It's my B'day again and it almost completes an year with my Sony Elm, which I gifted myself last B'day. After 2 weeks of studying the market and available models, I had finally decided to go for the Elm.
At Rs. 10k(an year ago), it contained everything I wanted and also wasn't touch based.
Let me share my experiences in the year which went by.
Camera: 5MP, and brilliant quality. Not only is it a powerful camera, always in your pocket, it's also replaced our 5MP nikon point-and-shoot in many a family trips. I've no regrets on the camera. I even got some photos printed on 8x5 and they are pretty professional in quality. The camera does suffer in low light, as the flash is only best used as a torch. Also the bundled 2GB gets used up pretty fast, but the phone supports up to 8GB.
Connectivity:
Wi-Fi: Fast connection and does not eat the battery like crazy, I use this at night in bed to read few articles online. The wifi does not work with my campus wifi, which uses WPA2-Enterprise. But works on all other Wi-Fi networks that I've encountered.
3G: I recently MNP'd to Vodafone and got 3G activated. Speeds are 2 Mbps, though the phone supports 7.2mbps, no idea why. Voice calling is pretty OK, but with lack of a front-camera and a not-so-good speaker, it's not too cool.
GSM: Signal strength is good. Switching between GSM and 3G is also smooth.
GPS: It supports A-GPS which uses some GPRS data to give location data faster than just GPS. I use mgmaps application(which keeps the maps downloaded on the phone) with GPS. GPS also helps in photo-tagging, which is very neat and fun for trips.
Interface:
Threaded SMS: I love this part, no more un-sorted thousands of SMS in inbox and sent box . Neatly arranged and easy to manage. Also threaded sms works in parallel with normal SMS-by-SMS type display, so you can switch as and when you like.
Menus: Standard Sony interface, easy to use, and good themes. Oh and the user-manual is in-build in the phone, which is also convenient, along with being green( no paper manual included)
Camera: Old cybershot like interface, settings for focus, colours, white balance. I miss having a forced flash(auto or off only).
Music: Once again the speaker is not that loud, but decent. Music player with album art display and some nice themes like CD-player, cassette player. Since I own an iPod, the phone is hardly used for this purpose. Also the stock headphones, don't stay in the ear, they keep slipping out.
Features not used:
In build twitter, facebook, with auto-update on the home screen itself.(I'm not on facebook and don't tweet that much).
In build navigator application Wisepilot(it's only a 30 days trial).
In build virus-scan(30 days trail again, and it's only a java phone, so no worry about viruses)
Mood based music playing in the music player. This requires the phone to be setup with a windows PC(which I don't have).
Small stuff:
A step counting application on the home screen, which works even with the phone in the pocket.
A game which teaches you to be green.
Track-ID(just make the phone listen to any song playing around you and it'll find out it's name(uses GPRS data).
Sync to Google to keep Google Calendar and Gmail synced to your phone over the air.
Send and receive files on the phone over Wifi network. The phone appears to other PCs on the network as another windows PC, of which you browse files.
The phone can bridge GPRS/3G network to your PC over USB. The connection looks like a new LAN connection on your PC, so you don't have to "dial" to get connected. The modem mode is also available.
Stuff I mainly use the phone for:
Watch: Press any volume button to display Time and any missed calls/new SMS on a black and white display.
Alarm.: Supports up to 5 alarms, with selection for days in each alarm.
Notes on the home screen.
Wifi(and now 3G) light browsing and email in bed or on red-lights.:-D
SMS. loads!
Calls!;)
Torch!
Primary camera
Finding places/routes in Delhi, during or before driving
Conclusion:
I feel Sony Ericsson not only added a large set of features, but also made a user-friendly phone.
I am very satisfied with the phone. Satisfied with the 10k I spent on it. Satisfied for not having bought the iPhone 3GS in place(I hate touch screens and iPhone 4 was launched just 1 month later, but that's another day's story).
