Why You Can Trust CNET Sony Ericsson Elm review: Sony Ericsson Elm
Partly made from recycled plastics, the Elm is intended to let tree huggers make guilt-free phone calls on the move. Unlike some other phones in Sony Ericsson's GreenHeart range, however, the Elm doesn't skimp on features, offering much of the functionality you'd expect to see on a smart phone
The Sony Ericsson Elm is intended to let tree huggers make guilt-free phone calls on the move. Unlike previous entries in Sony Ericsson's eco-friendly GreenHeart series, however, the Elm and its Hazel sibling don't skimp on features.
Sony Ericsson Elm
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The Elm is available for £15 per month on a two-year contract, or for around £120 on a pay-as-you-go deal. You can also pick it up for around £170 SIM-free.
Treat 'em green
The Elm is one of only a few phones to wave the eco-friendly flag. No, it's not made from wood or parts of dead animals, but it does use recycled plastics, eco-friendly paint and a low-power-consumption charger. It also comes in comparatively small box, while a paper manual is dispensed with, in favour of an electronic manual on the phone itself.
Unfortunately, the Elm's approach to saving the planet can take a rather irritating form. Nannying pop-up messages reminding you to unplug your charger from the mains, and the screen's tendency to turn itself off prematurely, can become annoying.
Then there are the apps. Walk Mate counts your steps throughout the day, converting this exercise into the amount of carbon dioxide that you haven't caused to be emitted into the atmosphere -- Sony Ericsson is presumably under the impression that we normally ride a scooter around the office. A tally of burnt calories would perhaps be more useful.
Eco Mate offers pedantic advice via an environmental quiz, and Green Calculator measures how evil you are to the planet. The Elm means well, but do people really buy mobile phones to be told how to help the environment?
Slim and curvy
With its arched back, the Elm may remind you of a miniature version of a typical landline phone. That's not to say it isn't attractive, though. Its slim, black and silver, candybar-shaped body sits relatively well in your hand. The small, 56mm (2.2-inch), 240x320-pixel screen doesn't really stand up to comparison with the OLED screens on the market, but it's certainly sharp and usable for the applications offered, such as the YouTube one.
Despite its green credentials, the Elm doesn't skimp on features, improving on previous GreenHeart phones, like the no-frills Naite. There's a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash, 3G and HSDPA support (up to 7.2Mbps), GPS, an Internet browser, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Java-based games, MP3 and AAC music playback, and an FM radio.
The 5-megapixel camera comes with a bright LED photo light (also usable as a torch) and takes relatively clear shots, thanks to its autofocus, although colours can be slightly dull. The camera also offers face- and smile-detection features, and you can geotag your photos thanks to the phone's GPS support. There's only 280MB of integrated memory, but you can expand that to a more satisfactory 16GB with a microSD card.
Indeed, you're rather forced to use a microSD card, due to the fact that Sony Ericsson doesn't supply a USB cord with the Elm. "No problemo," you might think. "I have plenty of USB cords." But the Elm has a proprietary port, so you'll have to either shell out for a specific cable, or transfer photos and music via a microSD card, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Why Sony Ericsson? Why?
The phone's GPS capability enables a range of familiar navigation tools, such as Google Maps and NearMe, which provides you with information on local businesses, events and so on. They both work as expected once the satellites finally locate you, but using them tends to run the battery down. If you subscribe to Wisepilot, you can benefit from turn-by-turn directions, even if the phone's tiny screen reduces the app's potential.
Widget-rich
Social-networking fans will be pleased to know the Elm offers widgets that make it easy to keep an eye out for updates, minute by minute. Offering quick access to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, the relevant widgets can be permanently embedded on the home screen. Initially, the interfaces can be rather fiddly, but you'll be tweeting away in no time as updates scroll on by from the people you're following.
Despite these useful widgets, the Elm's proprietary, Flash-based user interface can be sluggish, due to a slightly under-powered processor. The 'activity menu' is a one-stop shop for a number of shortcuts, including a link to an adept Web browser and a list of running applications. That's right -- the Elm supports multi-tasking, but it's rather unconvincing, due, again, to the processor.
Form and sound
You navigate the Elm's user interface with its responsive direction pad, and its alphanumeric keys respond to presses with a pleasing click. Made from rubber, the keypad's convex shape provides grip and allows for easy dialling. The keys are joined in threes (1, 2 and 3 sit on one button), however, making quick texting an art to be mastered.
The Elm utilises Sony Ericsson's new 'noise shield' feature, which aims to filter out background sound, so you can have clearer conversations. Testing this feature besides busy roads and in bustling shops, we sounded clear to the person on the other end of the line, although some surrounding noise could still be heard.
The audio quality when playing music is similarly impressive, with a full media player offering rich sounds and full bass. Unfortunately, that propriety port strikes again, limiting you to the inferior out-of-the-box headphones. You could connect a Bluetooth headset, but it's about time this proprietary-port business was committed to the bowels of mobile-phone hell. Nevertheless, this blow is ever so slightly softened by the presence of the SensMe feature, which displays your music on a graph of happy/sad and fast/slow, and TrackID, which can identify songs based on a short clip.
The Elm's battery life isn't quite as impressive as that of the Naite. But, with moderate texting, calling and app usage, it should still last a good few days without needing a recharge.
Conclusion
Sony Ericsson's Elm aims to woo eco-conscious folk with its green credentials, but many will view its 'eco-friendly' apps as mere gimmickry. Thankfully, the handset is lifted from the compost heap by a competent camera, decent music features and useful GPS integration, as well as easy-to-access social-networking widgets. But its slow user interface and proprietary port make the Elm feel like a compromise.
Edited by Charles Kloet