se-first.com - Sony Ericsson News, Reviews & more

So you have seen all those pictures and videos, explaining how Sony Ericsson's Satio works, looks, feels - but how does it do in everyday situations? We have had the chance to use a pre-release version of Satio for the last month. Read more about pros and cons we found in our early review, and get some impressions of the 12MP camera in action in different places and conditions (but keep in mind: things might still change until the final release of Satio in October 2009).

General usability

The first thing you have to get used to: double-clicks! For the most part of the native Symbian S60 5th Edition, the first click on e.g. a menu item selects it, only the second click triggers the requested action. Something one gets used to after some time, but it is definitely not efficient. A second general issue that has its origin in the used Symbian OS: scrollbars in menus. It's simply not intuitive and not state of the art anymore to scroll through menu lists by using a tiny bar at the side of the screen.

The above mentioned usability issues have been improved in the following modules: the mediaplayer, the camera UI and the home screen. No double clicks, scrolling via wiping the finger over the screen, that's how it should be and how it works within all the modules were Sony Ericsson customized the Symbian OS.

A few words on the different text input methods: this is solved pretty neatly in Symbian OS, since there are a couple of ways for every taste to write text on Satio. If you are used to write on a 'regular' mobile phone keypad, you might want to use the alphanumeric keyboard with text prediction (T9-like), if you're OK with using the pen then the mini keyboard or the handwriting recognition is for you, and the most convenient method to type with your bare finger only is the landscape fullscreen keyboard. No matter which method is used, the phone confirms each tap on the screen with a short vibration (the intensity of that vibration can be chosen from 3 different levels).

It can be confusing if you use the fullscreen keyboard to input text into an application when the phone is in portrait mode, since you have to turn the device for entering your text. Also, the keys are quite far away from each other if one is using the thumbs to type - here (and only here!!) a smaller screen would be more handy :)

One major drawback in our opinion is the fact that Satio does not come with a capacitive screen. The used resistive touchscreen needs more pressure in order to recognize an action. This is notable especially while typing, as well as when using e.g. the media viewer where strokes are used to switch between pictures or scroll through playlists. The finger often gets 'stuck' on the screen, which makes the  usage of the phone feel less smooth.

Another weakness is Satio's screen in bright environments or in direct sunlight. It gets very hard to read in those situations, a transflective LCD would have been a wise choice. The picture to the left (click to enlarge) gives you an idea of how Satio's screen performes next to an iPhone screen in fairly bright (clouded) lighting conditions.

Read more about the Entertainment functionality in part 2!