A Clear Signal: The Sony Ericsson Satio
We don’t normally cover phones, but then again, this new Sony Ericsson Satio is more gadget than phone anyway. With a 12MP camera and high-res TFT screen, this is shaping up to be a pretty sweet phone indeed.
More from dialaphone.co.uk, a blog covering cell phones:
At 13mm thick and 126 grams, the Satio maintains a similar size and weight to its rivals, but when you turn the phone on its side, the sliding lens cover bulges out, ruining the smooth and slender frame.
The Satio is one of a pair of new multimedia mobile phones to be released by Sony Ericsson this year, the other being the Aino, and instead of being created to excel as either a camera or a music phone, the Satio does both by havong an excellent camera and a powerful music player. Sliding that lens coveraside reveals the 12.1 megapixel lens, flanked by a video light and a xenon flash, for excellent lowlight performance. Face and smile detection are both onboard, along with Touch Focus, a new feature where a simple tap of the screen sees the camera focus on that spot and capture the picture, so you dont have to centre the viewfinder on your preffered subject. Additionally, tweaks such as image stabilisation, BestPic and a 12x digital zoom are all included.
The touchscreen is a 16 million colour, 3.5? TFT with a resolution of 360×640. An accelerometer controls its orientation and since it’s a resistive item, Sony Ericsson have included a stylus, but instead of building it into the casting it’s supplied seperately on a lanyard. To combat any keyboard issues, the Satio gives the choice of using a small portrait QWERTY keyboard, a larger landscape one or the traditional alphanumeric pad. For dialing, the phone has an easily accessed number pad. Sony Ericsson have overlaid 5th Edition with their familiar icon based, grid format menu – brought to life with the central of the three hardware keys under the screen – where all the features of the phone can be accessed.
As a 3G phone with HSDPA and HSUPA support, the Satio is already well-connected, but when you add in Wi-Fi, A2DP, Bluetooth and assisted GPS, it covers every base.
If ever you’ve wanted a phone to truly double as a camera as well, this might be one for you. No price or immediate availability listed yet, but it should be out by the end of the year.