Sony Ericsson Satio
Maxabout Review
Best 12 MegaPixel Camera Phone
Monday, October 19, 2009Satio is top of the line mobile in Sony Ericsson's Cybershot series of mobile phones. It features a 12.1 megapixel camera with Xenon flash. It sports a crystal clear 3.5" resistive touch sensitive screen. It is interesting to notice that despite it looks rather bulky, the phone feels light and very comfortable in your hand. Satio features only 3 buttons on the front side - send and end, along with a third one that´s located right between the latter and pressing it gets you to either the main menu or task manager. The light sensor that automatically controls screen brightness, video call camera, proximity sensor and LED indicator are aligned around the earpiece.
The Satio’s design makes it instantly recognisable as a Sony Ericsson handset due to its uncanny resemblance to its predecessor, the Sony Ericsson C905. Those of you familiar with the C905 will deduce that the Satio is a peculiar beast with a curvaceous, yet cutting exterior. In the hand, it really does have a feel of quality and it’s sturdiness does offer some comfort to those of us who have been called ‘butter-fingers’, on more than one occasion. The jet black colour determines that it is fairly neutral and wouldn’t look out of place in anyone’s company while the mirrored finish to the screen is a nice touch that shows Sony Ericsson were committed to producing a final product that succeed in aesthetical quality.
Both microSD card slot and standard charger port are on the left hand side, while camera shutter, mode switcher and gallery access buttons are clearly visible on the opposite side. Volume rocker is used to zoom in and out on things as well. Completely in character of Sony Ericsson, you really get the feeling as if operating digital camera while taking pictures with the phone upright in your hand. The upper back of the phone is slightly bulging, because the 12 megapixel, xenon flash camera is hidden under a sliding cover right there. Aside from the flash, there is LED light to help camera focus objects more easily. As you slide the cover open, both a small indicator right below the camera and the shutter itself start blinking in bright blue, which reminds of the Cyber-shot lineup.
Sony Ericsson Satio Camera Stats:
• 12.1-mega-pixel, Xenon flash
• Up to 12x digital zoom, Auto focus
• Face detection, Geo tagging of photos
• Image stabilizer, Photo feeds, Photo fix
• Send to web, Red-eye reduction
• Smile detection, Touch focus
• Video light, Video recording
• BestPic capabilities
The main screen features 5 tabs, at the upper part of the screen, that allow access to different functions. They can be switched between by sliding a finger or simply pressing them.
- The 1st one allows you to visualize your favorite contacts in a vertical scroll list. Another list of options pops up when you select an entry that allows you to give the person a call, send them a message or edit the entry.
- The 2nd tab contains up to 8 of your favorite internet pages.
- The middle tab is, by default, the home screen and pressing the end button gets you back there automatically. The interesting thing is that there is shortcut at the bottom of the screen that leads to the Sony Ericsson´s audio Flash menu. Even if you leave the audio player working in the background, you will still be able to see the song name and all necessary playback controls. There are four other shortcuts at the bottom that get you directly to the dialing menu, multimedia Flash Menu, messages or Phone search.
- The 4th tab is gallery of pictures taken with the 12-megapixel camera of the Sony Ericsson Satio. They are all visualized in huge size on the large 3.5-inch display and can be scrolled by sliding your finger up or downwards. If you spot a picture you like, you can as easily as several clicks set it as wallpaper, send it in a message, share it on the Internet or see it in the fully functional Gallery app.
- The 5th shortcut leads to a vertical menu where you can place up to 8 shortcuts to applications and functions of your own choosing.
Connectivity when using the Satio is made easy enough with the inclusion of built-in WiFi while Bluetooth facilities and a USB port makes sharing as easy as ever. The never-ending array of talents displayed by the Satio also includes location-based services such as A-GPS and Google Maps.
Main Features Of Sony Ericsson Satio:
- 3.5" 16M-color TFT resistive touchscreen, 640 x 360 pixels
- GPRS/EDGE class 10
- HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 3.6 Mbps
- 100MB integrated memory, hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 16GB), 256 MB RAM
- Symbian Operating System
- 12 megapixel autofocus camera with xenon flash and video LED flash, geotagging, face and smile detection, Smile Shot, Smart contrast and VGA video recording at 30 fps
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, USB v2.0
- GPS receiver with A-GPS
- Accelerometer for screen auto rotate, FM radio with RDS