Sony Ericsson Aino, Satio & Yari

Sony Ericsson recently launched three new mobile phones to complement its existing line up. the 12.1 mega pixels Satio, the media centric Aino and the mobile gaming rich Yari. Now these three new phones represent a departure from SE's normal designation when it comes to phones. Personally i can't even keep track of it. There's the K series of which i've used the K700i, the K600 and the K800i cybershot. There's the P series UIQ smart phones. There's the T series, and then the C series. G.

I think they start to get confused. They started to differentiate their product by sticking to the existing sony brand. Cybershot for camera phones and Walkman for music phones. Now its something different all together.

*image credit: Pulse2

The Satio is SE's first Symbian S60 phone. They decided to go with the 5th edition touch version. The display looks crisp. The overall design of the phone had a distinct SE feel to it. Especially the camera front. Having used a Nokia 5800 before i was prepared for the familiarity of the UI but i was pleasantly surprised that SE decided to put their own flavor to the tried and tested OS. The screen is resistive and u would do well to navigate it using a handy stylus. I didn't manage to explore the phone extensively but the first impressions are very good. The main selling point is the camera of course. SE decided to stick with Xenon for the flash on the Satio which for me is always a good thing. One thing to be mindful though, with all the bells and whistles that the phone comes with, u would hope that it has a battery to last. I did see from a few reports online that the battery sucked, but i can't verify that without bringing one home with me eh?

*image credit: Gadget Lab

Now I must say that I'm more impressed with the Aino. It feels solid and the styling is quite elegant. The tune from the ad on telly is catchy too. The form factor is a sliding candy bar. The salesgirl was telling me that the Aino is semi touch. Meaning that the touch function is only applicable to the media function. I'm not entirely sure about that. Why make a touch screen phone when u can only use it half of the time. But i guess having a keypad would eliminate the need for touch la. It comes with an 8.1 mega pixels camera. You also get a wireless dock and bluetooth earphones with the retail package.

*image credit: Sky Mobile Zone

Last but not least is the Yari. The phone is touted to be the ultimate mobile gaming device. Hmm, really? I'll reserve my judgement until i see a PSPhone. Hehe. I spent the least time with this one. But it has some promise. Motion based gaming is kinda a novelty but it could pick up. Just imagine in the future, if u can hook ur phone up to ur big screen telly, and do the whole motion based gaming ala Wii from ur mobile phone. Now that's something eh?

Anyways, the retail price for the Satio, Aino and Yari are RM 2,499, RM1,999 and RM1,099 respectively.

UPDATE: News circulating around the net about SE halting the sales of the Satio due to some serious bug issue. Will check if the stores are still selling it or not.