Sony Ericsson Cedar Review

Introduction:

It comes as little surprise that Sony Ericsson has been green washed into an eco-friendly company that wants to save mother earth. What is a bit more encouraging however is that they're running with the concept, having made an entire line of phones around the theme: the Greenheart line. Continuing on from past success, today we'll be taking a look at the Sony Ericsson Cedar. With a sufficiently organic name, the Cedar takes its position as an entry level phone with a few very nice elements such as a 3.5mm headphone jack, 3G and expandable memory to make it more than just a simple candybar phone with a bit of green on the side.

Design:

Shipped in a teeny tiny box and you recognize that the green starts before you even switch on the phone. Open the box and it's pretty barren, there is none of the superficiality or grandeur as found in other handset boxes, just the Sony Ericsson Cedar, a wall-charger and some papers. The phone itself is markedly plastic (recycled plastic at that), with three core elements: the phone body, the battery and the silver-coloured battery cover which takes up the entirety of the back of the phone along with a fair amount of the sides. On the top is a 3.5mm headphone jack, on the left a microUSB port and on the right a volume rocker. The fascia is home to the numeric pad, a menu, clear, call, end buttons and two soft keys as well as a four way d-pad and the 2.2-inch screen.




You can compare the Sony Ericsson Cedar with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The Sony Ericsson Cedar screen is a non-touch-screen TFT measuring in at 2.2 inches with a resolution of 240x320 pixels. While viewing angles are good up, down and left, tilting the phone right will unfortunately blow out the contrast very quickly. Nothing is particularly sharp, however brightness levels are on the whole good and we didn't have trouble viewing it outdoors.



The keys are all heavily raised at the bottom, semi-rubberised and very grippy and tactile. This means they are easily distinguishable up and down though left to right they are completely flush with one another which is a shame. They do provide a good click feedback though and are clearly labelled. Text entry is comfortable, and while the handset does feel very plastic, we’ll attribute this to the green theme and give an overall thumbs up to the design of the Greenheart phone based on its usability.

Interface and Functionality:

With a strong heritage of handsets running Sony Ericsson's proprietary interface, the experience the Sony Ericsson Cedar delivers has grown incrementally over time. Immediately recognizable, the Sony Ericsson Cedar runs a very traditional set-up, with a plain and simple home-screen displaying either live or static wallpaper as well as a range of indicators at the top. These show battery life, profile, signal strength and net connection. Unlike older iterations of Sony Ericssons interface however, the Sony Ericsson Cedar home screen has optional widgets thanks to Widget Manager 2.0. These include Facebook and Twitter integration, enabling your updates to scroll across the screen. 



The menu is a very standard 3x4 grid, with expected integration of Sony Ericsson's own app market, PlayNow occupying one of the tiles. Having had a great deal of experience in making the interface operate in an effective and functional way, it does just that, providing responsive interaction and a reliable set of key tools, such as phonebook, dialler, call log, calendar, calculator , etc. The Sony Ericsson Cedar does all this with pleasing visuals and inoffensive animations throughout, making it look good, though not great.



Camera and Multimedia:

The Sony Ericsson Cedar has a 2MP fixed focus camera on board. There's little to shout about as it performs rather poorly, with use restricted mainly to picture messages and basic snapping. As you can see from the samples, colours look dulled down, detail is weak, exposure isn't terrible, but is neither good, blacks are noisy even outdoors and with no flash on-board, there’s no remedy for this. Video is again, best suited to multimedia messages and viewing on the phone recorded at VGA resolution.




Music playback on the Sony Ericsson Cedar is by default, very average with tinny sound, however, there is a mega-bass equalizer setting that saves its skin. Once activated, listening to music is actually good, and with the on-board 3.5mm headphone jack, you can use your own headphones to sweeten the experience even more. The music player interface is pretty easy to work around. There is an attractive, PSP style menu system with some subtle animations and a logical menu progression, with songs being viewable by artist, album, playlist or track. Album art is displayed, and for a phone of this price, given the microSD card support, we're happy with the music functionality. There is also an FM Radio on board.



With support for MP4, the Sony Ericsson Cedar plays back video up to its native resolution smoothly enough. That said, on the 2.2-inch screen, it isn't feasible to expect a comfortable viewing experience for more than a short clip.



Internet and Connectivity:

The Sony Ericsson Cedar is equipped with quad-band GSM, single-band 3G (2100), as well as Bluetooth, a microUSB port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. At a good price, this is a pretty well connected little Sony Ericsson. Browsing the web is unfortunately hindered by poor page formatting and stuttery browsing coupled with a screen that would need to be both bigger and higher resolution to make it a great experience. Installing Opera Mini (a free alternative browser) lends to remedy the experience, with better page display and more intuitive interaction.

Performance:

Performing well across the board when it comes to being a basic feature phone and organizer, the Sony Ericsson Cedar provides a simple yet reliable experience. Running Google maps and other applications, it does so and stays smooth and judder free throughout.
Call quality is average on the Sony Ericsson Cedar. Without noise cancelling, it is noticeably less clear and crisp than on some other handsets, with full volume at times not being loud or clear enough for comfort. For most situations, it is adequate nevertheless with no major issues. When on the other end of a call, listeners reported ok overall sound, with some interruption from external elements such as wind etc. At no point however did these day to day interruptions render the audio inaudible.

Battery life on the Sony Ericsson Cedar is pretty good, with 1000 mAh onboard, the phone is quoted at 12.5 hours talk time and 17 days of stand-by time. We practically got about 4 days out of it with semi-regular use.

Conclusion:

To wrap up, the Sony Ericsson Cedar is a charming, simple phone and appears to be another step in a green direction for Sony Ericsson. Not resting on the Greenheart theme, the phone also has an array of useful features such as a 3.5mm headphone jack and 3G. It won’t give a great online experience with a 2.2-inch screen and an un-intuitive browser, though the widget support is a nice touch to keep you connected. Another handset to consider is the Nokia X2 for an S40 alternative. This comes in at a similar price, lacks the green theme and 3G, but does have a 5MP camera with a flash if snapping is important to you.

Sony Ericsson Cedar Video Review: