Sony Ericsson Satio Preview

Interface and Software:

As we mentioned at the beginning, the Sony Ericsson Satio is the first device of the manufacturer to run Symbian S60 OS. Well, it is virtually the same as the one powering the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97 and Samsung OMNIA HD i8910. Similarly, the standard interface has been modified to more closely resemble other phones of the company..

Let´s get started with what you see when you power the phone. You will find yourself on the home screen, which has been personalized with a new theme. However, the standard ones for the operating system are here as well – Basic, Shortcuts bar in two varieties, with 4 and 6 icons respectively and Vertical Icon bar. We are not going to review these anyway, since they sport no changes whatsoever.

Let´s take a closer look at the Sony Ericsson´s personalization:

You have 5 tabs, at the upper part of the screen, that allow access to different functions. They can be switched between by sliding a finger or simply pressing them.

•    The first one allows you to visualize your favorite contacts in a vertical scroll list. Another list of options pops up when you select an entry that allows you to give the person a call, send them a message or edit the entry.

•    The next tab contains up to 8 of your favorite internet pages.

•    The middle tab is, by default, the home screen and pressing the end button gets you back there automatically. The interesting thing is that there is shortcut at the bottom of the screen that leads to the Sony Ericsson´s audio Flash menu. Even if you leave the audio player working in the background, you will still be able to see the song name and all necessary playback controls. There are four other shortcuts at the bottom that get you directly to the dialing menu, multimedia Flash Menu, messages or Phone search.




•    The fourth tab is gallery of pictures taken with the 12-megapixel camera of the Sony Ericsson Satio. They are all visualized in huge size on the large 3.5-inch display and can be scrolled by sliding your finger up or downwards. If you spot a picture you like, you can as easily as several clicks set it as wallpaper, send it in a message, share it on the Internet or see it in the fully functional Gallery app.

•    The last shortcut leads to a vertical menu where you can place up to 8 shortcuts to applications and functions of your own choosing.

As a whole, the rest of the interface is not different from what we have seen on other makes running the same operating system (you can take a look at our reviews of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Samsung OMNIA HD i8910). The theme changes both icon color and design, but everything else remains pretty much the same. Selecting things in vertical menus is again implemented by double clicking on items.

You wouldn’t see anything new in either Organizer or Contacts. Messages are typed away just like on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic – through handwriting recognition, small but fully fledged QWERTY keyboard that can be moved around on the screen, full QWERTY keyboard on the whole screen when in portrait mode or standard numeric keypad.



Internet browser is the standard one that comes along with the operating system – a Webkit based software that supports JAVA and Flash content. We have never had any problems using it on other devices, so we figure it is as good as ever.

Still, there is quite some time until the Sony Ericsson Satio is finally released, so it is not unlikely to see changes in its interface.

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