Sony Ericsson Naite Review

Introduction:

The Sony Ericsson Naite J105i is part of the company's GreenHeart initiative. The GreenHeart mantra is that your mobile phone can match your priorities in being responsible and conscientious with regards to energy efficiency. The packaging is impossibly small, and a taste of the mobile phone's functional yet generally unremarkable constitution. The Naite is the low-end entrant model to the GreenHeart range, with all other cellphones in the set cautiously increasing their carbon footprints by sporting 5MP cameras, as opposed to the Naite's 2MP sensor.

The Naite contends with countless hordes of similar products, think Nokia 2xxx series for a comparison. The J-series of handsets from Sony Ericsson are well known for their economy (J132, J110) packing together cute and cheerful functionality at a price-point south of $150 (€105). However, the Naite is the first phone from the J-series to carry the GreenHeart monicker.
 

Design:
 
The first thing that strikes you about the Naite is how light it is; weighing in at only 80g, it is one of the lightest handsets we've held that does not look cheap. Though it feels light to hold, the recycled construction seemed reassuringly solid. We did not test the handset's durability, but it seemed it would be capable of surviving a few knocks and bumps. The device itself looks sleek and understated: it is fashioned in the same regard as a MacBook, with a glossy black screen bezel. The Vapour Silver version we were reviewing had a silver keypad to match, but a more garish Crimson Red option is also available. The battery cover is fashioned from a wafer thin piece of plastic that mimics a corrugated steel design, albeit in plastic, and without exaggerated pits between spaces. 



You can compare the Sony Ericsson Naite with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.
 
The QVGA screen measures 2.2 inches and supports 262K colors. It looks surprisingly sharp for the specifications. The images are bright and the blacks look particularly dark. Certainly, the screen is a step above the handsets in this category. At 2.2 inches though, viewing lengthy video clips is not a great experience.

The handset boasts two cameras, one for video calling, and another 2MP primary shooter. Sadly, there is no 3.5mm jack, instead the proprietary charging port doubles as the headphone port. On a plus note, there is support for up to an 8GB microSD card.

The keyboard is rather cramped, as is typical with Sony Ericsson candybar cellphones. The keys are raised, ever so slightly, at their lower extremity. This arrangement does not translate well for those with larger fingers. Certainly, we found typing to be a difficult and claustrophobic affair. The handset incorporates a five-way direction pad, which suffers similarly from the lack of space, with it being far too easy to accidentally jab the soft keys on either side. Further, the navigation pad looks a bit bizarre; it is slightly raised above the keypad plane, presumably to combat the incident of accidental key presses.

Software / Features:

The software is a standard Sony Ericsson feature phone arrangement, which we have looked at in some detail on previous occasions. It is worth noting, despite the added Playstation-esque media browser, not much has changed since the days of the K800i, a handset released way back in 2006. The native browser remains barely useable, rendering pages poorly, constantly. Sufficed to say, Sony Ericsson is long due for contemporaneous conversion of their feature phone interface and browser in particular.  
 
The Naite has 100MB of onboard memory. A portion of this is set aside for contacts, with a maximum of 1000 entries. As is common place with Sony Ericsson phonebooks, there are plenty of options for including various numbers, notes and addresses under one entry.

Being a member of the GreenHeart range, the Naite has a few environmentally-minded applications to assist you calculate things like CO2 emissions based on activities and an educational fact centre app, all about various environmental issues. These are cute features that define the roots of the handset, but they are hardly deal-makers.



We do not think that such features would be of considerable interest to any of the phone's user base, environmentally-minded or not. Nonetheless, the additions are fun, and we applaud Sony Ericsson's attempt at emphasising the Naite's eco spirit.
 
Email (via Gmail) was a breeze to setup, the cellphone itself prompted downloading settings to allow push services to be activated, again, this was done with no fuss. The browser, as is the case for Sony Ericsson feature phones, was not great, but for a quick search whilst out and about, it does the job. It does the job mighty fast, too. With 3.6Mbps 3G support, the Naite is nippy enough when cruising around the internet.

The Naite is fast and uncluttered, even when multi-tasking. Sure, you will not be running movies, browsing the web and snapping pictures all at once, but only very rarely does this handset slow down under general use. Accessing the media card is the only area where there is noticeable lag, but we think that the market this handset is targeted to will not be using this phone for advanced media capabilities, or indeed, accessing the internet frequently.

Performance:

The reception was erratic if the reception bar were to be believed. We did not encounter any dropped calls, but call quality was lacking. There seemed to be a distinct buzz on the line, which was reported to be the same on the receiving end. The speaker phone suffered similar ailments, buzzing and a lack of clarity being a constant annoyance throughout attempted conference calls. Notably, the handset / speaker volume was plenty loud and sufficed for our purposes. The sound, during both phone calls and media playback, did seem to suffer from excess treble. Equaliser options allowed this to be corrected during media playback, but no such options were present for in-call quality enhancements.

We are happy to report the battery life was nothing short of remarkable, with push services on, occasional web browsing, calling and messaging, we were able to squeeze just shy of three days use. Charge time was considrably longer than we would expect, with a full charge taking upwards of four hours, but we put this down to the extra energy compliant wall charger that was supplied. This is obviously once again to emphasise the GreenHeart heritage of the device, but this feature does come at the price of convenience.

Conclusion:
 
We weren't blown away with the Sony Ericsson Naite, but at the price-point $130 (€90,) we cannot really complain. We liked the screen, speed and aesthetics, and we are certainly forgiving to the issues in call quality, poor native browser and pathetic included headset. The reason we can forgive these major flaws? This handset does not have the geek smartphone user, or Exchange reliant bussiness person in its sights. It is for those who need to call, text and, for fun, do the odd Google search. In that regard, the Naite succeeds in the areas it sets out to perform in. As an added extra, it ticks the boxes in energy efficiency to boot, making it rest that little bit easier on your conscious. There are other devices we would consider in place of the Naite (see: Nokia 2730 classic, LG GW300) but if you are keen to make a statement about your green credentials, and you need a phone to report back to Greenpeace HQ, this may just be the handset for you.