Sony Ericsson Satio User Review – 12.1 MP Touchscreen Camera Phone

I’ve lived with the Sony Ericsson Satio for a few weeks now and it’s time for a review methinks.

Out of the box it is noticeably lighter than my iPhone but also feels a little more brittle to me. I am not saying that it’s poorly put together or feels cheap but I think I’ve just got used to the substantial feel of my Apple blower.

Being stocked with a mighty 12.1 megapixel camera there’s no real surprise that the Satio comes with a load of photo features such as the usual face detection as well as things like Touch Focus, Smile Shutter and BestPic options. The active lens cover is mighty slick and I’ve had worse on stand-alone cameras. The Satio’s cover slides open smoothly and the camera is live quickly – shame that this adds to the phone’s girth though.

The snapper is paired with a decent Xenon flash which is more than adequate to usher in illumination when required.

The Satio has a 3.5 inch hi-res touchscreen is quite a peach when watching films on the 16:9 eye pleaser. You can also take photo’s in this format but at the lower 9MP rate.

There’s plenty of finger-room when texting using the landscape virtual board although, as I discovered in any touch application, you have to give the screen a decent poke for things to register compared with my trusty iPhone – that’s coming from a bass player!

The home screen has the expected SE clarity to it and everything is easy enough to find from there – Contacts, Media Browser, Gallery and the PlayNow store. The PlayNow store is where you’ll be able to get your apps from – hopefully the range will increase soon 😉

The phone has a tiny on-board memory of 128MB but, thankfully, Sony Ericsson have dropped the Sony Memory Stick in favour of the generic MicroSD format. Still, you’ll be needing a decent sized card if you intend on storing photo’s, music, films and other multi-media memory leeches on this mobile.

On the subject of sounds, the music player is not a Walkman branded one which is odd but then when I noticed the distinct lack of a 3.5 jack socket I’m guessing tunes on the move wasn’t a priority – which is a shame.

If you want a great camera attached to your phone, and this is a really great camera, then go for the SE Satio – you will not be disappointed at all. If you’re after a multi-media machine then I think that Sony Ericsson just missed out with the music player/headphone jack thing as I think you’d get used to the touchscreen needing a firm finger.

For examples of the pics it can take go to the Satio gallery 🙂

Have a gander below for size comparisons between the Satio and iPhone.