Joining the Cyber-shot lineup of photo-majoring cameraphones, the Sony Ericsson C702 has been given a more resilient, outdoors-and-active kind of twist than others in the snap-specialist range.

For starters, the C702 has been built to withstand a bit more bit ill-treatment than the average cameraphone, with a splash- and dust-resistant casing that's been given a touch of rubber-feel ruggedness.

In addition, the C702 is the first Cyber-shot phone to incorporate A-GPS satellite navigation technology inside, with software pre-loaded for mapping and route planning, plus a GPS-based tracker application for runners.

Tough phone

Unlike some real hard-case phones, like the JCB Toughphone, the C702 isn't built to withstand serious damage – it's splash- and dust-resistant to IP54 standards rather than fully waterproofed, so total immersion isn't a good idea. But unlike some beefed up hard-case phones, it's far from lightweight in the features department.

Alongside its Sat Nav capabilities, it has a 3.2-megapixel camera with a Cyber-shot user interface and features, including autofocus and a double LED photo light. It's also an HSDPA-enabled 3G handset, offering high-speed download and browsing at speeds of up to 3.6Mbps (depending on network support).

There's video calling capability via a secondary front facing camera, plus a decent spread of mid-tier functionality, including music and video players, and an onboard FM radio.

Fiddly keypad

The added durability and internal GPS receiver doesn't do much to over-inflate the C702's size. It's not as slim as the ultra-thin C902, but it measures an average-ish 106(h) x 48(w) x 16(d) mm and weighs a pocketable 105g.

The screen is a reasonable 2.2-inch colour 262K-colour QVGA display, slightly larger than the C902's screen real estate – though the C702 doesn't have touch control camera buttons around the edges. Instead, like previous Cyber-shots, in camera mode some of the number buttons get shortcut icons appearing on them; in this instance, holding the phone in camera mode, the 3, 6, 9 and # buttons do camera shortcuts for flash, timer, shoot mode and scenes exposure settings.

Its numberpad design isn't what you would describe as rugged; keys are quite thin, rounded and smooth, and larger fingered users – or outdoors types with damp or freezing digits – will find it fiddly. Similarly, the control keys surrounding the navigation D-pad are small and cramped, although the raised D-pad itself is large and usable.

On the back, there's a screw lock protection for the rear panel. The camera lens is protected by a chunky slide down cover, which along with a side camera button fires up the shooter.

The camera employed on this Cyber-shot phone has more quality features than the 3.2-megapixel cameras on recent Walkman handsets including W890i and W980i, though naturally it doesn't match up to the C902's 5-megapixel snapper. Incidentally, you can also set the double LED photo light as a torch.

Multi-featured camera

The Cyber-shot brand means you get a user-friendly digital camera-style user interface, with settings options clearly shown on the display when you click the appropriate softkey; you can switch between and change them quite intuitively.

Among the options, as well as standard autofocus with macro mode for close up shooting, the C702 has a face detection option, which automatically identifies and focuses on the face in any image.

Missing from this model is Sony Ericsson's clever BestPic multi-shot option, and the image stabiliser both of which you get on the C902, but the A-GPS system onboard enables you to 'geotag' images – adding positioning data - with precise location, rather than approximate areas.