The Sony Ericsson Satio - Have They Regained Their Former Glory?

Since the latter part of 2009 mobile phone buyers have had the option to buy a Sony Ericsson Satio. There are so many contenders out there with slick marketing campaigns hoping to break the hold that the brand of iphone has on the current market that sometimes the truth is hard to determine. Here we offer a, hopefully, unbiased Sony Ericsson Satio review. The hype and brand loyalty surrounding which mobile is the coolest to own have no place in a review and you will find none here.Overview of the Sony Ericsson SatioThis phone was originally launched way back in early 2009 in the guise of the Idou. Since then they seem to have been listening hard to consumers and testers as the next generation (the Satio) was prepared for release. This version seems to have been the next stage in Sony Ericsson's attempt to pull back some market share that they have lost to the iphone. Its flagship feature is the 12.1 megapixel camera and whether you are indifferent to the quality of your phone's camera or not, no one can deny that at that level of pixelation it cannot take poor pictures. The landscape feature that can stitch together shots to form a panorama is another camera geek gismo that many will find incredibly useful even though they possibly didn’t know they needed the function in the first place. It comes with the 3G and Wi-Fi web access that makes accessing the internet a pleasure and most owners seem happy with page loading time and web page rendering. As Sony Ericsson are renowned for their music and media handling capabilities, it comes as no surprise that this phone has the usual intuitive navigation around its music and video files. Indeed the overall navigation of the phone has been designed to give intuitive access to functions and features that seem pleasing to most.Specifics and What's in the Box?The operating system is the Symbian OS and its 8GB micro SD card are the basis for this multi-media hub. The navigation system is considered to be easy to navigate, but for those that can’t find their way around a search function is included which allows you to type in the name of the function you are looking for, an excellent catch-all. The on screen navigation via the easy and obvious icons is easy.The 12.1 megapixel camera and second camera for video calling allow video calls, for those that have taken to that sort of calling. The smile detection software is supposed to fill your albums with beaming faces of friends and family but sometimes the size of the smiles that are needed for the camera to actually take a picture are so large and false that some may find this feature annoying. However the quality of the pictures is without doubt exceptional and there is a flash to allow low light level photography. Its Micro SD card slot and PC cable connection allow you to transfer all those wonderful memories from the phone to your PC with ease.The access to the internet is via 3G and Wi-Fi and page loading times are reasonably quick. Some websites didn’t automatically resize their width to fit the phones screen causing sideways scrolling to be necessary, sometimes a bit of a pain.The access to music is, as always with Sony Ericsson, fairly easy with PC transfers quick and quite painless. The headphone output, unfortunately, is not the industry standard 3.5mm jack but Sony Ericsson's own multi use port connector that connects power as well.The goodies that are included in the box though are of a reasonable quality and the different shaped ear buds a pleasant find, especially to those, like me, who find the standard shape irritating and, after a while, actually painful. There is a video-out cable so that you can use the phone as a hub and pass out media to the TV. There is a charger and a USB cable, and finally a stylus for those of us that have fingers too large for the screen buttons. The handwriting recognition software works better with this stylus.There is no installation CD as this comes pre-loaded onto the 8GB memory card, simplifying the sync-ing process to your PC.