After unboxing the Sony Ericsson Satio and giving you my first impressions of it, I am kickstarting now my official review of the handset with a detailed tour of the hardware and design.
The first thing I noticed after I took the Satio out of its box was how finished and elegant the materials were, something that I wasn’t expecting from a prototype unit. Nevertheless, the Satio boosts Sony Ericsson’s well refined design signature with a lot of matte silver plastics and metal. The size of the handset is on the big side (even huge side) of the scale, and it’s not really helped by the rectangular shape. Device manufacturers usually opt for rounded angles that appear on the front plate, giving their handsets the impression that they’re smaller, but I would argue that Sony Ericsson have a signature in square designs which carries on in the Satio. They did include some rounded angles, but they are viewed form the side and not the front.
The main part of the device boosts a massive resistive touchscreen of 3.5″ in a black surrounding, all covered with scratch-resistant glass. Beneath the screen, there are 3 main buttons which from left to right are Call / Menu / End Call. The 3 keys are raised in a rounded shape and give great tactile feedback when pressed. On top of the screen, the Sony Ericsson logo and the call speaker are placed in the middle, next to which on the right there’s a light sensor and a proximity sensor that turns off the screen when you hold the Satio close to your head on a call, and on the left there’s a small light. This one turns red when you plug the Satio to charge it, and when it’s fully charged, it’ll turn green. It’s a great addition to the device in terms of usability.
The top part of the Satio holds the power button, which also allows you to change profiles when pressed for a short time, as well as the one loudspeaker I could find. I suppose it’s a Mono speaker (though I’m not really sure), which is underwhelming given the media focus of the Satio.
The right side of the Satio has a WiFi-GPS inscription right on top, below which we have the Volume Up/Down keys that also serve in the Camera for zooming. Right after those, there is a Photos key that will instantly open up the media browser on the Photos section and allow you to view your last images quickly. Next to it is a Camera/Video switch button that makes it dead easy to switch between taking still pictures and videos when in camera mode. Then there is a massive camera button that has a very nice blue LED light around it which activates when the camera is in use. This makes it incredibly easy for people to find the camera key, even if they’re not really acquainted with the Satio itself.
All of these buttons are well differentiated and offer a good deal of tactile feedback so you can easily find them and press them without having to look.
The left side of the Satio holds only one key, which is the keylock with a key symbol engraved next to it. This one functions like on recent Nokia handsets, so you push it downwards and it springs back up. You can do this in order to lock or unlock the Satio. I didn’t encounter any issues of it becoming flimsy or loose although I used it quite regularly, and I have to say that it’s probably one of the best keylocks of this design that I’ve used (as compared to the Nokia 5800XM, 5530XM, N97, N86). It has the right amount of feedback and reactivity, without it being too easy or too hard to trigger.
Below that, we can find one of the Satio’s low points: a proprietary plug for the charger and the music headset. Yes, you read that correctly, Sony Ericsson decided to go for a pop-port music headset plug on the Satio instead of the now much standardized 3.5mm, and the same thing for charging instead of the microUSB. This also means that you need to have a special connector if you plan on listening to music whilst charging the Satio. Of course the problem won’t arise if you use Bluetooth Headsets, which I normally do. Although the proprietary port wasn’t *that big a deal* for me, it might be for a lot of others.
On the low part of this left side, you can find the MicroSD slot. My prototype unit came with a 2GB card in it, but it’s compatible with MicroSDHC cards so you can eventually go up to 32GB if you want to purchase a card on your own. I found it quite interesting that Sony Ericsson didn’t go for their proprietary M2 card format, although they did choose the proprietary charging/headphone plug. Also the choice to bundle a 2GB card with a device focused on multimedia, and a 12MP camera, is really baffling for me. I mean this card can be easily filled with some usage of the camera in its full potential.
The back side of the Satio holds Sony Ericsson’s well known green logo on the bottom, as well as a humongous camera cover which makes the Satio’s thickness uneven between the top part that houses the camera and the bottom part that doesn’t. I suppose that a lot of protection is needed for a camera module this important, but I still question the need for such a huge cover that spreads all the way from left to right. Nonetheless, the cover slides down in a slick move, and locks into place steadily, which then triggers the Camera application to open. Beneath it, we’ll find the Satio’s biggest selling point: a 12 Megapixel camera sensor, with a Xenon flash and an LED flash. I honestly don’t know what the other two smaller circles are, but I would suppose that they could be light sensors or something. Personally, I found the presence of a Xenon and an LED flash together as one of the best ideas out there, allowing us to take really great pictures at night with the Xenon, and really great videos with the LED.
The bottom half of the back cover can be taken off by sliding it down, and it reveals the tiniest battery that Sony Ericsson could squeeze in this baby: a 950mAh battery. I was quite appalled when I looked at it the first time, and my one week of usage didn’t change my thoughts the least bit, but more on that in another part of the Satio’s review.
Before concluding my review of the Sony Ericsson Satio, I find it relevant to compare it in size to other touchscreen Symbian offerings, so here are a couple of pictures of the Satio next to the Nokia N97 as well as the 5800 XpressMusic. Notice that the Satio is almost the same size as the N97, but due to its very square corners, it feels in the hand bigger and more cumbersome than the N97, although it’s slimmer on the sides.
What do you think of the Sony Ericsson Satio’s design? Are there any low points for you, like the proprietary headset or the battery life, or would you be willing to sacrifice those for the benefit of a great camera module with Xenon and LED flash?
Also, stay tuned for tomorrow as I bring you the Software review of the Satio, with tons of videos and walkthroughs that will make your eyes pop from their orbits. Sony Ericsson did a great job changing the Symbian UI and building on top of it to bring the multimedia features onto a new level.
