GSM-Arena Satio counter-review

Having read the review of Satio on GSMarena recently, i decided I have to do something about it. That site is quite popular and just like many prestigious newspaper ot TV-programs, it’s mind-changing i.e. often opinion of writer becomes opinion of a reader. In fact, I considered them as a reliable source of information for a very long time as well.

To start with, I’d like to comment on the list of disadvantages they’ve made:

1. (Xenon flash is not adequately powerful) – what??!! Did any of the competitors introduce anything better than that?? The Xenon Satio offers is far better than any LED. In fact, Satio has both LED and Xenon. Did SE do commit a crime by giving as a superb feature?! If there wasn’t Xenon, they would complain it’s not there… Xenon is exactly the same as in C905, so there shouldn’t be anything to be disappointed about, and definitely nothing to be called a disadvantage.
2. (The S60 5th edition UI isn’t to the best in class standards) – This one is just ridiculous. SE has developed the best Symbian UI so far. It’s breathtaking. The best interface I have ever used and it is a thing that has amazed me about Satio the most.
3. (No 3.5mm audio jack or a standard USB port) – It’s hard to argue with this one, I think it’s a matter of personal preference. Personally I prefer fast port much more. There are many reasons for it – one port instead of two, no need for rubber cover, compatible with all Sony Ericsson accessories (I use it with HPM-90 which I couldn’t use with X1 which had 3.5mm jack) and it doesn’t get itchy with time. Mini-USB port isn’t designed for frequent use and goes itchy when used daily for charging (like in X1). Ok, I know, there are some minuses as well… e.g. incompatibility with come universal devices or long cable when using your own earphones (I managed to overcome this problem though 🙂 ). Once again, it’s a matter of preference really.
4. No DivX or XviD support out-of-the-box – this one is just stupid. Competition (based on same hardware) is using no more than Real player to play these files. Their generic players doesn’t support them either. My question is, how long does it take to install a player you want on Symbian? 1 min?? How can such a thing be called a disadvantage. For Samsung and LG, DIvX and XviD support is no more than fool marketing,
5. No smart or voice dialing – I cannot really argue with this one, as I don’t use it personally.
6. Playing flash videos in the browser easily depletes the available RAM – I haven’t really experienced this problem so far. But how can this be a disadvantage?  I mean, how could this problem be solved? Satio has generous 256MB of RAM. It really is huge for a mobile phone. And your clip would have to be reeeealy long to fill that in. Again, did SE commit a crime be giving us a lovely YouTube app. ? If it wasn’t there, again, there wouldn’t be complain…
7. No office document editing (without a paid upgrade) – This one is just disgusting black marketing. SE did give use free partial license for MS Office reader. No editor, as this would significantly increase Satio price, and that is what SE would not want. Anyway, that was another favor from SE, why should we complain? Again, if it wasn’t there at all, there would be no complain…
8. No stereo speakers – this is the only one that’s reasonably fair. Stereo speakers would be nice, however I don’t think it’s essential, it’s actually a rare feature. Nevertheless, the speaker on Satio is one of the better ones I’ve heard and definitely outstanding for it’s size.
9. No digital compass (magnetometer) this one is most ridiculous out of all! Is that a standard (or even useful?!!) feature??!! How can such a thing be called a disadvantage??!!

GSMArena has shown a huge lack of professionalism.  They either meant to be biased and do some black marketing, or because of lack of disadvantages they decided to create some to look unbiased. Either way, I think it’s ridiculous. If a source of information wants to be reliable (that’s the only way to become prestigious), it should play with it’s readers in that way.

The rest of their review is quite sensible and I think I would agree with MOST of it. There are 2 things I’d like to point out. One is sound quality. Again, complete lack of professionalism… How can they call disturbed frequency response a lack in quality??!! When it comes to actuall quality, Satio is the best in the league.  Besically they have reduced the bass a little bit (low frequencies) and boosted the highs for clarity. This setting is perfectly matched with bundled HPM-77, which suffers from a bit too strong bass. For most people, Satio will be the best thing they have ever listened to. BTW, frequency response can be easily changed with firmware update, as it’s not hardware related. It’s no more than a form of equalisation. Also, I am sure we will see equaliser in Satio soon enough.

Last thing I’d like to comment on is picture quality, or rather it’s comparison with Pixon12. I won’t ever forgive them saying that Samsung won, even by a small margin. In what way is it better?! These so called ‘vibrant’ colours, are no vibrant, but oversaturated! And os unatural. Satio colours are very exact. And can easily be oversaturated with some PC software when require. But of course, when put next to Samsung they look washed out… It’s a shame to see how low GSMarena has fallen…

Symbian Exchange and Exposition 2009 – UPDATE

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 :D). 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! 😛

Accessories review partially delayed

I am sorry, but I have to partially delay a review of Satio accessories. That is because I don’t have any decent camera with video capabilities around. I tried to use friend’s LG Viewty, but that device was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo horrible, that I am still in a deep shock (well, it was LG after all…).

For now however, I will to a word description of some accessories and how do they work with Satio 🙂

First of all…

Desk stand CDS-75:

A very simple stand with elegant black finish. Has  a polished aluminum finish. Satio sits in it very well, and also looks very well. Most importantly, Satio is always close to you, not somewhere under the desk… Because of that, it’s very ease put Satio on it and sooo… charge it 🙂 It makes it so simple to make sure your Satio battery is full when you’re leaving your home. BTW, while Satio is sitting there nicely and charging, you can always do something else, e.g. sync with a PC or listen to music. As I said, that stand is VERY well engineered and very simple. Definitely a must have!

HPM-90 Headset

If your are like me and your phone is not always in your hand when on the way, but you would still like to listen to your favorite music, HPM-90 is a solution for you. It is not listed as compatible with Satio, but works like a treat! All controls work perfectly and moreover, all track names etc are shown on the OLED screen, so you ‘got it under control’ 🙂

ITC-60 Video TV-out cable

A must have! It’s as simple as it’s name! Just connect it to your TV, and enjoy everything you see on the Satio screen on a bigger screen. The resolution is nHD, unless the resolution of the image/movie is higher i.e. all menus are nHD, while pictures and videos are at higher resolution. It is also completely lagless. Perfect to show your pictures and clips, but also to enjoy Satio games e.g. Asphalt 4 HD on a big screen! 🙂 Another must-have!

Video viewing stand IM920

This is definitely not a must have. It’s not as well engineered as the others I’ve recommended. Feels a bit itchy and is not very stable, however, as always from Sony Ericsson, it’s of high quality. If you want to watch a movie on it, it’s worth having it around, but it’s rather useless when on the way. It makes it up however as a micro-SDHC card reader 🙂

CPP-100 battery pack

This is also a bit of disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, the concept is brilliant, outcome is just good. Works like a treat, but only has 650mAh capacity (2/3 of Satio capacity).  And that would be ok, if it was small, but it’s not. It’s much bigger than I expected. At this size I’d expect at least 2000mAh. Nevertheless, it’s work having in you bag/backpack, particularly when going away. It is simply ‘only good’, but recommended. However again, not a must have. It is however a must have if apart from a Satio, you also have IS800/DS980/DS205 bluetooth headsets, as it can charge them as well! 🙂

Finally, I wanted to mention highly desired InvisibleShield. This for a change was not developed by Sony Ericsson, but by ZAGG. Personally I think it a complete waste of money. At least mine was wasted. It’s very difficult to put it on perfectly. It took me 2 hours to do so, and because it took so long, a little piece of dust got inside, so I had to take it of. I also want to ask that your Satio looks no way near as nice as without InvisibleSheild. However you wouldn’t look as it, it’s just a foil, and it’s not perfectly flat. Personally I have my Satio without any protection now (caring case on the way 😛 ) and I keep it in my pocket. And I don’t have a single scratch so far. Screen and everything else are absolutely perfect. But I generally care about my thing and I am being careful. After all, my advice is simply… don’t buy InvisibleShield, unless you’re VERY likely to scratch your phones heavily (e.g. it happened to you many times before). Well, it’s not that horrible when on and could prevent your Satio to look far more horrible 😛 So for most, not recommended…

I hope this helps 🙂

Pics and videos will be added with time, I suppose it will happen on Tesday 🙂

GAMING on Satio

I have to make something clear in your mind – Satio ws not intended for heavy gaming, and at the moment, there aren’t very many ‘special’ games – i.e. ones that any other device could not run.

Today I will describe 3 best ones:

The very best, in my opinion, is bundled Labirynth. The game is very hard and tricky, but really pleasant to play. Graphics is very good, even though rather static. It has full nHD resolution (it’s crystal clear). It features some nice 3D effect, which I like a lot. Accelerometer is VERY responsive, initially I thought it was a bit too responsive, but now I know there are simply some imperfections in the physics of the game – basically, no friction is modeled and so acceleration seems a bit unnatural. Nevertheless, the game is really good – I could spend hours playing in it! 🙂

The next best game in Asphalt 4: HD. This game is limited to very few devices and is quite decent, however it clearly doesn’t take full advantage of Satio hardware. First of all, the main problem is framerate… Don’t get me wrong, it’s RELATIVELY smooth, but not very smooth. It for example, makes the accelerometer a bit useless, as it’s inaccurate. For this game, I definitely prefer on screen controls.  After all, I really like this game, overall experience is still good. Some nice 3D racing game which you can play on the bus, train, or even a plane. BTW, there is a new version coming out soon, and this one will take advantage of Satio hardware 🙂 ! And it’s stunning! Just have a look 🙂

Game has some stunning graphics, really good framerate and overall experience 🙂  (BTW, initially it will come out to iPhone 3GS, but because of the same CPU and GPU, it will coem to Satio soon after).

Last game I want to mention today is Prince of Persia HD.

This game is somehow disappointing on Satio, particularly because of annoyingly low framerate. I don’t really know why it is so low… It should run much faster. It’s not a problem of multitasking on the phone, as the first 2 games I mentioned today, are working like a treat in all conditions.

Nevertheless,  the game is still relatively nice (and concept was excellent 🙂 ). It has on screen controls, which are responsive, and not hard to use. However still… I wouldn’t particularly recommend action games on touchscreen, unless you really love games 🙂

Finally, I want to say that with all games (where screen is involved), I found the screen very responsive. I didn’t make any mistakes at least 🙂 It was very easy to use on the racing game, and definitely much more accurate than accelerometer 🙂 I will test Asphalt 5 as soon as it comes out though!

Long awaited… BATTERY life review! UPDATE

To start with, I have to tell you that all you have read about battery life is either BIASED, or tested with an unprofessional approach – all new batteries new some treatment, with prolonged charging being the least. Basically, the battery is not full when the phone says so, which is after about 2 hours. I recommend charging for at least 10 hours for the first few times. If you don’t do it, it will take longer for your battery to reach it’s full potential and it’s likely to behave badly in the future (worse than the properly treated one).

Having completed few of these cycles myself, I am confident my battery is fully charged and stores the maximum charge, and so I can tell you how long it lasts and what you can expect from it. However, bear in mind, that some of these are approximations are just… approximations 🙂 Particularly the ones with low usage.

So to start with, I have to tell you that battery level indicator is not controlled by Sony Ericsson software, but by Symbian. This is very crucial. In most Sony Ericsson phones, the battery indicator underestimates the charge left in the battery e.g. if you use your phone heavily for long time, phone estimates battery drainage and when the battery level becomes low and you decide to leave the phone, after few mins the battery level goes back up, by 20, often 30%. Underestimation is a good thing though, as it protects you from losing contact from civilisation! 🙂

Symbian devices are different… In Symbian you don’t get the exact % of battery life. All you see is the battery level indicator on the home screen.  Basically, that indicator says the battery is full for a very, very long time… And that is not true. I’m predicting it does it until the battery level is about 40%. Basically, when you notice your phone battery is not full, start saving, as you don’t have left what it says, but at most half of it.

Ok, so when it comes to actual battery life, in y opinion 1000mAh Lithium-Polymer battery Sony Ericsson has supplied us with is 100% sufficient. It will allow you to use your phone for about 2-3 days of medium use. When you are a type that uses the phone all the time, for taking pictures, calling, listening to music, browsing the internet, then you can expect a full day, but no more than that. Unless to use your phones extremely hardly, you shouldn’t run of of power during the day.

If you use your phone moderately (like me), the phone should last a day and a half (for example I don’t do much calling 😛 ).  Nevertheless, I still recommend charging your phone daily overnight.

Anyway, you shouldn’t run of of power during the day, as most reviewers are suggesting. This is 100% black marketing. And if you really are an extreme user – you watch few movies a day, you shot a lot of videos and you play 3D games all the time, then yes, you will have to carry CPP-100 or a spare battery with you 😛 But that would be the case with ANY device I think.

P.S. Battery life is FAR better than iPhones. Sony Ericsson uses some (unknown to me) software tweaks to improve the battery life. I think everyone will agree they they are the market leader when it comes to battery life.  And I believe there more to it than just high quality Lithium-Polymer batteries (everyone else uses Lithium-Ion). Just look at some mid-range Nokia device, and mid-range Sony Ericsson.. with same battery capacity and also very similar set of features. Sony Ericsson is FEW times better when it comes to battery life, but as I said, I don’t know the details of the tweaks they use 🙂

Nevertheless, once again, Sony Ericsson didn’t disappoint us when it comes to battery life 🙂 (and not only with that 😉 )

UPDATE: I just want to add that I am not a battery saver type, and all my settings, including screen brightness, have been at maximum all the time 🙂

Satio in Public :)

This will be a short one, and will not be as much of a review as all the others. Basically I wanted to say how do people react when seeing Satio.

I think it’s not much of a surprise that it will take long time before Satio will become widely recognisable, like iPhone. I have Satio in Bordeaux colour, and that’s the first factor that grabs everyone’s attention. It’s so unique and the shade of that colour, together with material reflectivity factor etc. is extraordinary. But of course colour cannot be a selling point of Satio, in my case, colour did replace iconic recognisibility 🙂 .

eople then start staring at Satio, and next reaction is ‘WOW, what’s that?’.  I’m letting some of them to have a play at it (of course only the people I know, at least a little bit), and their next reaction is… ‘Is that really made by Sony Ericsson?’. That’s something that I found strange, as I have always been Sony Ericsson lover 🙂 But guess what made me happy the most? That people that were amazed by Satio the most, were iPhone owners! 🙂 Their handsets did look like a kid toy… The thing they liked the most (no… not speed, they are used to that 😛 ) was the interface itself… iPhone interface did bore them with time… Thy loved the use of the interface, just as they loved its looks! I agree, Satio interface is absolutely stunning and soooooo intuitive. Of course then they found out the camera… but feeling a bit embarrassed already, ale they said was just… ‘that’s really impressive’. 12Mpix did make them WOW again though 🙂 Basically, Satio has everything iPhone has, but also has many, many extras and come really unique features, like unmatched camera. BTW, those who tried web browsing said the keyboard is much better than iPhone’s as well 🙂 No comments on browsing experience though, i.e. it must have been the same/similar. So after all, Satio DOES have the ‘wow’ effect. It’s a device with really great future, and it is something you can definitely be proud of 🙂  If Sony Ericsson will continue making devices like this – quality, functionality, ease of use and loads of entertainment, iPone’s iconicity will be dethronised sooner than Apple predicts in their darkest dreams.

Finally, a little advert of Satio… taken by Satio 🙂

Camera review – UPDATE

Today on my way to University, during lunchtime and on my way back, I’ve shot some really nice pictures using Satio. I used many modes and shot pictures at different resolutions.

What I have learnt is that it’s not worth taking pictures at lower resolutions (e.g. 5Mpix), as there is no significant gain in things like noise reduction, and your picture is simply much smaller.

The pictures were taken on a typical London day – cloudy, but not rainy. I think it’s perfect to make unbiased camera test – medium light conditions, as we don’t always have sunny days, do we ? 🙂

I’ve shot the pictures using BestPic mode, using Touch Focus, Panorama (only 1, and first one in my life, so not perfect, but quality is amazing! )

Some of the pictures are taken in Beach/Snow mode, however this didn’t have much effect on sky, I think it did boost greens a bit, but not much.

Only one picture was taken to test the flash (in very poor lighting conditions), and I think the outcome is good.

The one taken on underground station (with a train approaching), is very badly focused – on the darkest point on the picture. This has boosted overall picture brightness a lot (the station is no way near as light 😛 ), but also dramatically increased the noise. I thoughtI would include it as well, just to show what you should not do 🙂

Basically, this is a very amateur review. I am a photography lame. I though some of you guys would like to see what you can get out of Satio even if you don’t have the experience of all the reviewers 🙂

P.S. The only picture I am disappointed with is the ‘Park’ one. The place looked lovely, so my hopes were really high for that one, but I didn’t focus it properly, so the area in the back is blurred (girl in the middle took the focus on 12 Mpix picture 🙂 )

Regarding the videos, I’ve taken 3.

1. Satio hold in one place – busy street

2. Satio hold in my hand, while I was walking

3. Video taken through train window. Will give you some idea of smoothness, but  bear in mind that it was taken through dirty, and reflective window 😛

I hope you’ll like them though 🙂

One more thing I’d like to add. Panorama and Touch focus are my favorite modes so far. Panorama for it’s great quality and ease of use (I really had no idea hot to take such pictures, and my one still looks very good).  Best-Pic is also very good, but only if you have problems with keeping your hand in one place. I didn’t, and all of my Best-Pic looked pretty much the same 😉

Regarding the review part, there’s not much I have to add really. You see it the best on the pictures. Basically, some experience is required to take excellent pictures, but even if you don’t have any experience i.e. for example you don’t focus properly (like me on some pictures) you can still expect some really decent pictures, which are more than good enough for A4 printout.

I am very impressed by the colours of Satio pictures – they are very natural and not oversaturated like Samsung or Nokia (too much saturation looks nice most of the time, but you cannot recover original colours, while with Satio pictures, you can always saturate the colours in post processing).

Amount of resolved details is great too. For example, look at the squirrel on pixel level – virtually 100% clear.

Satio camera is really great, and definitely the best one around. It should easily replace our compact camera most of the time. Well, mobile phones will never replace DSLRs, so it’s not a very good point of reference, but some of the pictures I’ve taken today, e.g. Natural History Museum are good enough to actually branded as DSLR-like 🙂

Video on the other hand, speaks for itself really. Satio is a king of VGA recorders. Videos are absolutely smooth and very clear. The amount of details is outstanding (well, 3.6MBPS bitrate explains it really 🙂 ) BTW, bitrate used to be 4MBPS in earlier firmwares, however I think it was a good step to decrease it, as it saves battery life AND I didn’t notice any decrease in quality 🙂

UPDATE:

I’ve taken 2 night. Both without a tripod and both pretty good. On the galss building you can still see clearly what’s inside, and on the other one you can even read the registration mark 😀 Both pictures are perfectly good for A4 printout. But again, non of them ar artistic or professional in any way 🙂 They are just to test a night mode 😉

Overall design and screen

To start with, I have been really sceptical about Satio design. I didn’t like lack of physical QWERTY keyboard (or actually any physical keyboard). I wasn’t a big fan of the camera cover either. I always considered is as unnecessary, oversized bulk.  How wrong I was! 🙂

When it comes to the camera cover itself, I absolutely love it! It may sound weird, but the mechanism is  pleasant to use, and most importantly, so simple to power-up you camera any time! For those worried about it’s opening in the pocket… didn’t happen to me so far! 😛

However the thing I was most surprised about when it comes to Satio, is typing. The generic on-screen QWERTY keyboard is absolutely outstanding (especially with the new, modern skin 🙂 ). It is very accurate (I didn’t make a single mistake so far…) and with a vibration feedback, it gives a really nice experience! I do type quite a lot, and Satio keyboard absolutely pleases me and I think that physical one would actually be unnecessary bulk.

Next thing I should mention is the ‘built’ itself. Satio gives you 100% premium feel. Materials are of very high quality, but are light. The phone itself weights only 126g, but it’s heavy enough to feel sturdy. And there are no moving parts at all. There’s absolutely nothing in Satio that would feel or look cheap. It has been very well engineered.

The screen itself is excellent. 3.5inch, nHD resolution is only one part of the spec. Manufactured by Sony, is the other part. Sony has always been, and will always be a market leader when it comes to picture quality. Satio only proves it. I’d say the screen is better than on OmniaHD, even though (in theory) older technology is used. The only drawback is that it’s a bit less bright, but it is definitely bright enough, particularly on full settings.

There are only 4 buttons on Satio, and all are very solid and responsive. They are not fiddling around at all.

Finally, when we’re considering it’s shape, I’d say it’s perfectly design. Feels really great in hand (even though I agree on pictures it doesn’t look like it). In my opinion it has been very well engineered. I find holding it much more pleasant than iPhone for example, even though its a bit bigger (and maybe because of that ? 🙂 )

Media Bar: Video

Video part of media bar is just as excellent as the other two. In sub-menus you’ll find YouTube app., BBC iPlayer, Videos (all files), Videos (shot by Satio) and Podcasts.

YouTube app works excellent and gives you almost full YouTube functionality. Definitely much better experience than mobile version of YouTube website. It is also important to remember that it’s very easy to access the Media Bar, so this app. should be the way to go most of the time, as I’d say it’s a fair bit quicker to access it than through the web browser.

BBC iPlayer works great too! You can watch any available podcast or listen to any internet radio. Works like a treat!

Video sub-menu let’s you access all the video files on you Satio. Of course, as with everything else, 100% smooth and fast kinetic scrolling is enabled. Videos are sorted in an alphabetical order. Viewing experience is amazing! 3.5inch 16:9 screen does it’s job! Colours are vivid, playback is smooth and crystal clear when watching good bitrate/resolution clip. I’d say Satio eliminates a need for another device – portable DVD player 🙂

Browsing camera videos is very similar, however this time you have a preview of the video included.

When it comes to podcasts, I don’t actually have any in my library yet, so I can’t really tell you it’s functionality, but the menu itself looks just as promising as everything else in Media Bar 🙂

PLAYNOW Arena Movies

With Satio, you get 1 year subscription for PlayNow Arena movies. The videos from there look very good on the screen. They are very clear, however not crystal clear. I have just calculated the bitrate, and the one I’ve watched has 0.94MBPS. Do’t get me wrong, it really is excellent, maybe even stunning! 🙂 But having as much power as Satio has, 1.5MBPS for nHD video would have been much nicer (Occasionally, there is some pixelation in high framerate moments). However, I am being very picky here, as even if nothing will be changed, I will still be extremely happy with the quality of the videos, they really are excellent! And hey.. they are free! 🙂

Finally, I wanted to say a little bit about video formats and resolutions. The best format that supported by Satio GENERIC player is .mp4. It is a very good format, as you can get good quality video at conservative bitrates, however it will force you to do conversion most of the time. The maximum resolution the GENERIC player can play is VGA. This is due to Symbian S60V5 limitations. On devices like iPhone 3GS, OmniaHD or N97, you cannot open anything above VGA either (with the generic players). Playback of higher resolution movies is possible with 3rd party player. The one I recommend is CorePlayer. The problem is, that at the moment, it doesn’t support S60V5 operating system. A new version, 2.0, is cooming later this year, and it should have all the goodies you can possibly imagine 🙂

If you want some decent, free converter for Satio, that would prepare your movies to work (and look stunning!) on Satio, I recommend Handbrake, which you can download from here:

http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

It supports most of popular format (except .wmv). All you have to do is to change the output format to .mp4 and change the resolution of output video to 640 x 352 (in order to do that you have to set anamorphic to NONE). The default bitrate is 1500kbps, which is exactly what I recommend, so you don’t have to change anything! Default audio codec is .acc at Dolby ProLogic 2.0 at 160kbps, so also excellent. You really don’t have to change anything. Videos with these settings will look absolutely stunning and crystal clear on your Satio! 🙂

Media Bar: Photo

Accessing the Picture menu is just as easy – through the Media bar shortcut on the main screen.

It is a bit different to the picture viewing shortcut at the top of main screen (4th position) – it is more advanced. Here you have option to view your Latest Photos, Camera Album, Photo Tags, We Albums and all Pictures.

The first menu lets you see you pictures full screen and scroll through them from left to right (kinetic scrolling). What’s important, you can easily zoom in and out at any stage. My favorite menu.

Camera Album divides your pictures into groups (Albums 😛 ) . Default one is a division my months. You see how many pictures are there in each group. When you press on any album, you see a preview of all pictures – little squares. You see 3 x 4 of them in portrait and 4 x 2.5 in landscape. Of course, you can scroll down using kinetic scrolling. The menu is very useful if you have very many pictures and you are looking for a particular one.

Photo tags menu shows you pictures that you have tagged earlier and Web Album let’s you access your albums from services like Picasa (default). Very useful shortcuts as well 🙂

Final one, Pictures, let’s you browse through ALL image files on the phone. There are 1000s of them. All the icons for sat-nav, emoticons etc! Well, I am not sure if it’s that useful, but it’s always good to have a lot of options 🙂