The Sony Ericsson Hazel is the second of the recently announced new Greenheart devices, and is scheduled to be the second released, as the Hazel is not due to be released until Q2 2010. The green eco credentials of the Hazel are in line with other previously released Greenheart devices; this includes a low powered charger, minimum packaging and the user manual for the phone is stored on the device as a .pdf file. The handset itself is produced largely from recycled material, plus the phone is free from hazardous chemicals, and uses waterborne paint, which has less volatile organic compound than is found in traditional solvent based paints.
The design of the Hazel is smooth with a curved effect, which gives the result of the phone curving round from earpiece to microphone to fit the contours of your face when the phone is opened. Measuring in at 102 x 49 x 16mm, the Hazel weighs 120g, which is the upper range of an acceptable weight for a modern mobile device. The device has a moderately sized screen, measuring 2.6 inches across, with a resolution of 240 x 320. The TFT Touchscreen display supports up to 16 million colours, and the screen is covered by a scratch resistant surface, which helps avoid minor scratches.
As with the Sony Ericsson Elm, the Hazel does much to dispel the thought that an eco friendly handset needs to be light on features. The Hazel includes a high quality 5.0 Megapixel camera, which supports autofocus, smile and face detection, and includes an LED flash. The device has a built in GPS receiver, with aGPS support, which allows captured images on the camera to be geotagged with location information in the exif data, This can be displayed through online services, and easily allows people to see the location where images were captured. The Hazel can also utilise the GPS setup to operate as a SatNav device, and for this purpose the phone comes preloaded with WisePilot navigation software.
The Hazel is a powerful media product, offering native support for a wide range of social media services. There are built in applications for the usual suspects of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube, plus a blogging tool that allows you to keep an online journal of your daily life recorded straight from the phone to the web. Certain services can also be activated and accessed directly from the standby screen, which are controlled by the built in Widget manager. The music player on the phone allows you to easily access your tunes on the move, and arrange them in to various playlists. With built in support for SensMe, you can also allow the phone to automatically create a playlist for you based on your mood. Disappointingly the Hazel does not have a 3.5mm audio jack, so you are constrained by the proprietary Sony Ericsson FastPort connector. This disappointment is tempered by the inclusion of Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, so you can choose to listen to music wirelessly with a stereo Bluetooth headset, if you wish.
In fact, other than Bluetooth, the Hazel offers a whole host of top end connection options. WiFi 802.11 b/g with DLNA support is included, plus there is HSPA support for high speed downloads and uploads on the phone. This is all backed up with Class 10 GPRS and EDGE for areas where 3G is not available. Internal memory on the phone is set at 319MB, whilst the memory can be expanded with memory cards up to 16GB in size. It is good to see Sony Ericsson slowly moving their devices over to the more popular MicroSD cards, too. MicroSD cards tend to be cheaper than the M2 cards they used in the past, and should mean it is easier to transfer content from one device to another.
In total, the Sony Ericsson Hazel is a top class, high feature product, that shows once and for all that eco friendly can also be hi-tec. 2009 has been a rough year for Sony Ericsson, and they will need a strong performance in the next 12 – 18 months. With the Hazel leading the charge, they may just be able to turn their fortunes around.
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6:30 am
What month will the Sony Ericsson Hazel be available? in Australia is it already available?