Sony Ericsson Naite {My Phone)

A simple, eco-friendly mobile phone from Sony Ericsson

 

 

Eco friendly design, good display quality, comfortable keypad, 3G/HSDPA

Slight cheap look and feel, average multimedia performance, below-par network reception, expensive for the features and performance 

 Everyone these days is going 'green' and mobile phone manufacturers aren't too far behind either. Sony Ericsson has come up with an entirely new series of eco-friendly phones called 'Greet Heart' and the first phone that is part of this series is the Sony Ericsson Naite.

Sony Ericsson Naite is a simple handset with a candy bar design. The focus was to make the phone environment friendly and hence it is made from recyclable materials. Even the packaging that the phone comes in is very minimalistic, with a small box packing the bare minimum, such as a special low-power charger, headset and user guide. The phone does not even come with a USB data cable, which is taking the whole minimalism thing a bit too far.

The phone has a very simple and boring design. Usually Sony Ericsson phones are attractive and well designed but the Naite failed to meet our expectations. Another thing is that the phone felt a bit cheap and light, which really reduces the chances of anyone wanting to buy this phone based on just the way it looks and feels.

The display on the phone is 2.2", 262k, 240 x 320 pixel TFT. The display quality is very good with excellent color and brightness and it also performs splendidly outdoors under the sun. We wished it was a bit larger though.

Above the display is a video call camera. The Sony Ericsson Naite is a 3G compatible device, which means you can make video calls from it - if you manage find someone else in India who also has a 3G connection on their phone.

The keypad on the phone seems like it was designed with just a ruler, with lines so straight it could make a chessboard seem crooked in comparison. But what might not appeal to you aesthetically, may impress you while typing on the phone, as the square keys on the Naite are very easy to type on.

The Naite runs on Sony Ericsson's A200 platform. The OS hasn't changed in quite some time now and chances are if you have used a Sony Ericsson phones in the past one year you already know what the Naite interface looks like. It's simple, straightforward and easy to use, and frankly speaking, we don't really expect much from a phone in this price range anyway. One good thing is that although the OS doesn't allow multitasking beyond running the music player and FM radio in the background, it does let you run multiple Java applications simultaneously, which is pretty convenient.

The Naite came with a few games and applications built-in. Like almost every other manufacturer out there, Sony Ericsson also has a Facebook application on their phone which is now joined by a new Twitter app as well. Just like the Facebook app, the Twitter app can also run in the background and you can see your friend's updates on the home screen. Unfortunately, that's the best it can do and apart from that it is pretty lackluster. I would still prefer to use dabr.co.uk from the web browser instead.

The web browser on the phone is the same old Access NetFront. It is pretty decent and performs well, but don't expect full-fledged PC-like experience here. You can multiple download files and it can even format pages to fit the screen but that's about what it can do.
 

The media player on the Naite is the Walkman player, which you can now see on almost all phones. Once again it features a good interface design, which is attractive as well as user friendly, and has most of the features that you would want, including a manual equalizer and multiple presets, and Mega Bass. Audio quality with the provided headset was pretty sad, but when we swapped them with our own headphones through an adaptor the quality improved dramatically, although the max volume could have been a bit higher. The phone does not come with a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is a common bugbear with Sony Ericsson phones. The loudspeaker on the phone was quite loud but the quality wasn't great, and it sounded a bit tinny.

The Sony Ericsson Naite has a 2 megapixel camera with fixed focus. The camera has no flash and there isn't any protection provided to the lens. The camera software is very basic and reminds one of the older Sony Ericsson phones from the K700i era with their portrait orientation. The camera quality too is equally basic and those expecting good camera quality from the phone would be disappointed.

The Naite comes with a 900 mAh Li-Polymer battery. In our testing the phone ran for three days on a full charge. During this period we used the phone to make a few calls, send messages, couple of hours of web browsing and music playback through the headset. Keep in mind that we tested the phone on a 2G connection, so the battery life won't be as good on a 3G connection.

The Sony Ericsson Naite failed to impress us. The phone is supposed to be a simple handset designed to do few things, but unfortunately it couldn't even do those few things properly. The network strength on the handset was poor and this is supposed to be one of the basic things a phone is supposed to do. The phone also has a slightly cheap look to it. Things like web browsing and multimedia are pretty underwhelming and the social networking apps are way too basic for anyone who seriously uses those services.

Priced at Rs. 6,000, the Sony Ericsson doesn't offer great value for money. I would rather spend around Rs. 4,300 and get the Nokia 2730 Classic, which does everything that the Naite does (except for HSDPA, which is pretty much useless in India anyway). Or I would spend about 500 rupees more, over the price of the Naite, and buy the Samsung Corby instead. As such the Naite fall in no man's land, where it's neither cheap enough nor does it have enough features or performance to justify its price. It's best you ignore this phone, as there are far better options out there.

Unless of course your name is Captain Planet. In which case we can understand why you would want to buy this phone.