Battle: Samsung INNOV8 vs Sony Ericsson C905

We persuaded one of Sony Ericsson's representatives to jump over to Samsung's huge booth at the Symbian Smartphones Show, to let us take few comparison pictures between the Samsung i8510 INNOV8, and the Sony Ericsson C905 Cyber-shot. After much discussion and some embarrassment from the Sony Ericsson representative after being faced with the INNOV8's features from half of Samsung's team at the booth, it was time to put the two flagships to the test.

In terms of features, the INNOV8 is undoubtedly the world's best mobile phone, with a 8 megapixel camera that has autofocus, smile and blink detection, and dual LED flash; 16GB of internal memory with support for external memory through a microSD memory card; GPS; WiFi; HSDPA; and Symbian OS9.3 with S60 v3 Feature Pack 2 software platform which allows computer-like usage. The C905 features the 8 megapixel camera that has autofocus and xenon flash; HSDPA; WiFi; and GPS.

Both phones have a slider form factor. The INNOV8 weighs 140g, while the C905 weighs 136g. The latter one measures 104 x 49 x 18 mm, while its counterpart measures 106.5 x 53.9 x 17.2 mm, which is less thick, but larger in height and width.

The Cybershot has a 2.4" display, much smaller than the INNOV8 with 2.8". The difference is pretty much visible in the picture below.

The C905 has 14 front buttons, three more than the i8510, although the latter one has an optical trackpad, which is useful for web browsing, and its buttons are larger which makes them more comfortable to press.

As you open the sliders, we see that the C905 has rubber-like keys, which is very comfortable, but the Samsung has a single-membrane keypad, which is tiring to type with.

The right of the C905 contains attractive camera buttons, such as a round shutter, image/video switch, gallery button, and zoom keys. The INNOV8 has a square-ish shutter key instead of the round one present on the G800, it has a microSD slot, and a mode switch key, such as the one present on the Sony Ericsson K850i. In other words, they switched keys from their predecessors: the Sony Ericsson uses keys that were in Samsung's G800, while Samsung now uses keys that were in Sony Ericsson's K850i.

The left side of the C905 has the M2 memory card slot and the Sony Ericsson Fast Port. The same side of the INNOV8 has the volume rocker, which should be on the right side to be used as the zoom key, and it also contains the USB port and 3.5mm audio jack.

The bottom side of the C905 contains its speakers, while the INNOV8 has absolutely nothing on this side.

The top side of the C905 has absolutely nothing on it, while the INNOV8 has the lanyard hole.

The back side of the INNOV8 boasted its features by placing logos of the supported technologies. Two speakers completing the stereo sound of the phone are present next to the camera on either side. The camera tilts the device slightly off the ground as it sticks out, although not as much as its predecessor G800. The camera lens cover is operated electronically.

The C905's back side has a manual camera lens cover, different from its predecessor K850i. Sliding the cover reveals the camera, LED flash, and xenon flash.

The Samsung phone has a larger battery in size than the Sony Ericsson, and that's because it carries 1200mAh of capacity, which allows up to 8:30 hours of talk time, while its counterpart has a battery with 930mAh of capacity which allows up to 9 hours of talk time. The difference in battery usage comes from the phones' components: the Samsung has more powerful features than the C905.

Now to the final part of our review, which is the most important: the camera comparison.

Both phones have an 8 megapixel camera with autofocus. The INNOV8 has software features such as smile and blink detection, and a Dual LED flash, while the C905 has a xenon flash as well as a LED flash which is used as an autofocus assist lamp.

Please note that the C905 has a prototype firmware, while the INNOV8 most likely has the commercial firmware version.

The first picture I took was of the Nokia DT-22 tripod. The problem is that the tripod only has black and silver colours, and the background is glossy white. We couldn't really examine the colours, only the contrast and light exposure.

The INNOV8's capture, at left, is more lively and more realistic than the Sony Ericsson's camera, but the latter one seems to produce better detail recognition.

The extract, at real size, shows that although the INNOV8 has a good colour capture, it's the C905 that interprets the detail better.

Next up is the lanyard. As there are a lot more colours in this object, the i8510 takes the crown, whereas the C905 has a very bad colour interpretation.

The extract reveals that although the C905 seems to compose the detail in a better way, it's not as smooth as in the i8510.

All pictures were taken in automatic mode under few light bulbs at the Smartphones Show. The flash was not fired. Once again, I cannot confirm that the Samsung phone had final commercial firmware, but after looking at these images, I hope it is not.

We cannot proceed with a rating as the final review isn't up, and the phones don't have a commercial firmware version; however, we are able to notice that the i8510 has the best features, and for now, the best 8 megapixel camera in a phone that is available in the market.