While its feature phone sales are still steadily pulling in revenue, Sony Ericsson has however received a setback in the smart phone market with the demise of the UIQ platform last year.
Going back to its Symbian root, Sony Ericsson has settled with the Series 60 platform, the one that powers the Nokia line. This allows for a quick product development without the need to spend too much R&D on a new OS, and the first of the products with the new platform is the Satio. Let’s see what wonders it holds in its innards.
First impression of the phone is a mixed bag. Good for its build quality, bad because of its construction. For the good parts, the phone feels sturdy in your hands, without any creaking or squeaking from being held.
The button (there’s quite a few) on the phone has a decent tactile feedback, without feeling to toy-ish that some phone buttons tends to have. The 3.5, wide screen… er, screen is set in the 16:9 ratio so videos will have no black-bars when played on the device.
The Satio is one of the first Sony Ericsson that uses Micro SD for storage. This means it can support Micro SDHC, with capacity up to 32GBs. Imagine over 20,000 songs in your pocket, on the tip of your finger, literally in this case. The Satio uses a touch screen for navigation so everything is touchly-feely. The feedback of the touch is there with the force feedback activated.
Satio’s other party piece is the 12.1 megapixel camera at the back. Sony Ericsson is famous with its camera phones, thanks to its parent company, Sony, with its expertise in imaging technology. The camera on the Satio is no slacker as it takes pictures at 4000 x 2250 pixels, following the display’s 16:9 ratio. The pictures taken with the camera is very decent, with minimal fringing in the extremes and also producing a respectable color reproduction in the image.
Now for the not so good parts. The other first impression you get is the plasticky feel when you first hold the phone. While the plastic itself is high-grade, it still exudes the feel of cheapness when held in the hand. The camera cover is metallic but still doesn’t offset the overall plastic feel.
Another sore point for this reviewer is the usage of Symbian Series 60. The OS that is widely used in Nokia’s offering feels antiquated in the world of iPhones and Android. While Sony Ericsson did a very commendable job with its homescreen, with panels and customization, the underlying software is not very touch-friendly.
The music software is a staple Sony Ericsson fare, which is very good, but the rest are not. Most of the menus are not designed for touch, and it shows at applications where you expect kinetic scrolling - the flick – to be present, but you will find it is not there.
The Satio is Sony Ericsson’s first phone on the S60 platform, and while it feels like a very good phone, software deficiency and general build quality are not factors to ignore.
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