I Have a New Phone!

I have posted about my dilemma about finding a new phone and until today, that dilemma still held. I didn't want a touchscreen device but I did want the features of a smartphone. Preferably I was looking for another Sony Ericsson Phone as I was already familiar with the layout and am particularly bad when it comes to using other phones. I had been initially looking for a smartphone with a querty keyboard so that I could overcome my fear of having to type on a n unresponsive touchscreen but the only few that I was considering seemed to have a major flaw in them somewhere. The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro Mini for example had a very poor battery life and many people complained that this really got in the way.

Given that the reason I am now actively seeking a replacement for my phone is that the battery only lasts about a day and a half then this was a big no no. I understand that as these things become more complex, the drain on the battery will only increase and that heavy users of the iPhone and other similar touchscreen phones are used to having to charge their phones every night, I am used to going for nearly a week between charges.

After some poking about the internet, I had come across the phone I eventually bought. Assuming that when I went into the shop to try it out, it wasn't either hideous or highly unusable then I was going to get it. I have even decided to go with a contract rather than pay as you go on the basis that I would be spending about £200 on a phone and spending just over £60 a year on credit then a £15 24 month contract seemed to make sense.

So, here it is. The Sony Ericsson Elm, the exact phone I have been looking for. It has all the features of a smartphone sans touchscreen: Wi-Fi, 3G, 5M pixel camer etc, it can run Java applications and it is a very reasonable price. Oddly, the main feature of the phone is that it is eco friendly which usually means one of two things... more expensive or fewer features. For once however, this phone seems ot have more features packed into it than most other phones of its class. I spent a couple of hours setting it all up before I found out it needed an update and it wiped all of my settings. Still, it gave me more of a chance to play around with it and I have to say, I love it! Browsing the internet when connected to the Wi-Fi is incredibly quick and responsive, I can sync it with Microsoft Outlook as I could with my previous phone and you can access music from your computer through the network.

The only downside is that it is totally incompatible with my old phone. It would have been nice to transfer my messages and notes to the new phone but my old phone has no bluetooth and my new phone no infrared so no luck there. At least the software is Windows 7 compatible - unlike the software for my old phone which only detected the device if it was plugged in when the computer was started. It also didn't take nearly half an hour to install the software - unlike my old phone, so I'm very very happy.