According to Sony Ericsson you pronounce the name of its new handset as ‘Nighty’. Thankfully this slightly surreal name has very little to do with the actual handset itself. The Sony Ericsson Naite is relatively unassuming to look at, comes with a decent range of features without bothering top of the line handsets and is pretty good value so it will not overstretch those with a modest budget. However, there is one community that the Naite will certainly appeal to and that is the large number of people who care about the environment. It can be difficult to balance protesting climate change with all of the personal carbon usage that is necessary to organise a environmental march, text all your mates to let them know where to meet up and keep your phone charged so that you know where everyone is moving to next. As part of Sony Ericsson’s Greenheart initiative, the Naite aims to allay the fears of this ever-growing group of eco-warriors.

The Sony Ericsson Naite is almost like a personal trainer for your conscience. Hang in there whilst we expand upon this comparison. The Naite has a built in CO2 calculator. Called a ‘Green Calculator’ it acts in many ways like a calorie counter, but instead of putting you off cakes, it aims at reducing your carbon emissions. You can tot up your total expenditure of carbon based on your lifestyle choices, your mode of travel and of course your mobile phone usage. In the main this functionality is aimed at making you think twice before you jump in the car to head to the shops. However, there is a chance that it will just sit there on your phone like a judgemental mother, tutting as you repeatedly fail to hit targets. The results are really all down to you.

Luckily the Sony Ericsson Naite does not need encouragement to be as energy efficient as possible. Along with the reduced packaging and the recycled materials from which it is made, it also has a few tricks to help with lowering your carbon footprint. The Naite features a low-power charger which is less wasteful that most mobile charging units, which begs the question why are other mobile phone owners stuck with wasteful, expensive chargers when this technology exists?

One particularly neat feature of the Sony Ericsson Naite is the lack of a paper manual. Whilst in the early days of mobile phones this might have been commercial suicide, nowadays most people are accustomed to the basics of mobile operation. As such Sony Ericsson have seen fit to load the manual onto the Naite in digital form. That means none of our bark-skinned buddies have been harmed and also ensures that you are always going to be carrying the instructions with you, making troubleshooting on the move a possibility.

App-wise, the Sony Ericsson Naite continues the greener trend of its design. There is an entire application, called EcoMate, which is dedicated to just that. EcoMate is essentially a simplistic introduction explaining how to live a greener lifestyle and a virtual pet is thrown into the mix to soften the sense of education with a modicum of entertainment. While useful in some respects, few people are likely to be kept entertained by this app.

One of the Sony Ericsson Naite’s most useful capabilities is Video Blogging. You can shoot video using the built-in camera and then use the 3G connection to upload your shots at high speed to your own online site. There you, your friends and family can enjoy whatever it is that you have recorded. Though the Naite lacks the sophisticated widgets and live social networking updates of more expensive phones, it still can compete by offering convenient functions such as Video Blogging.

If you want to customise your Naite as – let’s face it – this phone has a fairly broad appeal with business types as certain to pick it up as youthful types, there are already plenty of compatible wallpapers and screen savers online. Sony Ericsson phones are popular and as a result large communities of artistic people have already generated a vast library of delightful and devilish wallpapers to adorn the Sony Ericsson Naite. The best thing about user generated content is that it is usually completely free. People like to share their creations and get a response from others to let them gauge the popularity of their products. The Naite is compatible with animated wallpapers and in the run up to Christmas and Halloween you will be able to find endless dancing skeletons, jumping Santas and prancing reindeer.

If your tastes are less seasonal, there are categories of wallpaper for virtually every other interest or hobby. Music and rock bands are popular and there is even a separate genre of ‘Emo’ wallpapers, which is more specific genre than most larger commercial retailers of wallpapers would be likely to offer. There are also plenty of satirical wallpapers for the Sony Ericsson Naite, mostly aimed at deprecating Windows XP, at which everyone can have a good chuckle. It might also suggest to the un-initiated that your Naite is powered by a Microsoft operating system, although this may not be seen as a benefit by some.

Overall the Naite covers a broad spectrum of interests whilst maintaining its progressive, eco-friendly design credentials and without being too preachy about its own economy.