Sony Ericsson Naite – An eco phone
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Sharp and clear display, smooth navigation, plenty of multimedia and messaging features like video and photo editing tools, FM, music player and e-mail.
Thumbs Down:
A proprietary jack for headphone and charger, dial pad is cramped, speakerphone is awful. Doesn’t support custom ringtone.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM
Band: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone design: Candy bar
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Camera, music player, FM
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Sony Ericsson Naite has a 2.2 inch display which gives a resolution of 240×320 pixels and supports 262k colors. Supported audio formats are MP3, AAC. The battery’s rated talk time is 825 minutes. Messaging/data features include E-mail, Picture messages, Multimedia messages, Instant messages and Text messages.
Downloadable content includes Screensavers, Video files, Audio files, Wallpapers, Ring tones and Games. The phone has a 2 mega pixel camera with 2.5x digital zoom.
Razzle Dazzle:
Sony Ericsson Naite comes in color options of Ginger Red, Vapor Silver and classic silver and black color. For review, we got the unlocked black and silver model of the Naite. This phone is very attractive looking. It is 4.3 inches tall. 0.5 inch deep, 1.9 inches wide and has a keypad and screen made out of recycled plastic. The phone weighs three ounces which is quite light but doesn’t feel sturdy. You can easily slip this handset in your purse or pants pocket.
Inside Dope:
Sony Ericsson Naite has a 2.2 inches display that gives a resolution of 240×320 pixels along with support for 262,144 colors. We were impressed with the improved saturation and sharpness of the screen. You can easily read the screen even in 70 brightness. You cannot alter the size of the font but animated themes and wallpapers can be changed. The navigation pad is made up of two soft keys and a four way navigation button with OK key in the center. Apart from that, there are dedicated keys for locking the dial pad, silencing the phone, and popping up shortcuts. Navigation is responsive and quick. The keyboard has spacious buttons and the backlighting too is good but we found the keys were bit tiny even for the modest size fingers.
Sony Ericsson Naite’s address book can hold 1000 contacts and a single entry can hold seven numbers and an email ID. There is no feature of grouping your callers but you can make a call conference with up to 5 people at once. We were also surprised that the phone doesn’t support custom ringtone. Group calling isn’t supported but you can assign a photo to a contact for video caller ID. In all, there are 18 ringtones to choose from.
On the right side of the phone there is a volume rocker. The left side has a large proprietary jack which takes both charger and headset. We would have preferred a 3.5 mm headphone jack.
Sony Ericsson Naite supports POP3 email syncing like Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail along with IMAP4 email. Sending and receiving messages was a smooth affair but you might not approve of the small design for typing long text messages. We prefer full QWERTY keyboards.
Within the organizer, you get password-keeper, calculator, stopwatch, timer, notes, to-do list, calendar and file manager. There is also multimedia and text messaging, push e-mail, 3G support, and stereo Bluetooth. For social network enthusiasts, there are YouTube and Facebook apps. Podcasts and RSS feeds are also supported. For mapping, the handset comes preloaded with Google Maps for Mobile.
Sony Ericsson Naite has a two megapixel camera but we were surprised to see lots of features packed in there. You get a 2.5x digital zoom, and the camera switches to frame, panorama and burst modes along with the standard shot. There are options for lowering the camera resolution. Other than that, you get self timer, night mode, and sepia and black and white effects. The camera also records videos, MMS clips are capped at 47 seconds but in the standard mode you can shoot for longer time.
Other features on the phone include video and photo editors, audio recorder, FM radio. There is a music composer that lets you create your own song collection. The music player supports AAC and MP3 format files. For storing your music, the phone comes with a memory slot which supports 16 GB of memory cards. The handset comes with 4 Java games including Soduku. You
Call quality of the Sony Ericsson Naite was good; we could hear the sounds loud and clear. In the areas of weak reception, we heard a low hum and audible fuzziness. Our friends said that we sounded natural and there was no tininess. While on speakerphone, the quality seriously dipped, it was undecipherable occasionally. Our friends said that they heard echoes.
Sony Ericsson Naite’s rated battery life is very high at 13 hours for talk time and 25 days of standby time. We haven’t conducted battery tests, but we will do it soon and update this section.
Nitty Gritty:
Sony Ericsson has put in efforts to make this an eco phone with the recycled material on the phone and packaged box. When it comes to competition, we think this is a good phone with its packed tools and features. Buy this if you are looking for a good mid range phone.
