Sony Ericsson Satio

I have been going through the Sony Ericsson database regarding their much hyped Satio (a.k.a. Idou) mobile phone lately. In fact, I was more than willing to get my hands on it as it has been the talk of the town since a few months ago.

The Satio was delayed for a few months (God knows the reason why) but it is now been made available through the Vodafone UK network as the rest of the mobile network providers in the country have either recalled the unit due to software issues or they are putting on a wait and see attitude.

To me, I had the opportunity to have a go at the Satio. Please be informed that Vodafone UK no longer allows customers to return their mobile phones within 14 days of taking out their contracts in one of their Vodafone stores. However, if you have made a purchase online, you will have 7 days to return the phone if you are not happy with it as it is a requirement of the distance selling legislation in the UK.

The Sony Ericsson Satio is not to be missed. You get a 3.5" resistive screen with button feedback through the mighty Symbian OS 9.3 release 5. It is the fifth edition of the Symbian OS which powers the very first touch screen from Nokia - The Nokia 5800. Suprisingly, the Satio is made by Sony Ericsson but the OS is made by Nokia! Wow, that is a first from Sony Ericsson!

I'm sure that you are well verse with the capabilities of the Satio. It has a 12.1MP digital camera and it allows video recording at 30fps. HD recording is not possible but nontheless, the richness of the screen will blow you away.

It has bluetooth, microSD slot, mp3 player, a video conferencing camera among other functions for consumers to look up to. The mobile phone looks like your typical digital camera but it has a radio chip inside. It is pretty amazing considering the fact that it supports quadband GSM with dualband UTMS (900/2100). The best part of the mobile phone is that its core is powered by the same cpu which powers the Iphone 3GS - the ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz with PowerVR SGX graphics!!!

It has the usual 7.2Mbps data downlink with 2Mbps data uplink and it comes with A-GPS. It also has an FM transmitter for you guys who likes to listen to the radio.

However, irrespective of the marvellous paper specification, it is high time for a review of the stability and user friendliness of the Satio. I have to say that I have no problems while playing with the Vodafone branded Satio. The software did not hang as much as I was told when I read on the Vodafone forum. Contrary to popular believe, I do think that the camera on the Satio is the selling point of the mobile phone. Couple with a 3.5" screen, it is unbeatable in many aspect but it has its flaws.

There are many disadvantages when you are using the Satio. One of them would be the unavability of consumers to double click on any *.sis file to install it onto the Satio. I think Sony Ericssion (SE) should make a point in making sure that installation of any applications will be seemless, just like Nokia.

The second flaw of the phone will be its SAR. The SAR is calculated at 1.58g/watt. Wow...It is really high compared to many modern mobile phones. Even the new Nokia E72 is only coming in at 1.3g/watt.

The third flaw of the phone should be with its customised OS. I hope that Nokia will work hand in hand with SE to ensure that consumers will the Satio will not lose out with the inability to connect to existing network data if wi-fi is not available. That is pretty crucial, I believe.

Apart from the above, the Satio is quite a nice piece of work! I'm sure that consumers will find it very useful and it is a new model from SE!