Sony Ericsson U1 (Satio) Review
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Review written by Michell Bak on December 24th, 2009
First announced by the concept name of Idou, the Sony Ericsson U1 (Satio) is the manufacturer’s first attempt with the Symbian S60 operating system – and what a marvelous début it is! The Satio is one of the best and most competent all-round multimedia device on the market right now, and that’s one heck of a title considering this is Sony Ericsson’s first Symbian S60-based handset.
In addition to this the Satio is Sony Ericsson’s first full touch device under the Entertainment Unlimited umbrella, featuring only a limited selection of physical hardware keys for the most essential tasks and a large 3.5-inch touch screen capable of displaying millions of colours.
Being the Entertainment Unlimited flagship device, the Satio combines the best of both worlds in multimedia. Some would call it the convergence device of the Cyber-shot and Walkman brands.
I’d also like to mention the content of the sales package, which in itself actually looks rather dull and not worthy of a product of this class. I’m guessing this is part of Sony Ericsson’s commitment to the environment and that they’re doing their part in saving the world by using these rather minimalistic sales packages. Anyway, the sales package is not the important thing – what’s in it, on the other hand, is. Although this may differ from your experience, my retail unit came with the following:
- Sony Ericsson U1 (Satio)
- Battery (BST-33, 1000 mAh)
- Micro SD card, 8 GB
- Standard charger (CST-75)
- Headset (HPM-77)
- USB cable (DCU-65)
- Micro SD card adapter (CCR-80)
- Stylus
- Quick guides
Notice that there’s a limited selection of documentation in the package and that there’s no software CD included. This is because everything you need is on the micro SD card and you can easily plug it into your computer with the supplied adapter or USB cable. On the memory card you’ll find the Sony Ericsson PC software, including the rather brilliant PC Suite and Media Go, and you’ll also find user guides and such.
Design and Size
Design-wise the Satio is perhaps one of Sony Ericsson’s most simple and elegant phones. Its clean front consists of a large display and only three buttons at the bottom. Two of these are for calls and the third is the menu key, which also doubles as a shortcut to the taskbar when holding it for a few seconds. There’s naturally also a front facing camera for video calls, as well as a light sensor that automatically adjusts the screen backlight. And now for one of the most awesome features – it’s got a blinking status LED, too! If you’re an avid fan of Ericsson and have been in the game since the beginning of time, you’ll most probably love the status LED that blinks in different colours depending on the status of the phone, i.e. when the battery is low (blinking red), you’ve got unread messages or you’ve missed a call (blinking green). It’ll also let you know when it’s charging (solid red) and when it’s fully charged (solid green).
The Satio is a bit on the large side when it comes to physical dimensions. It measures 112 x 55 x 13.3 (16) millimetres and weighs in at a good 130 grams including the battery. Generally speaking I haven’t found the size of the phone an issue in everyday use, but it is larger than the average handset and that’s something you should definitely be aware of – please refer to the illustration below for a size comparison between the Satio and three other popular phones (from left: X2, Aino and W995). The weight is most appropriate and I wouldn’t want to see it any lower, else it would feel like a cheap toy or something like that.
It’s available in three colour variants – black, bordeaux and silver. No fancy names for the Satio colour variants, eh! I’ve handled the black and silver variants and I think both of them are stunning. I wouldn’t be surprised if that goes for the rather bold variant in bordeaux as well.
The build quality of the phone is absolutely brilliant and, honestly, unlike anything else I’ve tried from Sony Ericsson – and I’ve had and tried a lot of Sony Ericsson phones! It feels rock solid and despite being made of plastic it’s incredibly sturdy. I haven’t experienced any creaks from heavy usage on a daily basis. I can’t even get it to creak if I try my best. Another thing that really struck me about the build quality is the fantastic feel of the sliding camera cover. I’m having difficulty finding words to describe it – ‘perfect’ just doesn’t seem to cut it. It’s spring-loaded, rock solid and not at all wobbly.
The right side of the phone sports the usual array of camera dedicated keys. You’ve got the shutter release key, mode keys and zoom keys. The latter naturally double as volume keys in the appropriate applications.
The left side of the handset holds an unusually useful key/screen lock slider, the standard Fast Port connector and a micro SD memory card slot.
On the top of the phone we’ve got the power button, which doubles as a shortcut to switching profiles, and just next to it is the phone’s mono speaker. At the bottom of the phone you’ll the keystrap eyelet.
The back of the handset very much resembles that of a digital compact camera. It’s clean and the sliding camera cover clearly makes a statement about what kind of phone this is. When you slide open the protective camera cover you’ll be facing one of the primary selling points of this phone – the camera. As you can see from the photos below, it’s equipped with a proper xenon flash and an LED flash for video recordings.
The battery can be accessed from the back as well. You can easily remove the battery cover and replace the battery, if needed. The battery is a rechargeable Lithium-Polymer BST-33 with a capacity of 1000 mAh. It’s got plenty of juice for a feature phone, but unfortunately the Satio has a higher power consumption than a feature phone, thus depleting the battery quicker. My average is about one and a half days of heavy use, which could probably be translated to about two or three days of regular use. That’s a rough estimate though.
Sony Ericsson claims it’s capable of staying up and running for 340 hours of standby or be good for almost five hours of talk connected to a 3G network (HSPA and UMTS). The figures are higher when connected to a 2G network, especially talk times, but honestly… With a multimedia phone like this it’s impossible to get even close to that kind of results.
You’ll also find the SIM card slot placed near the battery. I’m sorry to say that it’s one of the most weird installments I have seen and I somehow feel it’s a bit fragile, so careful on that one! Hopefully you won’t have to swap SIM cards frequently as I honestly don’t think it would last long if you did.
Display
The TFT touch screen on the Satio uses the resistive display technology, which is both a good and a bad thing when compared to the capacitive display technology. The good thing is that you can use a stylus or something similar on the display – this could mean that you can use the phone whilst wearing gloves. resistive screens, however, are generally not as responsive as capacitive screens and although this is also the case with the Satio, it sports the most responsive resistive display I have ever tried. I barely have to touch the surface of the display before it reacts to my touch.
The display is a rather large one. Actually the largest yet from Sony Ericsson in a mobile phone. Its diagonal measures 3.5 inches and the size makes it very pleasant for watching pictures and videos or browsing the web on the phone. In addition to that comes the 360 x 640 pixel resolution, also known as nHD, which ensures a crisp screen capable of showing great levels of detail. The screen can display up to 16.7 million different colours and is one of the first products from Sony Ericsson capable of doing that. Sure, it’s nice and all – but who’s counting? I can barely make a difference between 18 and 24 bits anyway, and I’m generally a strong believer of the concept of quality over quantity.
Enough with numbers and whatnot. The important thing is how is performs and I must say that I performs very well. Colour rendition and contrast is excellent and far beyond anything else I’ve seen for a touch screen handset. Admittedly I haven’t seen the display on the Samsung i8910 (Omnia HD) in the flesh, which is regrettable as I think it’s probably one of the only phones with a display better than the one on Satio.
It gets a bit worse when stepping outdoors, but the display is still easily readable and thus far I haven’t encountered any problems using it in direct sunlight. Quite surprisingly, actually.
As mentioned previously on, the Satio has a light sensor just above the display which automatically adjusts the display backlight to fit the surroundings. This means that the phone will dim down the backlight when you’re in a dark area to prevent you from getting blinded by the display light.
Positives and Negatives
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Merry Chrismas, Miz.
Nice review, thanks and Merry christmas !
New Review
very nice review mizz, I read the whole article. My brother got a Satio for Christmas as well and I’m quite jealous. Thanks for the review mizz, and I wish you a merry merry Christmas.
hey mizz, one question:
in ur x10 preview u wrote:
“Michell Bak says:
November 25, 2009 at 7:08 pm
1. The display looks absolutely brilliant. It has to be the best display I’ve seen on any mobile device, period. I’ve handled the iPhone, HTC HD2 and the Samsung Omnia HD (i8910), if you’d like a few non-SE references.”
and in this review u write:
“I haven’t seen the display on the Samsung i8910 (Omnia HD) in the flesh”
whats up with that ? has SE told u to write positive on x10′s screen?
Yeah, I can see how that sounds odd. The thing is that I started writing this review back in October, and back then I wrote the first parts – design and display. At that time I had yet to see the display of the Omnia HD.
I did however manage to see it in the time between October and the X10 event, hence the comment in the preview.
Hope that clears things up
Wow, what an excellent and beautiful review! Thanks and Merry Christmas
great review Miz & merry christmas
that was an excellent review !!!! good job !!!
can you publish picture samples of satio ???
i really want to see the quality of a 12MP picture !!!
can i ask a favor ????
can you also make a review about aino ???
michell, this is the most stunning review of a phone i’ve ever read in my life!!! so marvelous! it makes me want to have a satio (although i am waiting for either the X2 or the X10) — merry christmas and happy new year to you, by the way! can i ask which of the four (4) phones do you think would be the best for you: the Aino, Satio, X2 or X10? thanks!!!
Michell, this is truly an excellent review and it was a joy to read. The only thing I have to add are a few possible additions to the Recommended Applications list. Firstly, you listed Opera mini, which is a favorite for most Symbian users. Opera mini is a Java Application, and it runs run well on most S60 5th Edition phones. Opera has just released their second Beta of Opera Mobile 10 for S60, which is a native Symbian Application. Although it is still in Beta, Opera Mobile 10 is both smooth and stable. It adds a decent amount of eye-candy with nice animations, and the interface is well optimized for touch input. Most who have used it would consider it to be a major improvement over Opera Mini. Virtually every Symbian focussed blog has a preview or review of Opera Mobile 10 available so I won’t go into any more detail. Secondly, I would highly suggest GameLoft’s selection of “HD Games.” These are a selection of games which take advantage of the Open GL 2.0 capabilities of next generation chipsets like the OMAP 3430 found in the Satio. Of the nine titles available, the majority of them were written specifically for the Samsung i8910. While I have not gotten confirmation from any users, those games written for the i8910 should be fully compatible with the Satio, since both phones are running the same chipset, same OS, and have the same screen resolution. In fact, Asphalt 4, one of the games you mentioned as coming preloaded with the Satio, is one of these “HD Games.” There are so few S60 games which take advantage of the hardware graphics acceleration available on phones like the Satio or i8910. Those few that are available including those from GameLoft, are of exceptional quality.
http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2009/12/opera-updates-mini-and-mobile-browsers.html
http://www.gameloft.com/hd-games/
http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2009/10/gameloft-brings-hd-gaming-to-the-samsung-i8910-hd.html
http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2009/11/gameloft-hd-games-screenshots.html
Man. I love the Satio. I just don’t get why developers don’t release any cool 3d games. i only know of aSphalt 4. I mean the hardware is excellent. Is app coding in Symbian that hard?
I think we all had the info already.
Gnarl gnarl…
Great review though. A bit too late perhaps
hey pux, there are some nice games that do support the 3d acceleration of our chipset (OMAP).
search for following games: “lets golf”, Ferrari GT, Bubble Bash and CSI: Miami … they should all look great on the satio
i8910 user
You’ve done it again, Miz!
Thanks for all the lovely comments.
Regarding the camera samples, I simply cannot edit the page at the moment. I’m thinking that I broke WordPress’ limit of page revisions. I’ll try to fix it soon though.
Super detailed review Miz, HAPPY NEW YEAR~
After month of running R1CA037 my Satio seem have some strange about stable problem usually freeze (take photo and listen music even browse picture gallery which is most simple thing liitle lag while loading picture –*) most of time which my currently unpleasant and during New Year festival certificated centre is close when I try updated via SEUS thing going worse (make me to remove battery almost 20 times this day cuz’ of freeze and very frustrating with it) but also have random running good sometime.
red-eye flash won’t work properly some of my friends found this problem. And totally agreed about PDF which my first annoyance, I buy Satio cuz needed PDF reader
about EQ I won’t mind about that with HPM-77 bundle sound producing quite good and joy to listen (at least better than 3Gs) for me. battery all agreed with average usage up to 3 days easily decrease some brightness though
I hope (CA037 work faster than old one but failed with stable IMHO) next firmware could be better and show off real capability of SATIO se can do it but not sure when they will.
Correction: The Symbian Foundation is not Nokia owned. Nokia is only one of the 10 founding members.
really great review. made me buy the satio!
i want to add two really cool apps that are worth installing:
1. the satio would be almost useless to me without handy shell, a great standbyscreen with all the info and buttons you need (even a bluetooth on/off and sms preview). have a close look here: http://www.penreader.com/s60-3rd-edition-software/de/Handy_Shell.html it’s not free but worth a few bucks! (paragon, you’re welcome for the add!
) after buying you’ll get the download link for touch screen phones.
2. finally a free facebook app that looks pretty cool and has kinetic scrolling. it’s still a beta, so a few bugs to fix, but already works great. check it out at: http://www.symarctic.com/beta/static.php?page=symabook_beta
battery lasts 2.5 days in average use (2 phone calls 5min, 5 texts a day, and screen brightness at 30%), and 3.5 days with the following turned off: gps, wireless, bluetooth, UMTS/3G. in my opinion, that’s not enough for a cool phone like the satio. but the x10 seems to be even worse.
HI there…nice review…wanted to ask,ive imported a few albums from my laptop into my satio…when i checked my satio the pictures are there but they dont come in the albums…meaning the pictures are all mixed up even together with the pictures taken using satio…
how do u import albums/folders of photos into satio? and how do u create albums /folders in the satio itself?
Hi all
very nice review about the satio.
i am facing a problem of downloading fring.
it seems that it is not compatible.
my satio doesn’t have wi-fi….
That’s not possible. Every version of the Satio has Wi-Fi. Are you sure that your handset isn’t branded? Network operators can sometimes be a pain in the ass and disable some features.
HI
Nice review, i need 3Dmark mobile jsr 239 benchmark midlet, how to get it.
if anyone know about the benchmark midlet for jsr 239 please let me know
hi mitchel, i’m a very avid fan of your site. i’d like to ask if you could come up with some other reviews, like the aino, naite, yari or even the xperia x10 or x2? hope we might see it soon
Hey Leslie,
More reviews are coming, but it’s very time consuming to write detailed reviews and because this blog is only a spare time project, I can’t publish as many as I’d like to. I’ve posted a preview of both Aino and X2 though, and there’s a review of the X10 coming up. Still got a Naite with me, so might do a video preview of that. Same thing goes for the T715.
I own this phone, it’s Excellent but only the software is bad
Lot of lags when you are running more than an application
can anyone give me the dimensions of the satio box? I am oversea and I need the box dimensions for UPS delivery.
Roughly 14 x 14 x 7.5 cm
A question to michell, do you think that the 65.000 colours screen of the X10 to the 16 Milion of Satio make a huge diference in the quality? cause i am breaking my head with this 2 phones, i dont know what to buy, i like a screen with many colours but i also like android because of the huge selection of widgets, can you please give me a opinion?
The colours don’t matter
Ok many thanks for the opinion and great review
one of the best reviews till date!
SE for ever!
i just downloaded fring on my sation for skype video call, but my front camera doesn’t seem to work. Can any1 tell how do i activate it?
Thank u.
Questions about sony ericsson SATIO.
1-what is the “internet telephone” option? And how to use it?
2-what is talk now? And how to use it?
Plz any one explain it?
gr8