As I thought, the launch of the Pink Sony Ericsson C905 has brought with it a tirade of ‘calling all girls’ blog posts and reviews. As unimaginative as this is, when I heard about the launch, I pictured a glossy pink plastic piece of kitsch that would make my 10-year-old cousin shriek with glee. Actually, what I’ve been delivered is the same flagship handset, in a very much more stylish rose coloured metal variant and I must say I’m pleasantly surprised all round. 

I ’ll say right off the bat; I used to own a Sony Ericsson S500iand loved it. I bought it for the amazing camera, slim shaping  – and that’s about it. At the time, I didn’t need a smart phone; I needed something to take a good picture with. If you take the essence of that, with a few nice little features (like the laptop Remote Control feature that’s super useful in presentations), then the C905 is like that on steroids - with all the muscle and weight that comes with it.

Phones 4U is the only retailer to be exclusively stocking this version of the phone, which – apart from the colour change – also sees the introduction of the smile shutter (which ‘senses’ a smile and snaps as soon as it picks one up), YouTube integration for direct web uploads and the introduction of iPhone/G1 style threaded conversations (as well as your regular inbox).

 My first experience wasn’t entirely positive, the back is really stiff and I thought I might break it before it came off. However, with SIM in place, the first thing you notice (apart from the massive 2.4 inch screen now synonymous with Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot phones) is the awesome Media menu (found via the left soft key). It’s evocative of the PS3 menu with the same drill down menu functionality and smooth navigation. Moving in between media such as photos is also very smooth and image quality is really high.

 Within each of the Media sections there’s a link taking me to the appropriate page on the Sony Ericsson homepage, which is only partially useful. I’ve never really used any provider’s webpage for anything except billing, and though this makes it easy, I don’t think it’ll change my habits. 

I’m always a fan of an auto search function for Internet functionality, and the C905 found my browser settings within a minute or so. Internet access is (as expected) fairly speedy, but that’s almost a given nowadays. Watch out for accessing sites like Dabr though, as the ‘smart fit’ function overrides the fact that some mobile sites automatically detect that you’re accessing from a mobile device, messing up the layout of the page.It is much easier to navigate pages, though and jumping back/forth is far better than my e71.

Now, the music aspect of the phone I’m massively impressed with. Not only is the BBC iPlayer pre-installed, but clicking through to Radio1 took a few minutes (second time around) and the quality is fantastic. It reaches a serious volume for a phone, and stays consistent. Clicking through to live TV worked equally well, connecting in around 30 seconds and only sticking once within the 10 minutes I spent watching BBC2. It’s obviously pixelated, but it really isn’t bad and all this over its rather fast 3.5G connection. 

I also viewed the clips Sony Ericsson had chosen to show off the video functionality, and although raised my eyebrows slightly at the clip of a man jumping around in puddles, really liked the auto rotate function.  It’s interesting that it contains so many services that are in fact Sony Ericsson versions of existing products.

TrackID is a version of Shazam, and once again, the second time I tested Foals’ Cassius it worked very quickly. The C905 also comes with a version of a lesser Rummble called ‘Near Me’, which provides you with key groups of activities like eating, clubs & gigs and essentials. The cinema option had real potential, listing the week’s top movies for a quick search of the nearest showing. However, after 10 minutes, it still wasn’t able to find my location. 

The phone seems to pushing location services fairly hard though, with a dedicated spot on the menu for Near Me, Google Maps and Wayfinder – as well as a running-based Tracker (see Nokia Sports Tracker) and log of where you’ve travelled recently. As you’d imagine, the insanely high 8MG camera is just mental. It has so many options for quality, to style, colouring, zoom and more, that it could easily beat an N95 for photo quality. It’s so high in fact that when you use 8MG mode, shots seem pixelated as they adjust to the screen’s resolution. When you lower to 5MG, camera and screen quality even out to show you a crisp image. 

All in all, the Sony C905 a very nice handset with some great features. The camera functionality is still its forte really, but the threaded conversations, sound quality and other tricks mentioned above make up a good piece of hardware. It’s available for free on contracts starting from £30 a month on T-Mobile, O2, Orange and Vodafone.