Debranded: Reaching the c905a's Full Potential

I bought this camera with cellular phone capabilities earlier this year. I absolutely love it. It was the smartest phone AT&T offered without a required data+texting plan. It really is a camera with a phone, not the other way around. 8.1 MPs, some advanced settings, it's marvelous.

I started reading up on the camera and found out that in other countries it had Wi-Fi capabilities and a host of other amazing features. How to access these features? The answer: Debranding.

There are a few ways to debrand a Sony Ericsson phone. You can do it for free, with a number of applications and a little tech-savviness. Or you can pay for it. For € 7, WotanServer will provide the service. For a little more you can go with DaVinci.

I played around with the free route... but got nervous that I would brick the camera. So I went with WotanServer. $9.31 for some peace of mind seemed reasonable. It was easy and while the application ran I worked on a paper.

So... here are some of the cool features my camera now has!

• WiFi! Why, why, why on Earth would AT&T take this away from its customers? It doesn't make any sense.
• Smile Shutter! This is one of the most hilarious things ever. So, what you do is point the camera at a person/people and click the shutter. Until everyone is smiling, it won't take the picture. Once it detects smiles all around, it automatically snaps the shot.
• *Free* games! No more of AT&T's demos... there are three games included on the phone: Chess, a racing game, and a tennis game. The tennis game is really fun.
• Shutter sounds! One of the choices for the shutter is the sound of a tennis ball being hit. Pretty darn sweet.
• No more MediaNet! Some people may miss AT&T's MediaNet but I don't. The home screen for the Internet is the Sony Ericsson site.
• Conversation-style texting! One of my favorite things about the iPod Touch and iPhone is the conversation-style texting. And, once debranded, the c905a has the feature! Like WiFi, why would AT&T get rid of this?!
• Finally... the Center Button no longer goes to MediaNet, incurring accidental data charges. It goes to the Menu -- just like it should.

/nerd rant

Kind of a random post but who knows, maybe someone in The Blogosphere will find it helpful and make the decision to debrand! Makes you wonder what sorts of features all phones have before getting a carrier's treatment.

-N