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot the C905 since its release in the UK in October 08. The C905 is the first of some of the most ambitious releases for the camera phone yet, with its feature-packed software and robust hardware like a Carl Zeiss lens, Xenon flash, and eight (8)-megapixel digital sensor. And yet it is to be out done before it’s ever released in the US by the late 2009 release of the 12-megapixel Idou. But since that’s some time away, what’s available now from Sony Ericsson is quite exciting.
[Front view of the C905, 8 megapixel GSM phone from Sony Ericsson]
The US’s release of the C905 will come on the heels of an announcement by its carrier partner after this article has already gone to print (hint: it’s a GSM product). Sony Ericsson’s emphasis on the Cyber-shot-branded phone leads some to ask, “why the investment?”
According to John Moulder, Sony Ericsson’s head of product marketing for North America, the company has developed an imaging strategy with their mobile phones for three compelling reasons: extensive consumer research, access to Sony Corporation’s engineering talent, and technological breakthroughs in digital sensor capacity.
Moulder said that consumer research indicates that mobile customers are not only interested in a mobile phone’s photo capabilities, but also have become highly frustrated by the difficulties with getting their photos off of the phones. These findings have lead Sony Ericsson to access the pool of engineering talent at Sony to find out what works for the camera in a mobile product. Their answer was a Cyber-shot phone.
Sony had already established a consumer brand in digital photography with the Cyber-shot line that dates back to the nineties. “Consumers are already very familiar with the Cyber-shot brand, for easy to use, high-quality digital cameras.” Moulder said.
Cyber-shot was among the earliest consumer digital cameras with its first one hitting the stores back in 1996. The camera was called the DCS-F1 and it produced a 350k digital image, which also sold for $850. Reviewers preferred it over the only other camera in its class at the time, the Mavica.
The next point of interest for the manufacturer to move forward on digital imaging for the mobile is about the ongoing advances in digital sensor capability. The C905 not only captures a whopping eight mega-pixel file, but also incorporates some of the best digital imaging features only seen in dedicated digital cameras. Features like: a built-in Xenon flash; Anti-blur (anti shake) technology; face detection sensors; smile shutter; white balance, ghosting, shading, and smart contrast features. All of which make for better pictures than one would ever think possible for a pocket consumer product.
The extras that come with the C905 also showcase its modern appeal like geo-tagging to literally map your coordinates when a picture is taken from a location. Imagine taking a picture from where you are, and then sending the picture to a friend who can map and find you based on the coordinates of that shot.
The camera also supports video and picture blogging, and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) that allows the phone to be networked wirelessly to your home media devices like the TV and even the printer. And speaking of printers, the phone’s Bluetooth connection can send pictures straight to print with a compatible photo printer.
Sony Ericsson doesn’t stop at the camera to make the phone user friendly because it also incorporates media player functions such as: FM radio; MP3/MPEG4; TrackID music recognition; and Java MIDP 2.0.
The phone has smart hardware choices too with a physical mechanism on the exterior that when the lens cover is opened, the phone automatically reverts to camera mode, minimizing the confusion normally association with trying to take a picture with a camera phone. But there were other considerations in the design of the C905 to improve the user experience.
“We made big investments in getting photos off the device,” Moulder said. “When you take a picture with the C905, you are prompted with options of what to do with the image.” He also said that the C905 includes a number of possibilities for the user like where to store and where to send a picture.
The image can be stored to a memory stick that can be manually removed and placed into a USB thumb-drive reader that’s included in the box. The camera’s internal memory holds an impressive 180 megs of storage and the image can be removed/copied with the use of a USB cable. Pictures can also be sent a number of different ways to your email, to a photo-sharing website or by Bluetooth to a PictBridge for a direct-to-printer function.
The limits to which photo-sharing websites the C905 is compatible with is limited only by the carrier, but Moulder says that the importance of that decision is that the options become “integrated into the interface and the user is just two clicks away” from uploading to their website of choice.