AT A GLANCE
- 5 inch widescreen
- Stylus touch navigation
- 12.1 megapixel camera with touch focus
- Symbian S60 5th ed. Operating System
The Camera Part
This is the big drawcard of the Satio and one can honestly not rave enough about it. I'm no expert, but I've never seen a mobile phone camera to equal it. It's the first of its kind that made me think it wouldn't be necessary to own a separate camera as well. The touch focus feature alone would bring tears to your eyes – it's so simple and efficient. If you want to focus on any object on your screen, you just tap it with your stylus and the camera readjusts. Face and smile recognition come standard too.
The Xenon flash is state of the art, handling shadow especially well. I got really excited about the Adobe Photoshop Elements feature for touching up photos, but once I was done it was a bit of a mission to upload them to Facebook, and there didn't seem to be a Twitter option at all. Purists would probably not be satisfied with the loss of detail on zooming, or the waiting time between taking photos, but for the amateur photographer it was more than satisfactory.
Here are some of my snaps, so you can see what I mean:
The Phone Part
Calls and video-calls were crystal clear. The Symbian S-60 Operating System is fairly intuitive and easy to navigate, although the side scrollbar is difficult to work and liable to send you shooting past wherever you want to be. The slight lag in response time I noted in my Snapshot review is mainly present when opening messages. You can choose between a multi-tap alphanumeric keypad, or a qwerty keypad. And if you're a fan of banging your head repeatedly against a desk, you can also try out the handwriting recognition mode. In my opinion, this is a dinosaur feature that could well be dispensed with - only useful for entertaining my kids.
Web browsing on the Satio is fairly fast, but made irritating by the lack of a column wrap feature. If you want to read text online you have to use the zoom function to move in or out, or else scroll from side to side.
Girly Attraction
If you're a keen amateur photographer or a social media freak who likes to document her life in pictures for her friends, the Satio is for you. And if you're a mom who's addicted to capturing every moment of her kids' lives on camera, they will have to pry this phone out of your clutches so you can sleep at night.
Turn ons:
- 12.1 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, smile & face recognition, and touch focus
- Google Maps
- Comprehensive music player
- Excellent video recording
Turn offs:
- Resistive touch screen with stylus
- Slight lag in response to commands
- No column wrap for online browsing
