Sony Ericsson J105 Naite Mobile Phone

Sony Ericsson’s Naite is the cheapest (so far) of their new environment-friendly range of handsets called GreenHeart. The J105 is all about the environment from the packaging to the materials used in the construction. Here’s a closer look at one of the county’s limited eco friendly handsets.

Form Factor
To start off, the Naite is packaged in a small but neat box made of recycled material. All instructions are printed on the box and there’s just one pamphlet inside. Even the charger is designed to provide lower energy consumption. The handset itself is built from recycled, recyclable materials and uses lead-free paint. It looks classy and well cut. The 2.2-inch TFT LCD is clear and easy for viewing and the buttons and navigation set up are very conveniently designed for comfortable use. What SE could have done is go with an AMOLED display that uses lesser energy which would mean an increase in battery life and less charging. The Naite is still an extremely slim and light weight handset so carrying it around is not going to be an issue at all. A set of volume/zoom keys are located on one side and SE’s proprietary all-in one port is located on the other. Normally I’d have my beef with having just one single access point for the USB, Charge and handsfree but since it’s designed to cut down the use of materials I’ll let it slide.

Sony Ericsson has also been using microSD cards with all their new handsets. The M2 card seems to have gone the way of the Dodo. I doubt there’ll be any complaints. The Naite’s hot swap slot for the same is located under the rear panel. The Naite also has two cameras – a 2MP fixed focus shooter at the rear and a VGA video-call camera just above the display.

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Features and Performance
Interface
There’s nothing new with the SE UI, but there’s nothing to complain about either. It’s smooth and there’s no lag which means accessing information is quite effortless. To cut costs, the handset doesn’t incorporate an accelerometer so the media app’s orientation has to be adjusted manually.

Media
The music player is nothing to write home about. It’s not too loud but the music quality is still quite good. Stereo Widening, EQ presets including Sony’s Mega Bass setting and a five band customizable EQ option allow you to make a few adjustments to the overall audio output. The FM radio was a non issue as reception was quite good on an average. The Naite also has a voice recorder of course, but don’t count it being able to provide clarity of speech from over 2 feet from your mouth. Sony’s PhotoDJ, MusicDJ and VideoDJ apps are all present to help you pass the time tweaking your media.

TrackID to identify music either via recorder or via the radio is also on board and so are a few games. For video playback 3GP and MPEG4 formats are acceptable. Unlike most of the Java mobile handsets, the Naite plays all files in these formats quite well without any framing.

Connectivity
Though it may not look like it the Sony Ericsson Naite is actually a 3G enabled (up to 3.6 Mbps) handset. In addition to that it also supports EDGE/GPRS, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and of course USB 2.0. The native browser is quick and easy to manage. The Naite is being marketed as a Social Networking handset as it comes preloaded with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter apps, neither of which allowed me to log in. Via any other application I downloaded that included Sanptu or using going to m.facebook/twitter.com, I had no log in issues. This is the second handset this problem has come up in. Perhaps you’ll have better luck. On the plus side, the Facebook app, when active, has a shortcut link on your desktop. They aren’t Push functional so you’ll have to refresh the page to get notifications. Google Maps is also preloaded as part of the location based services and of course the PlayNow arena is also easily accusable via its own app. POP and IMAP email accounts can also easily be set up. The IM client, though, is still a bit tricky to set up.

Misc. Features
Aside from the mundane features like a Calculator, Calendar, Stopwatch, World Clock, Alarm etc. the Naite is equipped with a few ‘Green apps’. The ‘Ecomate’ application is a sort of quiz game that provides hints and tips and tricks on keeping the environment safe. There are cute animated characters that help make it a bit more entertaining. The second ‘Eco App’ is the Green Calculator. This one is designed to calculate daily CO2 emissions in your daily lifestyle and helps you make by proving pointers on how to save wasted energy.

Camera
The 2MP camera is pretty average. It can only be used portrait mode and offers features like Night Modes, a Self-Timer, White Balance and a few effects. Image quality although a bit dark in cloudy conditions  are nevertheless quite sharp for a 2MP camera with limited frills.

Battery
The Naite has a 950 mAH Li-Polymer battery which is capable of providing substantial talk time. The company claims the handset can offer up to 13 hours or so of talk time, which isn’t just impressive but seems impossible. However with extensive usage that included calls, messages, internet and multimedia it lasted me well over 3 days on a single charge and just kept going.

The Bottom Line
The Sony Ericsson Naite comes with a price tag of Rs. 8,450 (MRP). It’s a great choice for a 3G enabled handset. It’s a well designed device that offers social networking as well and most importantly it’s Eco-Friendly. The main reason one should go in for this handset is the fact that it has a battery life like no other. If energy is your main requirement you can’t go wrong with this model, plus it does have that really cool look and feel as well.