Along with the announcement of a number of other phones at the CommunicAsia conference in Singapore on June 16th such as the Xperia X8 and the Yendo, Sony Ericsson has revealed an affordable feature phone for those who wish to stay connected to friends and family without the steep prices attached to many of the latest communication, messaging, and entertainment-based mobile devices. Making use of many of the features that Sony Ericsson has put to use in other phones, but with a few compromises to help bring down the cost, the Cedar provides much of the functionality consumers need to connect to social networking services. Additionally, Sony Ericsson aimed to balance its entertainment functionality with business application, so a few additions have been made to make it friendlier for corporate users on the go. “Featuring 3G HSDPA, a 3.5mm jack and a port for easy connection to your laptop – the Sony Ericsson Cedar™ is an affordable GreenHeart™ phone which allows consumers to easily connect to their various communities whether it’s for work, fun or play,” says Quentin Cordier, Global Marketing Manager for Sony Ericsson.
Expected to be available some time in Q3 of 2010, the Cedar features some sleek styling that implements Sony Ericsson’s new human curvature design philosophy they intend to include in all forthcoming phones. By developing and designing phones that fit the contours of the hand much better, they hope to make the experience of using a mobile phone much more comfortable, compelling, and intuitive to cater to consumers. For the ecologically minded, the Cedar also keeps in line with Sony Ericsson’s GreenHeart commitment by using recycled materials, making much more efficient use of battery power, providing an e-manual rather than paper copies, and using waterborne paint and compact packaging to help reduce the impact on the environment.
Measuring 111 x 49 x 15.5 mm, the Cedar fits comfortably in the hand as intended, and weighs just 84 ounces; with such a small, featherweight phone you hardly remember it is in your pocket at times. Classic black colouration combined with bold silver or red accents combine with the design to create a stylish mobile device, and the prospective price tag makes the phone that much more appealing. Though no pricing information has been officially announced, Sony Ericsson is aiming for a budget price range to bring 3G connectivity and functionality to a wider audience with this feature phone, so you can expect a fairly accessible price tag.
3G HSDPA support provides users with broadband connectivity for fast and easy use of social networking sites, quick web browsing, or up-to-date email access. Using Sony Ericsson’s Widget Manager 2.0, the Cedar provides easy access to your favourite applications and social networking sites from the stand-by screen; easily check updates from your friends and family on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. The Access Netfront 3.5 web browser with support for standard images, video, and protocols makes it possible to surf the internet and check out the latest news and information on your favourite sites, then use the bookmarking support to save those pages and come back to them later. Along with the integrated web browser and Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter applications, the Cedar offers instant messaging, MMS picture messaging, and SMS text messaging with predictive text input in a conversation-style layout to help make it quick and simple for you keep in touch and organise all of your interactions into easy-to-read streams of text. In addition to the messaging capabilities, the Cedar has adopted a few corporate-friendly email features, such as push email support for instant updates over the network and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync connectivity to allow you to connect to a corporate Exchange server to receive business emails and and access corporate contacts on your mobile phone from anywhere you have 3G service. The Cedar also provides simple contact transfer and web backup to keep all of your important business and personal contacts safe should your Cedar be lost or damaged.
To complement the messaging capabilities and corporate appeal of the Cedar, Sony Ericsson has included some entertainment features to make it ideal for fun as well. A 2-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom makes it possible to take pictures or capture VGA video at 30fps, and then upload it to the web easily. The camera also allows you to make video calls to add a personal touch to your conversations, and the Cedar also supports video streaming and playback to allow you to watch video clips on the go. Watch YouTube videos or MP4 H.263 video from your mobile phone on the Cedar’s 2.2” TFT LCD capable of displaying up to 262,000 colours. The screen provides a perfect display platform for pictures, video, or games as well as the Widget Manager interface, allowing you to view them all in fairly vivid colour. The Cedar features Java support, allowing you to download productivity tools, applications, and 3D games and utilise them to add to the mobile phone experience and functionality of the Cedar.
As expected from Sony Ericsson, well-known for its Walkman line of phones, the Cedar includes essential music playback functions and features. The Sony Ericsson Media Player allows you to sort your library by album, artist, and track name and create your own playlists on the fly from the phone itself without the need for PC software. Additionally, as a Sony Ericsson phone, the Cedar has integrated access to the PlayNow network, allowing you to download music, as well as games, applications, themes, and other media directly to your phone utilising high-speed 3G internet access. Using Sony Ericsson’s interesting TrackID software, you can record a few seconds of a song you might hear in a store, at the club, on the radio, or at a friend’s house and then send it to be analysed on the TrackID network. TrackID searches through a database of over 2.5 million tracks to see if it can find a match, and then immediately returns the track name, album, and artist information to your phone so you can find the song on the PlayNow network and add it to your library. To listen to your music, you can utilise the 3.5mm stereo headphone jack for standard wired headphones, or the Bluetooth A2DP connectivity allows you to use a wireless headset for more freedom. Compare all the latest Sony Ericsson Cedar deals or just have your say about this new eco-phone on the Sony Ericsson Cedar reviews section.
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