Yesterday I took a chance that fate has given me and I attended the SEE2009 event at Earls Court in London. I have learnt many interesting things and I though it would be useful to share it with you. especially that some of it relates directly to Satio.
The first thing I will tell you is that update for Satio is coming NEXT WEEK! 
I have talked to the guy who is developing that new firmware and the main fix would be a significant improvement in battery life by introducing some further software tweaks. I am sure there will be more improvements in that update, but that’s all I know for sure for now. I have also asked about the mysterious 1350mAh battery that someone has mentioned on the internet. Non of Sony Ericsson emplyees (even developers…) have ever heard about such thing, so it was a complete scam
I have also talked to the guys from Opera booth. I asked them about the future of mobile version of their software (which I think is best – well, it’s swedish company ). As usuall, to most of my questions the answer was ‘i CAN’T COMMENT ON THE FUTURE’, however not to all of them before they guys realised he’s saying too much, he managed to reveal some rough details. Well, their presence on a Symbian developer event is also a bit self-explanatory isn’t it? When I said that Satio is a wonderfull device, but there is no proper browser for it, as Opera Mini is far too simple, he replied ‘EXACTLY!’ 
Then I smilled, and that was when he realised that he’s saying too much And when I asked particularly aout Opera Mobile (whether it will be released for Symbian), his answer was simily ‘hopefully ‘ . And considering Opera Mobil 9.7 is out now, I think it will be v10 that will be available for Satio. BTW, Opera guys ar working on take a full advantage of OpenGL ES 2.0, which is not very common on Windows handsets, so that’s another tip.
Regarding the Satio itself, I can say that the black one I’ve seen there (before I’ve only seen a matte prototype) looks VERY nice and is VERy elegant. A very attractive device. I still prefer my red one, but black is almost just as good! (for me at least 
). I was worried that black could look boring, but it does not!
Regarding SE booth in general, I can honestly tell you that it was the best one around. It was in the centre, it was VERY attention grabbing and atractive. I will post a few pictures of it later. Nokia on he other hand, was one of the worst ones around. Even Samsung was much better. Actually, Samsung was sufficiently good so that I actually came inside. for a while. This proves a major change in trend on the market that has heppened in the past few months – Nokia is lost in the fog, while Sony Ericsson is becomming the atention grabbing one, that does everything it can to attract developers.
The rest doesn’t particularly relate to Satio, but to future of mobile devices, particularly those based on Symbian. I will tell you more about it later, when I come back home, as I don’t remember every bit of it (I’ve taken loads of pictures of slides though ). The main points however are: Satio is the device Symbian team is most proud off at the moment, ST-Ericsson is quietly preparing something that could beat OMAP 4 platform and Symbian is veveloping exponentially. We have been working on Symbian 1 for ages now. First Symbian 2 devices will reach the market in early Q2 2010, but Symbian 3 and Symbian 4 are really not far away!! I am not sure if such a change in strategy is good (completely new platform every 6 motnhs or so), but they will all bring loads of improvements, particularly help taking advantages of multi-core processors. Symbian 4 will be the first one taking a full advantage of that. Personally I don’t mind that, as they promissed that applications from previous generations OSes will be compatible with the new ones – they will be backward compatible
UPDATE:
I am adding some pictures from SEE2009. First 2 are of SE booth, the rest are from St-Ericsson (STE) Presentation, where you can learn a lot about the processor they are developing, as well as have a look at the presentation of one of the fathers of Symbian, Ian Hutton (Head of Platform Propositions for Symbian Foundation).
I have only included pictures of the most interesting slides. All of the pictures were taken by Satio In almost complete darkness, but the noise levels are low enough to make slides readable
BTW, I have also added 4 night pictures I’ve recently taken, as I am amazed by them, particularly Natural History Museum Blue 2. Picture quality is just amazing considering it was a VERY dark surrounding. And I did not use any tripod!
This is great news! Everything that you mentioned are somewhat things that people have been wanting so I assume SE and Symbian developers are listening to the people.
If we get enough comments back to them, the Satio can really be the “perfect” phone.
I can’t wait for the firmware update, do we know where to download it? SE or Symbian website?
Will it be available for download right on the phone or do we have to download to computer and input to device?
Seems fun.
Thanks Piotr for being the eyes and ears for us Satio owners on the most updated information, it is really appreciated!
should’ve ran and told SE that we need more more more apps so that we are not ashamed when running into iphone users or iphone ads! lol
Piotr, will I be able to update my Vodafone-branded Satio with the next weeks (and future) updates from SE?
You will be able to update you Satio, in exactly the same way as everyone else (through SEUS), but the release dates for such updates are different (but they usually come earlier, I mean the network ones
)
Ok, so is it better to skip the network updates and wait for the genuine ones from SE? Or do things go ‘horribly’ wrong then?
I’m really noob when it comes to updating phones, I never did actually
Actually network ones and normal ones don’t match (as log as your network had branded the phone of course
) I had the same problem with my X1. Vodafone update came a MONTH earlier than generic and it was a real pain 
Debranding my phone smells like a good option… I think I’ll consider that, as soon as I assured myself this can be done without consequences (except the warranty-ones from Vodafone).
Hopefully in the next firmware will add equalizer and video shooting in 16:9 format
I hope so too
Perhaps FWVGA is a bit too much. It’s not a standard resolution (just yet 
), but WVGA is more than plausibile 
And it would be almost full screen as well 
my phone often freezes in the middle of doing the most basic things (for instance, I’ll be in a call and typing down a phone number and when the phone call ended, the phone froze) I mean, is it that hard for this phone to multi-task? Its been freezing for many other reasons as well. Are you guys getting it too or do I have a defective phone?
Hmm, hard to say. Mine has rebooted once when it froze… Let’s jsut wait for the nearest release update
They you’ll decide whether it’s faulty or not
P.S. Lat time my X1 was VERy horrible before the first firmware update…
I doubt that the firmware to come out this week
Well, I cannot guarantee that, but that’s what the guy told me… He said “most probably… aaah… next week, maybe the week after”, (and that was a week ago
) and he was from the development team, so I should trust him I think 
Unless something went wrong since then of course…
Hmm, hard to say. Mine has rebooted once when it froze… Let’s jsut wait for the nearest release update
So awesome! Thanks for sharing this
D. Perry
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