LG KC550 vs Sony Ericsson C902

Stat for Stat
It would be remiss of us to not point out the obvious difference between the LG KC550 and Sony Ericsson C902 and it is, quite frankly, very obvious. The C902 is standard candybar fodder, while the KC550 has the sliding thang going on. 

Now onto the specifics that may not be so obvious to the eye. At 49x10.5x108mm, and weighing in at 107g, Sony Ericsson’s 5-megapixel giant is seemingly a giant in name and features but not in nature.

Design-wise a lot of thought has gone into how user-friendly the camera touch sensitive controls are and this is backed up by an exterior (black or red with chrome) that looks pretty classy.

If only LG felt the same about aesthetics in this particular instance. Our previous review of LG’s 5 megapixel KC550 found the handset playing home to “cheap plastic with a rattly slider and a spongey keypad.” Our reviewer went on to say that: “The build quality didn't fill us with confidence.”

With our rational head firmly back on, we put the KC550 ’s choice of materials into context – after all it’s not meant to be up there with the high-enders. And the price certainly reflects that. We were reminded of the old adage not to judge a book by its cover but that is quite hard when the book in question is actually a mobile phone and looks are pretty important in this space. Sigh.

Size-wise, the KC550 is a wee bit heavier and thicker than the C902 and just a tad smaller (weighing in at 110g) and measuring up at 51.4x14.9x96.9mm. When it comes tothe display, however, the KC550 has a slight edge over the C902. Its 2.4-in screen is crisp and clear – even in overly bright viewing conditions - while Sony Ericsson’s 2-inch screen may be slightly smaller but has the same pixel stats (240x320).

King of the snappers?
Both the C902 and KC550 protect their photographic crown jewels with fairly hefty lens covers.

LG’s offering goes copycat, featuring the Schneider Kreuznach lens that appeared in the Viewty (and we lamented its lack of lens cover to illustrate how important it is to protect your goods).

The camera comes to life very speedily and the resulting pictures are of a very high standard. There’s an LED photo light and the usual suspects feature-wise, including auto focus, zoom, flash, image stabilisation and a macro mode. In addition to all that, the KC550 also boasts a self-timer and a host of editing options.

The C902 – which hails from the Cyber Shot family – features a camera that also fires up very quickly and serves up some valuable post-snap editing features; the sort we’ve come to expect from this flagship umbrella brand (timer, exposure settings, shooting modes, Best-Pic and image stablisation to name just a handful). But it also goes one step further, offering the ability to upload and blog snaps speedily using the bundled Blogger application. You can also geotag photos so you can remember where you were when that you took the shot.

The C902's touchscreen controls for the camera are very easy to get to grips with and deliver haptic feedback and – as expected – photos taken with the C902 are very impressive with colour details captured perfectly.

However, we would have preferred a Xenon flash in the C902 rather than an LED photo light a la KC550.

Video is not a poor relation on either of our two cameraphone heavyweights. The KC550 offers 720x480 pixels at 30 frames per second, which is an impressive feat – although we did experience some jerkiness in areas, which was a shame.

The C902 doesn’t disappoint when it comes to video but it doesn’t overwhelm either. QVGA-quality images are served up at 30 frames per second although footage isn’t as high quality as you’d expect – due in part to its slightly smaller screen. The C902 does boast a secondary video-calling camera, however, so it’s not all bad.

More than just a pretty camera phone…
Both handsets are pretty easy to use with intuitive user interfaces and various helpful shortcuts. However, we did get confused by the on-board accelerometer on the KC550 as it only really came into play when viewing pics or playing the built-in M-Toy games. Not so with the C902, where the accelerometer does exactly what it says on the tin.

The KC550 and C902 share the same usability design concepts, with nicely spaced out keys and buttons that do what you would expect.

The C902 boasts HSDPA (3.6Mbps) – but not Wi-Fi - and is big on satisfying users’ musical as well as photography related hunger. It offers good quality sound and decent (3.5mm) headphones plus stereo Bluetooth are added nice touches.

The KC550 is also pretty big on music, although it lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack, which removes a bit of its street cred for serious tune addicts. LG’s offering mirrors the C902 by omitting Wi-Fi but it goes one step further and doesn’t include 3G either, which is a massive shame when it comes to the web user experience.

Memory-wise, the C902 has got a bigger brain, with 160MB onboard compared to just the KC550’s meagre 12MB.

Verdict
Both the C902 and KC550 are great cameraphones with a bumper features set in other areas to boot. However, without Wi-Fi or 3G and aesthetics that just aren’t that shiny, Sony’s C902 steals the advantage.