Let Me Hold It:

The Satio box is thoroughly unremarkable but the bundled accessories are impressive. The stylus is stylish, the headset is excellent and there’s a pretty substantial video out cable in there too.

Satio Accessories

The device itself has been made with Sony’s special brand of super glossy plastic which attracts finger prints and smudges from passers-by, let alone the actual user. Don’t expect to be able to admire that black sheen AND hold the phone at the same time unless you’re a snooker referee. Perhaps that’s why they chose a resistive touch screen, so you can handle the phone with pristine white gloves. The device also looks like it may be vulnerable to scratches but only time will tell as I’m not about to break out the sandpaper.

There’s a good compliment of hardware buttons including call/end, menu, camera shutter, camera modes, playback, volume and a very handy keylock slider but as with several other touch based devices there’s no direction input keys. As pretty as Satio may be, the straight sided construction of the device quickly becomes uncomfortable and it struggles to sit nicely for single handed use. This is made several times worse should you attempt to use the phone while charging. Once again Sony Ericsson has endeavoured to place the fastport in the worst possible position, here being on the left side just below centre. This means the charger protrudes annoyingly to obstruct either the right-hand fingers or left-hand palm preventing any comfortable hold.

Let Me Use It:

First boot provides a minor tutorial and the antiquated process of calibrating the resistive touch screen. This is a drag at the best of times but here it was a nightmare as the device repeatedly claims “too far from point x”, even when using the stylus smack-bang in the centre of each throbbing dot. I don’t know if this is common to all Satio’s but I experienced this on first use and again after another factory reset. Recalibration via the later menus runs without such issues but the accuracy and responsiveness of the screen remain questionable!

Once reaching the home screen things look good with the “Sony Ericsson” standby theme in use. Swiping left and right changes between the five predefined tabs while lists or pictures on these support the kinetic scrolling method everyone is used to, albeit nowhere near as responsive as that on an iPhone or Android device. Instead the scrolling often either fails or overshoots, at least until you get used to using slow and positive gestures…casual flicks are not welcome here. Customisation, meanwhile, is limited to say the least…you get to set the list of shortcuts and that’s it. Other Standby Themes are available but these are dull, offering nothing other than three static icons and custom shortcuts varying only the quantity or location.

Entering the main menu reveals a typical 4 x 3 icon grid and a single press on each continues to the next screen but this is where things start to get messy. Selecting contacts, for example, pops up a bland list of names (with no contact pictures other than the one currently selected) but inexplicably this list doesn’t scroll in the same kinetic manner as the (thumbnail rich) contact shortcuts list on the home screen. No, instead it is now completely the opposite! Trying to “throw” the list up only succeeds in making a selection bar go nuts while the list remains stationary. This selection bar must be grabbed and pushed to the bottom of the list in order to move down…I can only describe this as idiotic and un-natural and it makes accurate navigation of any list a virtual impossibility. The only acceptable solution is to pull out the stylus and drag the bar on the right of the screen, just like using Windows way back before the invention of scroll wheels. At this point the seemingly negligible omission of any direction buttons becomes a critical flaw.

But wait, it gets worse! In case the experience wasn’t yet uncomfortable enough things make a baffling change from single click to double click selection!?! On first encountering this I simply thought the phone was experiencing huge lag, in fact the device is fast, but it soon dawned that the UI was just suffering another irritating inconsistency.

Looking for any opportunity to escape this nightmare I fired up the camera with a satisfying snap of the lens cover. This is good, really good in fact, the 12MP camera doesn’t disappoint and the xenon flash makes indoor snaps easy. There’s an impressive feature set including Smile Shutter, Touch Capture, image stabilisation and BestPic making the camera probably the best thing about this device.

Satio Camera Sample

Of course Satio is Sony Ericsson’s “entertainment unlimited” flagship device so surely the other media features are up to scratch to? Thankfully they are thanks to the familiar, XMB-style Media menu which remains intuitive and benefits from convenient YouTube integration. Kinetic scrolling makes a return here which would ordinarily be great but on Satio it really just adds further confusion to a terribly mixed up control system.

Eventually I had to leave the camera and Media to try other essential components such as messaging and web browsing. Messaging is as disjointed as the rest of the UI! The standard messaging app doesn’t display conversation lists, a separate “Conversations” app is required for such a view. New message notifications ignore this app and lead to the default messaging view while also failing to even preview who the message is from. Upon replying to a text the on screen keyboard does not even appear, making you jab at the screen until it responds and selects the text input area before displaying your selected input method. On screen keyboards leave plenty to be desired too, all feeling a little too unresponsive and inaccurate for fast typing which leads to frequent mistakes. The mini qwerty is laughable and while the full screen qwerty is better there is annoyingly no auto-rotation to change between them. Handwriting recognition is reminiscent of that on UIQ, I like this but many will not.

Web browsing is adequate but the lack of kinetic scrolling again becomes painful while added irritation is provided by the fact that the device cannot automatically switch between network coverage and WiFi. One or the other is exclusively selected and if you want to save entering more menus the only option is to have “Always Ask” activated so that you must choose the connection accessible to you when starting browsing.

I’ve come to realise that Satio is a mongrel, an impure mix of Nokia and Sony Ericsson and with rather more Nokia than I’d have liked (just look at the screen below). Virtually all of my dislikes are due to the S60 OS and the poor execution of it on touch screen devices:

Satio Nokia Nokia Nokia Nokia Nokia

I was yet to use S60 5^th Edition properly until now and perhaps was naïve to think that it would be better than this or that SE would have made better use of it. Unfortunately this device encapsulates the convoluted awkwardness of S60 and compounds it with the worst points of touch screen devices. There is nice hardware here, splashed with a couple of good software elements but there is no consistency and ultimately the user experience is confusing and annoying.

Let Me Get Rid Of It:

I’m bitterly disappointed with Satio, too much of the experience is uncomfortable and while the camera and Media are a saving grace, these are not enough to make me tolerate daily use of this device. If you want an intuitive and responsive touch screen phone, keep looking…and I suggest towards Android and iPhone.

If, however, you bizarrely enjoy the general unpleasantness of S60 5^th Edition and require each of your UI screens to operate completely differently, go ahead, you should at least end up with some decent photos!

Mik

Mik’s Previous Opinions:

• HTC Magic
• Introduction

Don’t worry though I have the HTC Magic and my new little green robot friend to talk about instead. Incidentally I do mean Android and not some sort of new hi-tech, eco-friendly mechanical helper….sadly.

Let Me Hold It:

Device boxes are often uninteresting and this is no exception aside from the fact that it’s surprisingly small. The device is presented to you on removing the lid, as is the fashion these days, while the headset (which I’ll come back to), charger, leather pouch and boring printed things lie beneath.

The Magic’s predecessor, the HTC Dream/G1, was irretrievably ugly and really not suitable for anyone with eyes so thankfully new designers appear to have been employed to make an Android device you wouldn’t be embarrassed to hold. They’ve done a good job and the Magic, in white, is a good looking device, just avoid the highly questionable MyTouch 3G version in merlot from T-Mobile! The dimensions are good and materials feel solid but not quite as weighty as an iPhone. Also unlike the iPhone, it isn’t as wide as a broadsheet newspaper and as a result is pleasant to hold for either one or two handed operation. The 3.2” capacitive touchscreen is bright and responsive while the Android related hardware buttons reside beneath. The trackball works ok but it largely redundant beyond moving around individual letters in text.

Let Me Use It:

As you’d expect the device runs through some setup screens upon first use, though you’ll be wanting a Google account to make full use of this. From here on in it’s a standard Android experience and there’s Donut in store depending where you live or if you take the sensible option of getting rooted and install the latest Cyanogen ROM.

With Android you’ll immediately notice the simplicity and user friendliness. Flicking between the various horizontally arranged home screens is enjoyable, particularly when you see that the wallpaper moves along with it. Perhaps the most compelling thing is to drag up the application drawer from the tab at the bottom of any home screen. It’s pleasing to use and can be smoothly dragged back and forth or simply thrown open or closed with a quick swipe. The drawer gives you a grid of icons and if you need telling what to do from there I suggest you turn off your computer, give all your electronics to the charity shop and move away somewhere to drink out of coconuts!

Less apparent at first but equally, if not more useful is the notification bar. This appears at the top of the screen showing the usual standby details as well as notifications of new events, active downloads, application updates etc. It behaves similarly to the drawer being dragged down smoothly to show you notification info which can then be dismissed or used as a shortcut to the relevant content. The usefulness of this became apparent when I received an SMS while in the middle of something else. Upon receipt, the SMS text is scrolled once across the notification bar like a news ticker, if you miss it just drag the bar down to read it again all without leaving what you’re doing. Never again do you need to quit something just to read “wuu2” from that friend you’d really rather just ignore.

Customisation is at the forefront of any Android experience because who wants to stare at screen after screen of icons on a black background? Well apparently quite a lot of people do but iDon’t (thanks for the pun Verizon) and it’s as easy as a long press on the home screen to mix things up. Long press an empty area to see a menu of shortcuts, folders and widgets you can add there. Long press an existing home screen item to move or dispose of it. Things got even easier once I realised application shortcuts could be dragged straight from the drawer to the home screen using the same long press method. The danger is in the widgets, they’re addictive and I soon found myself downloading as many as possible to try them all…..and then deleting the vast majority again! Apps are plentiful too via the Android Market, thankfully the majority are free and there are some really great pieces of work.

So it’s all plain sailing for the Magic then? Well, not quite. Media capabilities are good but nothing new, the camera is really not that great, especially in low light, and music playback is certainly nothing special not least because of the supplied headset. Headsets are a frequent HTC failing and this one is inexcusable unless they’re perhaps targeting the Ferengi market. The earphones are too big, not comfortable to wear and seem to manage not to block out any background noise…perhaps to distract from the lacking audio quality. What’s worse is the lack of a 3.5mm jack so you’ll be looking towards Bluetooth for a better experience.

Finally I can’t help but feel that this device is in infancy. Android is moving along fast and improving all the time but the internal hardware here is still first generation. The 528MHz Qualcomm processor is outdated and my particular Magic is short on RAM being a Google branded (32B) device. This results in performance hits when trying to get clever with the phone. It can multi-task but the price is a bit of lag which can be annoying at times.

Let Me Keep It:

Overall the HTC Magic is a great phone, I’m happy to use it every day and Android is definitely here to stay. The hardware can just about cut it for now but it will be blown away when the imminent 800MHz and 1GHz Snapdragon devices land along with Android 2.0. To that end I say this device is a good introduction to Android and a better experience than most other touch screen phones (let’s all laugh at WinMo) but not as speedy as an iPhone.

Definitely happy to keep it.

Cheers,

Mik

I’d like to introduce something new for you, it’s “Mik’s Impatient Opinions”. Think of this as a review source but in a rather different way to the normal, in depth reviews you’re used to. After all there’s plenty of other people already doing that and I neither see the point or can really be bothered doing the same thing!

So instead I’m going to give you something a little more personal. I’m typically short on patience, quick to form opinions and quick to condemn. I think in this way I can cut to the chase and tell you what you really need to know in an efficient and possibly entertaining way though I expect some things I write may not be what fanboys want to hear.

I won’t be doing detailed comparisons, I don’t intend on spending hours taking photographs and I won’t be covering massive amounts of handsets but I will try to use my own style to highlight things that will affect your every day user experience with a device or application etc.

So keep a look out for my first article, especially if you’re considering a Satio, and I hope you enjoy what I write for you.

Cheers,

Mik

The W995- king of the Walkmans. It was announced a few months ago and released just recently. As you may have noticed, we’ve already done a review of the handset. Thing is, it was written based on a prototype of the W995 and that’s why we’ve decided to write a “final impressions” piece after having used a retail version of the phone. We’re quite happy, actually and here’s why…

First off here’s a list of what we like and don’t like about the phone:

Neat stuff

• Aluminium housing adds an undeniable “sexy” factor to the phone’s looks
• The kickstand has proven useful on numerous occasions
• The large-ish 2.6″ screen is nothing short of brilliant
• Playback keys on the side can be used while the phone is locked
• The 3.5 mm jack at the top enables you to plug in any pair of headphones on the fly
• Finally some nice stereo speakers on a Walkman phone
• 8.1 megapixel camera is more than welcome
• Did I mention it has face and smile detection, along with an LED flash?
• 7 preloaded games and 9 additional applications
• Included 8 gigabyte M2 card
• Wi-Fi and aGPS
• Cool themes

Small annoyances

• The kickstand could have felt sturdier
• Volume rocker needs some getting used to
• Keypad keys exhibit various amounts of feedback
• M2 card slot is under the back cover
• Rather small softkeys

Let me just start by saying that the W995 is a fantastic media phone, despite the lack of a larger (preferably touch-enabled) screen. It’s got smarts, but it also definitely has looks. The W995 is by no means covered in aluminium – there are only 2 plates that cover most of the back and the front. Despite that, the phone is still lighter than, say a C905. The slider mechanism is also tighter and doesn’t allow any wobbling at all. The brushed look of the material is especially prominent here. Describing the phone side-by-side is, in my opinion, redundant.

What most amazed me about its looks is that when you opend the kickstand, put it on a table horizontally and launch the Walkman player, the W995 looks exactly like a mini-stereo system with its brightly-lit (naturally, in orange) keys at the top and the front, the large screen on the front and the stereo speakers on the side. Believe me, whenever you want to listen to music or watch a video, you’ll want to set the W995 on its kickstand somewhere. Fact is, the kickstand clicks into place, which saves you the hassle of adjusting it manually in accordance with the surface.

The speakers themselves are pretty powerful and of very high quality. I doubt many would want them to be even louder. They make for a pleasurable video viewing experience – along with the screen! Speaking of watching videos – the phone may not support DivX (or XviD for that matter), but it comes with this really neat software which can convert any of your .avi, .mp4, .mov or .wmv films into a format that can be played on the phone – automatically as you transfer the videos. This makes for a very effortless experience, I might say. Video playback on the phone itself is also something I can’t criticize.

Now, the audio output quality of the phone is superb. Its camera may not be able to replace a standalone point-and-shoot, but I am positive you won’t be using your mp3 player that often once you get a hold of the W995. No, seriously – it is that good. Of, course we have the usual SensMe and shake control gimmicks included in the Walkman v3 music player, but there’s also the Clear Stereo and Clear Bass audio enhancement technologies. I don’t know how they did it, but the phone sure sounds better than other Walkmans with the same music features (read W715). The keys on the side that control the audio playback are also a nice touch and often useful, as you don’t need to unlock the phone or have the music player on the screen in order to use these. They way they light up in orange is also something I should mention (yes, really).

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the phone ships with an 8 gigabyte M2 card. Neat, huh? Well, in that case, you shouldn’t be surprised that the W995 also comes with high-quality noise-cancelling headphones, which, by the way, are super.

The phone’s camera pack 8.1 megapixels, an LED flash and autofocus – quite surprising for a Walkman phone, no? Well, get this, it also has face and smile recognition and BestPic, which enables you to take multiple photos in rapid succession. The quality of the images itself could have been better, but I’m sure it’ll get sorted out in future software updates. To be more precise, the colours are spot-on, but the details could have been better. I also think I see some purple fringing in some of the photos. Here are the samples:

The phone records QVGA videos at 30fps. The audio quality is good, but it’s more than obvious that Sony Ericsson should have bumped up the video resolution.

I feel that commenting on the user interface is a tad unnecessary. It’s the same as on every other recent A2 feature phone from Sony Ericsson. There’s one difference, though – the settings menu is not tabbed any longer. This enables it to have one more sub-menu – the electronic user guide. You could say that’s both bad and good. The themes that come preloaded are also pretty nice. They employ nigh-hypnotizing animations and a very modernistic style.
Speaking of preloaded content, there are 7 pretty fun games that come with the phone and 9 more applications (excluding the ones from the organizer).
The software itself is as stable as can be. I’ve had no problems whatsoever. Bravo, SE!

Finally, I’d like to comment on the additional connectivity options. First off, we have your usual Bluetooth connectivity with the A2DP profile. The assisted GPS is also a feature worth noting – it enables geo-tagging for photos, turn-by-turn navigation, Google maps and assists in the sporty Tracker app. Then we have a DLNA-certified Wi-Fi (b & g) chip on-board. Connecting to a wireless network is easy as pie and the speed and range are also pretty adequate.

All in all, I am very satisfied with this phone. It’s a great all-rounder and given the already falling prices, it would be a good buy for anyone searching for a phone that has quality music… and a kickstand!

For a more detailed analysis, please refer to our full review.

The “impressions” articles are the sort that only describe certain features of a phone that are instrumental in defining the handset’s image. In this notion, these articles are shorter than both reviews and previews. They may also serve the purpose of building upon a previous review.