As promised, I took a trip into my local O2 store and as usual, they wouldn’t get a Satio out for me to try. Last time I was a potential customer. This time i’m a customer. I don’t know what’s worse.

Anyway, after trotting over to the T-Mobile store and connecting to my Mifi to the display Satio, I had a good play. The camera is, as I have already discovered, very very impressive. The ‘best pic’ function is good too. Web browsing seemed average and I was a bit disapointed with the speaker but overall, the feature set is very very impressive.

I didn’t buy one though.

The big problem is that it feels like it fell out of a Christmas cracker. The plastic is cheap and it looks like the ‘silver’ will rub off within weeks. I literally couldn’t handle it any more and walked out of the shop knowing that the Satio is NOT for me.

Sometimes I feel I’m a little bit too careful when choosing a phone but when it’s the most used peice of electronics i’m likely to buy for the next year or two, I don’t mind being a bit picky.

It looks like I’ve exhausted all phones from my ‘toplist’ now so there’s only one thing to do…wait.

I’ve written about the SE Satio and how it could be the perfect upgrade from the N82 for me. I’ve also written about why it’s not the perfect upgrade for me.
Today, the SE Satio goes back onto the top of the list after news about a firmware upgrade broke at the end of last week. The new features look great. Especially that boost to video recording and direct upload to YouTube.

• Support for WVGA video recording – The already great video recording will be enhanced to fit the wide screen format and hence resolution is also slightly increased to 864 * 480 pixles. (the preset size will still be VGA, user has to change to get WVGA)
• Upload of pictures to Facebook – It will be possible to upload pictures directly from the picture menu you have on the home screen or from the Media UI.
• Youtube video uploading – It will be possible to upload videos to Youtube directly from the Media UI.
• Conversational messaging – “Conversations” will be nicely integrated in the messaging menu in order to easily find and inspire to more conversations with your friends.
• DLNA support – The new software will support DLNA media server for easy transfer of audio and still pictures. (Note that video is not supported)
• UI improvements – On top of above, several minor UI improvements have been done in order to optimize the user experience.
• The Facebook application that is now available on PlayNow for free download will be included in the sw.

Owners are reporting that the device is now faster and smoother too.

Read the full story

I’m pretty much locked-in when it comes to mobile phone choices. 2 years ago I bought a Nokia N82 and the camera on that is so good that even today I’m having trouble finding an upgrade. I’m so used to taking good quality evening, home and low-light snaps with it that I rarely have any other camera with me. To me, camera, internet and mobile phone go together like bread and butter and if you’ve tasted Xenon flash before, there’s no going back. (It’s not just brightness BTW, the short period of flash helps to freeze movement and results in far sharper low-light captures of people and other moving objects.)

I took a brief look at the Sony Ericsson Satio a while back but it didn’t really register in my ‘want’ list because I didnt know about the CPU. When I found out that it’s got the same CPU in as the iPhone 3GS (AAS Review) I started to get interested again. Today I checked it out in the T-Mobile shop here in Bonn and sure enough, it’s got a lot of potential. The touchscreen is resistive but, like the Nokia N900, gives good haptic-assisted response. The slider-protected (essential) camera is 12MP and the pre-focus is quick and accurate. The only thing I found missing on the camera side (in my 10 minute test) was the ability to force the flash on (for fill-in.)

Read the full story