The Sony Ericsson Elm is a new member of the Sony Ericsson Greenheart family of devices, handsets that have been produced to deliver a high quality user experience using products and materials that have a lower impact on the environment. It is encouraging to see large companies take their responsibilities in using sustainable materials more seriously, as we all have a part to play in ensuring the resources we use do not cause long term environmental damage.
One of the criticisms levelled at previously launched eco-friendly handsets is the fact that whilst they may well have been ‘green’, their mass appeal was limited due to a very low feature set. With that criticism taken onboard, Sony Ericsson has delivered a high quality handset packed with the latest technology that should appeal to a larger range of users.
The Elm comes in a standard Monoblock design, and is a traditionally laid out Sony Ericsson handset. With a standard 12 key alphanumeric keypad, the phone is divided in the middle with a set of navigation keys, either side of a five way menu navigation pad. The screen on the phone is a 2.2 inch TFT QVGA display, supporting up to 256,000 colours, with an accelerometer for display auto rotation. The svelte handset weighs in at just 90g, and measures in at 110 x 45 x 14mm.
The feature set on the Sony Ericsson Elm is indeed impressive. The handset sports a high quality 5.0 Megapixel camera, with auto focus and an LED flash. The light can also be used for video recording in low level lighting conditions. Face and smile detection are supported, and the built in GPS chip allows captured images to be geotagged. A full media package is available on the Elm; the music player supports various file formats, including MP3 and AAC, with the video player working with MP4, H.263 and H.264. Included is the Sony Ericsson favourite, TrackID, as well as the SensMe feature. SensMe is normally found on the Walkman devices, and allows playlists of songs to be created based on your mood. Music stored on your device is analysed and selections are made based on things such as tempo and mood. Playlists are therefore created based on the mood selected; you don’t need to worry about selecting tracks beforehand.
With big growth in social networking over the last 12 – 18 months, it makes sense for manufacturers to enable easy access to the most popular sites via the mobile device. Sony Ericsson have long had a blogger application which allows you to keep your blog updated on the move, and more recently included native support for YouTube, too. On the Elm all access to these sites plus services such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace is all controlled by an onscreen widget, allowing easy access to these services direct from the homescreen of the phone. Location applications pre-installed on the Elm include Google Maps, plus WisePilot navigation, both of which work well thanks to the native GPS support.
To round off the excellent credentials of the Sony Ericsson Elm, the connectivity options on the device offer everything necessary on a modern mobile phone; HSDPA is included, offering 3.5G services up to 7.2 Mbps, along with built in WiFi with support for DLNA. Bluetooth 2.1 is available on the device for local area connectivity, plus there is GPRS and EDGE. There is ample memory available on the handset, with an internal capacity of 280MB, which can be expanded using MicroSD memory cards (not M2 cards), with the Elm able to handle up to 8GB in size.
Expected to launch in Q1 2010, the Sony Ericsson Elm seems to have what it takes to be a top selling handset, finely balancing an eco friendly approach with top end technology. If Sony Ericsson has resolved the usability issues which dogged their handsets in 2009, then the Elm could prove to be a very popular device.
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3:42 am
Well, I like the features that they have in this phone, all it's functions suites my style. The camera, media player, wi-fi, it's noise shield function, 3.5G services, and the design itself is satisfiyng. However, the 2.2inch screen, it's abit too small as it should have been enlarged to more than 2.4inches, and it should have a Clear Bass equaliser instead of Mega Bass for the music player.
12:02 pm
I would like to buy this phone but I want to know if you can convert a CD with the phone. No-one seems to know - I even went to the shops - not one salesperson knew. Still cant find out the information. Is there a USB cable that comes with it? Can you sync using bluetooth?? Please - it's driving me crazy - am I the only one that wants to know if you can sync a CD from your PC to this phone??
2:53 pm
no, you dont get a USB cable, but they are only £1/$1.50 on ebay/amazon etc...infact the phone comes with very little, no cd, little packaging, i suppose its all down to its enviro outlook lol, still, its a great phone, camera is particuarly good.
2:57 pm
...oh btw jason, as for synching CDs and such, i tried via bluetooth, and it works, but its really sloooooooow...however i took the memory card out, popped it in my PC card reader, dropped albums on that way *really fast
* , put the SD back in the phone, went to music player, and hey ho, all my albums were there...with cover art an all!