Sony Ericsson took long until launching the smartphone Satio after having announced it in February at Mobile World Congress. The Sony Ericsson Satio is the first handset of the new “Entertain Unlimited” series in which the two brands Walkman and Cybershot are put together. Now, the Satio is available in Germany for prices beginning at EUR 460.00 without contract. Is the new smartphone worth the money? Find out by reading this review.

Operating System and Touch Screen

The Sony Ericsson Satio runs on Symbian S60 5th edition. Thus, there are many similarities to using other S60 5th edition smartphones such as the Nokia N97 or the Samsung Omnia I8910. For example, the scroll bars in menu or browser windows are too narrow to easily operate the phone just by finger input, there are some inconsistencies in the user experience, and in the menu new items only open when being double-tapped. The first tap only selects a menu item, but does not open it. For this reason, it might take a little longer to start certain applications on the Satio than on other smartphones, but on the other side it can also keep the user from accidentially activating another feature by a wrong-placed finger. On the homescreen, users find a shortcut bar for favorite contacts, web sites or the picture gallery. In general, things ran smoothly on the Satio.

Different from other S60 5th edition smartphones is the simple media control interface that Sony Ericsson has put on top of the regular Symbian interface. Here the user can browse through pictures by sweeping his or her fingers across the screen in landscape mode.

The resistive-type touch screen of the Sony Ericsson Satio measures 3.5-inch diagonally and has a relatively low resolution of 360 x 640 pixels and shows content sufficiently sharp and contrasty with 16.7 million vibrant colors. However, it seems as if quite some pressure needs to be applied in order to register an input by finger or by stylus – the panel could be a little more responsive. The touch screen has neither multi touch nor kinetic scrolling capabilities. Except for the homescreen, the Satio can show all content in portrait or in landscape mode, depending on how the phone is held. Writing messages on the bigger or the smaller virtual QWERTZ keyboard is easy. For opening the main menu and for starting or terminating calls are three buttons available below the display.

Mobile Data Services

For mobile data transmission the Sony Ericsson Satio supports GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and HSPA with up to 7.2 mbps (download) and up to 2 mbps (upload) as well as WiFi (IEEE 802.11b/g) with DLNA. In contrast to smartphones like Apple iPhone 3G S or HTC Hero the Satio does not connect to the internet constantly. This prevents the user without appropriate data plan from unnoticed dial-up costs. The user must arrange for the internet dial-up him- or herself and choose the desired internet access point.

The regular S60 browser loads web sites more slowly than the Opera Mini browser, but renders pages correctly. It supports flash so the user can browse and play videos directly on the browser. Configuring the mobile email client is easy because of the help of a set-up wizard, the user must merely the name of his email provider, the account name and password, the other necessary settings are automatically retrieved over the network. For synchronizing with Microsoft Exchange servers, the Satio has RoadSync.

On the Satio there are preinstalled clients for Picasa, Facebook, YouTube and Google Mobile App for web and phone system search, Quickoffice (without a license) to read and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents as well as a test version of the Adobe Reader. For navigation services, Google Maps with Latitude is enabled and the software Wisepilot is also available (without license). For further applications on the Satio, Sony Ericsson has launched the download store “Play Now Arena”. The range of applications in the Play Now Arena is still very limited and there is no specific list of apps for free download.

Camera and Media Player

The indication of 12.1 megapixels does not say anything about the quality of the camera of the Sony Ericsson Satio. However, picture and video quality from the 12-megapixel camera are great in comparison to other camera phones, with a good amount of details and popping colors. Photo features include an automatic mode, smile detection, panorama mode, BestPic, a xenon flash and a LED flash as well as a touch focus. Videos can be shot with a resolution of up to 640 x 480 pixels (VGA) at 30 frames per second.

The music player of the Sony Ericsson Satio supports functions such as Audi Clear and Clear Bass for a better sound, but sound is rather mediocre and the player has no equalizer function that allows the user to regulate the sound to his or her own wishes. Even a 3.5-millimeter jack for standard headphones is missing.

The internal memory of the Sony Ericsson Satio amounts to 128 MB and can theoretically be expanded by up to 32 GB via microSD card. The shift away from the proprietary memory card format Memory Stick is a concession of Sony Ericsson to the demand on the market.

Data Synchronization

Data synchronization can be done wireless or via USB cable connection with the PC Suite or the Media Go software which are on the 8 GB memory card and not supplied on a CD. The mobile phone is also recognized immediately by a Windows PC as mass storage device. Media Go manages music, videos, photos and podcasts between the device and the PC and and automatically converts the files into a format compatible with the mobile phone. Unfortunately, the PC user can only access content that is stored on the memory card of the mobile phone.

Call and reception quality of the phone are neat. Based on the experience in my test, a talk time of just over three hours seems to be a realistic value. The chassis is put together well, only the battery cover is made of plastic.

Verdict

The camera, the design and workmanship are among the strong points. The Sony Ericsson Satio certainly goes through as an alternative to a digital compact camera. On the other hand, the menu could be more consistent and user-friendly and battery-life better. It seems to me that Sony Ericsson took too long to launch the Satio. When it was announced in February the Satio would have been one of the top dogs of current smartphones.

The Features of the Sony Ericsson Satio:
Operating System: Symbian S60 5th Edition
GSM networks: 850, 900, 1,800, 1,900 MHz
Data transfer: GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA 7.2 mbps, WiFi
Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB
Screen: 3.5-inch TFT touch screen with 360 x 640 pixels, 16.7 million colors
Keyboard: virtual QWERTZ
Camera: 12.1 megapixels, autofocus, xenon flash light, and video LED flash
Storage: 128 MB (+ 8 GB microSD), expendable to 32 GB
Size: 112,0 x 55,0 x 13,3 x 17,6 mm
Speaking Time: 11 hours

Read more about the Sony Ericsson Satio at www.teltarif.de (in German).