US$ 883 US$ 649.00

As Sony Ericsson has said that it plans to offer "all that it can" in a range of new phone, Satio is one of the model under the entertainment unlimited series to show the ability of Sony Ericsson. Actually, Satio isn’t new as it is the renaming of the previously called Idou, the one announced for a period of time but didn’t bring to the ground. With 12MP camera featuring 12x digital zoom, intuitive touch focus, Xenon flash, face detection and photo geo-tagging, runs on S60 5th Edition Symbian OS and features a 3.5-inch display. It is such a powerhouse. Let’s go into details.

What’s inside? The Satio Phone, a Battery, a Charger, a Data Cable, a Stylus, Handsfree and User's Guide.

It’s about what you would expect of a 3.5-inch touchscreen handset. It is made of plastic which is quite handy. Below the display, there are three control, the call and end keys, and the menu keys is in-between them.

The on/off key is on the bottom of the phone just next to the speaker.

Turn to the left, you may find the screen lock slider, the connectivity port and the microSD card slot. Opps~ no 3.5mm jack on board as we were certainly hoping.

The right side hosts the shutter key, the shifting key for camera or video key, the gallery key and the volume rocker it also can be also used for zoom in and out of the image.

Turn to the back of the phone, it just remind me of C905 with is with the similar camera len cover. Satio is slide to left to reveal the camera whereas C905 is slide down.

Of course, it is totally different inside. Satio is powered with 12MP and C905 is only got 8MP. It is accompanied by both xenon and a LED flash so that it can perfectly covered in low-light for both still camera and camcorder mode.

Turn on the camera. You may see there are five shortcut on the right of the viewfinder. Those include Scenes, Shoot mode, Flash settings, Exposure compensation and Auto mode. We are on the shoot mode, which includes normal, smile shoot, tap to focus etc.

The picture can be sizable to 4:3 aspect ratio photo resolution (12 MP) or shooting in 16:9 aspect ratios (9MP).

It is the menu. As we mentioned, Satio is runs on the the Symbian Foundation upcoming mobile OS that's already used on Nokia Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia N97. We already know quite much about the Symbian S60 5th edition. I won’t talk too much here.

The tabs of the homescreen match different parts of the UI (you may see the switching bar is at the top of screen), including favorite apps, gallery, favorite contacts, network services etc. We are on the shortcuts to a number of programs of your choice just like with the Bookmarks.

The QWERTY keyboard on board. I think everyone is familiar with.

HTC Diamond2 have Zoom Bar, Apple iPhone have Multi-touch. But Satio only got touch to zoom. That’s fine. Satio got another features to battle with them.

With the powerful camera on board. Of course we can’t miss the chance to try on it. Actual photo shot by the phone in an indoor office lighting environment. ( In 9MP camera only with 16:9 aspect ratios). Satio is come up to our expectation. Good!

The photo is taken with Xenon flash on. Feel soft compared to other camera phone. I can sure that you won’t need to bring your digital cam with you now because Satio can totally replace it.

One thing I would like to mention is the web browser here which is a really cool part of the Sony Ericsson Satio. It is an improved version of what we found on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic , the browser has excellent page rendering and pretty good speed, plus decently user-friendly UI. And it comes with full Flash and Flash video support. If you're eager to live vicariously through a well-connected individual by the best pictures or video, I can say Satio is your only solution.

Sony Ericsson Satio (U1i) Video Review