Introduction: Sony Ericsson Satio

Today’s the day Idou finally gets a name… a third second one, at least. A final one. The Satio. That’s how we’ll be referring to it from now on (like it or not). The Satio will be Sony Ericsson’s flagship for 2009. It’s the first of a brand new line of phones, namely the Entertainment Unlimited brand. As a flagship and unlike a Sony Ericsson phone, it features some pretty advanced tech. The highlight, of course, its the mind-boggling 12.1 megapixel camera with a xenon flash, an active lens cover, touch focus, face detection, the self-explanatory Smile Shutter technology, Smart Contrast, Photo fix, BestPic (which lets you take 9 photos in rapid succession), Geo-tagging, red-eye reduction, 12x digital zoom and Web Albums. VGA recording at 30fps is included as well. But this is all related to the back of the phone, so to say.

The front is graced by a large 3.5 inch touchscreen, capable of showing up to 16 million colours and with a rather unuausl 640×360 resolution (16:9). The UI of the Satio features 5 standby panels, which you can switch in an instant. The phone itself runs on Symbian S60 5th edition, which means that there’ll be lots of apps available for the phone once launched.

As a true Walkman – Cyber-shot merger, the Satio has also been endowed with the Clear Bass and Clear Stereo sound enhancement technologies, which further improve the audio output. Speaking of which, you can also use Bluetooth A2DP-equipped headphones to listen to your music. The tracks themselves can be stored on a MicroSD memory card, as those are the ones the phone supports (unlike the usual M2). TrackID – Sony Ericsson’ excellent music recognition service - is also included. The obligatory FM radio with RDS is there too.

Furthermore, on the entertainment side the Satio supports “HD” and 3D games, both Java and, supposedly, non-Java. A Facebook and a YouTube application also come preloaded with the phone.

In terms of connectivity, the phone supports quad-band GPRS/EDGE and tri-band HSDPA. A Wi-Fi and a GPS module reside within the phone’s housing as well. Naturally, Google maps and turn-by-turn navigation come along with the aGPS feature.

The Satio’s dimensions are quite adequate, too, measuring 112×55x13.3 mm and weighing 126 grams. What’s cool is that the phone also comes with a charging stand and an 8 gigabyte MicroSD card. Woot!

The Satio is supposed to come out in the beginning of the fourth quarter in the colours Black, Silver and Bordeaux.