Sony Ericsson Elm review, Price, pictures, Details, model specifications
It’s not like good old-fashioned phones with buttons are going extinct – they are still the money makers. But for handsets such as the Sony Ericsson Elm sneaking into the spotlight is harder than ever – Androids, Symbians, iPhones, smart and not so smart touchscreens are all over the place. Well, one thing’s for sure – a break is welcome once in a while.
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Cybershot and Walkman are out of the Sony Ericsson mix, and the doubters are perhaps busy telling you GreenHeart will never be able to rise to the same heights. It’s a completely different market and matching iconic, game-changing phones like the K750 and the W800 is out of the question really. But we’re not here to look back at what used to be. It’s a market were rules are set by touch-screen phones and handsets like the Sony Ericsson Elm do deserve credit for trying to find their own spot under the sun.
The Sony Ericsson Elm and its slider sibling Hazel are flying the green flag to lead the company’s evolving feature phone lineup. We caught a glimpse of both already but let’s now invite Sony Ericsson Elm over again and take a closer look.
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The Elm is taking over from recent Sony Ericsson feature phones that knew they needed all the high-tech specs to stay competitive. The Sony Ericsson Elm doesn’t compromise performance to stay within budget.
It has all the premium features you may get these days – 3G connectivity with light-speed data, Wi-Fi with DLNA support, GPS receiver and microSD memory expansion. Just like its GreenHeart forerunner – the C901 – the Elm is easily one of the top 5-megapixel cameraphones out there. The upgrade to VGA video @ 30 fps shows even more hidden power.
Here is the full spec sheet with all deal breakers we’ve managed to spot.
Key features
- 2.2″ 256K-color TFT screen, 240 x 320 pixels
- Quad-band GSM support
- Dual-band 3G with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 2Mbps HSUPA
- 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash; geotagging, face detection; VGA@30fps video recording
- Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS; Trial version of Wisepilot navigation software
- Wi-Fi with DLNA
- FM radio with RDS
- Stereo Bluetooth 2.1
- microSD card slot, 280 MB internal memory
- Eco-friendly package and materials
- Social networking integration, widget enhanced interface
- NetFront v3.5 web browser with full Flash support
- Splash-resistant body
- Noise cancellation
- Excellent audio quality
Main disadvantages
- No standard USB port
- No bundled data cable or memory card
- No 3.5mm audio jack
- Limited Wi-Fi receiver range
- No DivX/XviD support
- No xenon flash
- No camera lens cover
- Feeble loudspeaker
- No video streaming over Wi-Fi
- Expensive navigation after the trial period expires
The shortcomings are too specific and most of the intended users won’t miss anything badly. The advanced social networking integration will perhaps make up for some of those. The solid battery life, splash-resistant and ergonomically curved body do add to Elm’s appeal too.
The regular user interface packs widgets
The Elm uses the regular Sony Ericsson feature phone UI that’s used in most of their midrange handsets. The Flash UI is well familiar and deservedly praised for its looks, speed and multitasking ability.
The standby screen is arranged in the usual manner with information on top indicating signal strength, currently used data carrier and battery status. At the bottom of the display, just above the context keys are their labels.
Traditional phonebook
The phonebook has space for 1000 contacts and 7000 numbers. You can choose to view contacts in the phone memory or on SIM, but not both. Either way, you can set up the phone to autosave to SIM all contacts that are being saved to the phone memory. You can also back up your entire contact list on the memory card and restore it from there.
Excellent telephony
Handling of calls is excellent and we didn’t experience any voice quality or reception problems with the Sony Ericsson Elm. Call clarity is great in both the earpiece and speakerphone.
Sony Ericsson Elm offers video-call functionality, but since there is no front-facing camera, it’s more like video sharing – meaning that you can see the other party on your display but you can only share what your primary camera “is seeing”.
Smart dialing or “Smart Search” as Sony Ericsson call it, is a great boost to usability. It looks up contacts whose numbers contain the digits you have typed or whose names begin with the corresponding letters.
Messaging
Typical of the latest Sony Ericsson phones, the Elm sports the threaded message view. SMS to and from a certain contact is organized in speech bubbles much like in an instant messenger.
Switching between the conversation-style layout and the regular Inbox is only a matter of toggling a tab.
Another interesting fact is that if you get a reply while you’re still in the thread, it will be automatically added to the conversation just like a chat, instead of appearing as an alert on the home screen.
The Media Center has it all
Sony Ericsson Elm runs the flash-based Media Center to bring together all the media content on your phone (Photo, Music, Video, Games, RSS feeds). The Media Center settings menu is simple – you may opt for portrait, landscape or auto-rotate modes.
Music player
The Music Player on the Elm is the latest Walkman version. Across the Media Center menus, you can enjoy screen auto-rotation. The player supports numerous file formats, including the regularly used MP3, WAV, WMA, M4A and E-AAC plus the MegaBass equalizer preset and Stereo widening. The player can naturally be set to run in the background.
The interface colors of the Media center vary across different themes. The Walkman player on the Elm also offers fun styles – skins that change the look of the player into a vinyl record player, a reel-to-reel tape player, CD player and others.
Video player
The video player in the media center supports fast-forwarding and rewinding, and the interface is simple and stylish. The video files are accessible via the file manager too. Other extras include fullscreen mode and screenshot capability – you have the option to save a frame of video and add it to the gallery.
Image gallery
The Photo gallery stores the shots you’ve taken, along with prebundled or uploaded images, and offers some extra options like mark as favorite and photo feed. Latest Photo provides quick access to the most recent photos.
Camera Album is a thumb list for each month of the year and when a month is open, it reveals a 3 x 4 grid of photo thumbs. Scrolling down shows all the photos taken in the corresponding month with the highlighted photo slightly enlarged for better viewing.
The Pictures section is a 3 x 4 grid of thumbs with non-camera images such as the preinstalled wallpapers. When exiting the fullscreen view of a picture, it smoothly zooms out to thumb view.
FM radio with RDS and TrackID
The integrated FM radio of Sony Ericsson Elm has memory for 20 stations and supports RDS. It has a nice interface and makes great use of the TrackID music recognition service. The radio can be minimized in the background much like the music player but offers none of the fancy fullscreen graphics the player does.
Perfect audio quality
The audio quality of the Sony Ericsson Elm is basically as good as it gets. The handset performed excellently in each and every part of our traditional tests, recording some of the best results we have seen.
The frequency response is perfect for the entire audible range, the greatest deviation being hard to detect even in lab conditions. The signal-to-noise ratio is also excellent and so are the dynamic range and the stereo crosstalk.
Very good 5 megapixel shooter
The Sony Ericsson Elm has a 5 megapixel camera capable of producing images at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. The handset is equipped a LED flash, which also serves as auto-focus assist light.
Image quality
The Sony Ericsson Elm camera is a really capable shooter. Image quality is very good, easily ranking among the top 5-megapixel cameraphones on the market. The photos have pleasing colors and good contrast with the noise levels well under control. The amount of resolved detail is excellent, comparable to the best in the class – Sony Ericsson C901 and the Nokia 6700 classic.
Video recording
Of course, the Elm is also capable of shooting video, and it actually does quite well in that department. The Elm captures VGA videos at 30fps. The LED flash can be used in video mode too. The clips are stored in mp4 format and take about 7 MB for every minute of recording.
The video quality and the resolved detail look good, but the compression sometimes is too high. Still the captured videos are mostly satisfying and that’s more than we expected from a Sony Ericsson feature phone.
