Sony Ericsson Elm Review

Introduction:

The Sony Ericsson Elm is a new member of the manufacturer´s Greenheart family and a feature rich, 3G and Wi-Fi capable device equipped with A-GPS, aimed at eco-conscious people willing to show their concern about planet Earth without sinking into a fiscal coma in the process. Being a mainstream feature phone, however, the Sony Ericsson Elm faces tough competition from other similarly priced rivals, including several eco-friendly cell phones like the Samsung Blue Earth. We have mentioned on many occasions that the company has taken a different, even if not exactly unique approach to addressing modern day environmental concerns. Sony Ericsson does not really believe that solar panel technology is mature enough to deliver any results of conceivable significance in practise. So, instead of releasing (otherwise nicely looking) devices with arguably effective solar panels, the manufacturer has focused on getting better at using recycled materials, decreasing harmful emissions during manufacturing, providing energy saving features and accessories like highly efficient chargers.

So, what´s inside of the tiny box made from recycled paper?
-    Sony Ericsson Elm
-    Energy efficient wall charger
-    Headphones

As you have probably noticed, the handset comes boxed with surprisingly poor accessory pack. This is all part of the manufacturer's eco-friendly strategy of shipping such cell phones without user guides/manuals and software CDs, i.e. all relevant software is preloaded onto the device itself.

Design:

There is nothing ground-breaking about the overall look of the Sony Ericsson Elm. It is a candybar device, but we cannot call the form factor “classic”, since the human curvature design of its back is both offbeat and nicely looking. The handset will certainly fail to grip the attention of on-lookers, although it truly offers a breath of fresh air on the market of mainstream feature phones. The body is almost entirely made from recycled plastic that doesn’t feel cheap and provides a secure grip, thanks to the back panel that is partly anodized aluminium. It is relatively easy to remove and reveal the battery and microSD expansion slot above it, but you better be careful not to get it scratched in the process. The back panel is not completely flat and its profile follows a dainty curve, with its elongated shape making it both ergonomic and appealing. All told, the Sony Ericsson Elm features proper build quality, nicely feeling materials and is quite elegant for a mainstream device. It´s refreshingly different, without being spectacular and relatively thin (not as much as the old Sony Ericsson W890i though). The surface finish feels good in your hand, the thing is the anodized aluminium part equates to “slippery when wet”, so you might want to be extra careful when holding the Sony Ericsson Elm in a sweaty hand.



You can compare the Sony Ericsson Еlm with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The Sony Ericsson Elm integrates a 2.2-inch TFT screen with QVGA (240x320 pixels) resolution that delivers relatively crisp images, although colors are just not saturated enough. The display remains usable in direct sunlight, just increase the brightness to its maximum setting. The handset is equipped with Sony Ericsson´s proprietary port, located on the left hand side, while the volume rocker and camera shutter are on the opposite. The buttons of the tactile, rubberized alphanumeric keypad are easy to press, feature proper travel and on the overall, are enjoyable to type with. This also applies to all other buttons, including the volume rocker, camera shutter and slightly overly rigid D-Pad.




All told, the Elm is an appealing device, even if there is nothing really exceptional about its design, since the slightly curved, ergonomic profile of its back is typical of Sony Ericsson´s latest cell phones.

Interface and Functionality:

The Sony Ericsson Elm is a feature phone, running the manufacturer´s well-known Flash UI interface for non-smart devices without touch-screen.  There are four preloaded themes to change the overall look of menus and screens. All of them are nice and feature animated home screens, but “Melody” tends to make the phone sluggish, though. The standard visuals and effects do not lag and menus are visualized quickly. We can safely assume the Elm is on the snappy side of life, because it remained responsive despite all of our attempts to bring it down to its knees by multitasking, with the audio player, web browser, Facebook widget and GPS-based location service software running simultaneously. There are no interface novelties, aside from the new widget system, but the device comes preloaded with a truly nice application pack for a simple mainstream feature phone.


The Sony Ericsson Elm sports standard organizer, identical to the versions running on previous models of the manufacturer, i.e. proper (for a feature phone) calendar, alarms, calculator, torch, etc... nothing coming out of left field here. The phone book can store up to 1,000 separate entries with 7 numbers per person, i.e. no more than 7,000 telephone numbers, which should be more than enough even for bubbly socializing paragons. Speaking of them, such people would be thrilled to know the handset features Facebook application that is relatively functional (status updates, messages, comments, uploading and browse of pictures, be it your own or belonging to your buddies). There are five home-screen widgets, for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Calendar and Walk Mate Eco and they are not just shortcuts, but dedicated applications. The three social networking widgets come with functionality that should be enough for people on the road. The calendar widget simply visualizes a list of upcoming events, while the Walk Mate Eco counts your steps and tells you the amount of CO2 saved by your choice to walk instead of drive. Finally, you can choose to activate any number of these at the same time, but only one is visible on the screen at a time and you need to scroll horizontally to switch between them.

The Sony Ericsson Elm comes with standard messaging functionality with texts visualizing in threaded style. It´s a good thing the client handles multiple accounts, recognizes major email providers and sets everything up for you automatically. As we have already mentioned, typing with the rubberized alphanumeric keypad cannot compare to a proper QWERTY layout, but is still comfortable and fast enough.

The Sony Ericsson Elm is equipped with Access Netfront web browser that, although not bad on the overall, fails miserably at complex pages like ours with their elements scattered around the screen in a quirky way and animations not visualizing at all. You are able to watch YouTube videos (there is a dedicated YouTube application), but that´s pretty much all you get in terms of streaming video. The 3G and Wi-Fi functionality guarantees that most pages will load quickly and navigation is smooth on the overall. Navigating pages with the D-Pad is not exactly handy.


How does the Elm stack up against its rivals in terms of entertainment? It comes with radio with RDS, although the function fails to recognize channels at times. The TrackID audio recognition service (based on Gracenote Mobile MusicID) is really capable and didn´t fail us even on a single occasion, no matter what we threw at it.

The Media menu hosts all multimedia playback applications. The Photo Gallery allows for browsing of pictures, Facebook albums, your camera album, photo feeds, web albums, etc.

The Music player is Sony Ericsson´s standard application available on other feature phones of the company and delivers a number of filtering options (by artist, album, genre, year, individual tracks). It also integrates SenseMe functionality to sort tracks by mood tags. All told, the music player is capable enough for everyday use, comes with four pre-installed skins and pleasing audio playback, similar to that of mainstream MP3 players. It´s not that the boxed headset is really bad or anything - it produces relatively balanced sound, the thing is it doesn’t pack much punch really, so we found ourselves pumping up the volume to its maximum setting on our daily commutes on the otherwise extremely noisy London tube. On the other hand, plugging in one of our mainstream headphone sets (Shure SE210) yielded great results and we were able to relish really pleasing sound, with clear voices and trebles and proper basses. The player comes with several equalizer presets that cannot be tinkered with, i.e. customized to your liking and we cannot recommend any of them save the MEGA BASSsetting. The loudspeaker is average at best. It´s neither exceptionally quiet nor loud and the sound it produces is overly sharp.  


The Sony Ericsson Elm features a Video Player that, unfortunately, we couldn’t really see in action. There are three short clips preloaded onto the device and they play smoothly, plus the application supports YouTube content and camera videos, but that´s pretty much all. Only H.264 videos with MP4 container are recognized and played if the resolution does not exceed 320x144 pixels. It’s not that we expected DivX and Xvid functionality from a mainstream feature phone, plus watching videos on a 2.2-inch QVGA display seems acceptable at a gunpoint only, but it would have been nice.

The Sony Ericsson Elm integrates a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash. Its interface features a relatively rich set of options, like shooting modes, scene presets, focusing mode (including macro), timer, metering, white balance, effects, etc. The quality of snapshots taken outdoors and in proper lighting conditions is not halfway bad – with enough details, properly saturated colors (and occasional purple fringing). The overall quality of indoor snapshots is not halfway bad as well and the device fails to produce passable results in utter darkness only. The video capture capabilities of the handset are decent as well and you can take your own clips at a resolution of 640x480 pixels, 30 frames per second and with acceptable overall quality.





Unfortunately, you get only one Java-based game with the Elm. We know QuadraPop quite well from previous models of the manufacturer and it might be pretty addictive if you have to cross the country on a bus. Sadly, it´s lagging and the graphics overhaul cannot account for the severe speed drop alongside of older models like K750i/W850i, etc.

The handset comes with a relatively large number of pre-installed applications (for a mainstream feature phone), including AccuWeather, Calendar Wallpaper (weekly Calendar view), Checkbook (basic income/expense tracking), Grocery List (supports multiple shopping lists, but is too sluggish and unhandy), Neo Reader for camera-based bar code identification that despises Tesco alcohol deals, 3D Clock (world clock), YouTube player and two eco-friendly applications. EcoMate is for all of you who don´t mind a daily quiz on eco topics or getting bits of wisdom like “turn off the tap to save water”. The application gives you the opportunity to choose one of the two available screen pets (Panda or Sunflower) and brag about their well-being, just keep in mind their health depends on (and is exceptionally sensitive to) the answers to the above-mentioned quiz, so you better be careful. Green Calculator is a program that estimates the amount of CO2 emissions you are responsible for, based on your own lifestyle, activities and household habits. The program also provides tips on how to become a better inhabitant of the planet and slash on the staggering amount of pollution all of us cause.

Sony Ericsson´s new Greenheart family member comes with capable navigation. The A-GPS itself is quite snappy and managed to pinpoint our location in less than a minute on a cloudy day (without internet connection) and almost instantaneously in assisted mode. The interface features a dedicated “Location Services” menu that hosts all relevant applications. “NearMe” provides information on nearby restaurants, pubs, cinemas, museums, etc. and happens to be pretty functional indeed. For an instance, you can get an exhaustive list or cinemas in the area, all of them with relevant street address, walking distance, “what´s on” listing and telephone number to book tickets (can be dialled from the program). You also get Wisepilot Navigation (30-day trial), GPS Tracker and Google Maps. We like the former, since it´s truly capable, although you will have to fork out extra cash to register the application. Google Maps is not bad either, although it requires uninterrupted internet connection, so you might want to sign up for an unlimited traffic plan with your carrier to avoid breath-taking monthly bills.

Performance:

One of the things the Sony Ericsson Elm is really good at is… calls. While we cannot rate it as perfect, the in-call quality is excellent on both ends of the line and we do not have any major complaints. Our callers sounded loud, clear and realistic and rated the quality as really good as well. The handset comes with Noise Shield, an option that should filter the environmental sounds around you, but frankly, people on the other end didn’t find any difference. On the other hand, “Clear Voice” that is supposed to make the voice of your caller more distinctive and intelligible does exactly the opposite. All told, the device delivers good in-call quality.

The battery is robust and should be able to provide up to 10 hours of continuous talk time over GPRS/EDGE (4 hours on UMTS/HSPA networks) and keep the device operational for about 18 days in stand-by. During our tests in area with bad 3G reception (sudden drops and hikes), a single battery charge was enough for about 4 days with average daily usage.

The Sony Ericsson Elm is a mixed bag really. This is a likeable, snappy handset with really good core functionality, including great in-call and audio playback quality, capable camera and impressive software set. The list of shortcomings includes not very inspiring video playback support, incapable web browser, trial navigational software and poor accessory pack (no USB cable or 3.5mm convertor). Ultimately, the success of the device will depend on its proper pricing. Currently, you are able to pre-order the Elm from major UK-based online retailers for about $240 (£160)… and the price tag seems fair.

Ultimately, the Sony Ericsson Elm is an enjoyable cell phone with great mainstream functionality and eco-friendly features and manufacturing that should be more than enough to meet the needs of unpretending customers. Moreover, its price tag of $240 (for pre-orders) seems fair for what you get.  You might want to consider the Nokia 6700 classic that comes with better browser and almost the same features, but lacks Wi-Fi connectivity and the LG New Chocolate BL20 and its more appealing design and video playback capabilities.