Since the sumptuous unveiling of their 12-megapixel camera phone - then known as the Idou - the Sony Ericsson Satio has symbolised a genuine effort to bring the best of both worlds to consumers.

Combining a top-end camera with smart phone capabilities should make the Satio the ideal handset for those looking to step up their mobile to something special, but is this marriage of Symbian and super-snapper a success? Let’s find out.

Design And Specs

The Sony Ericsson Satio takes strong design cues from dedicated cameras when it comes to form factor. The slender form is immediately betrayed by a huge sliding cover ‘concealing’ the 12 megapixel lens, whilst the Satio is besieged with an array of camera buttons down the right side of the device.

These keys are primarily for switching between settings but also are used to access phone features – for example, the volume rocker doubling as the camera’s digital zoom. It serves to make the phone look a little busy, but the tapered edges at the top and bottom manage to regain an air of quality.

The piano black (in our case, also available in red) accented with silver looks very sleek, but feels a tad plasticky in terms of build quality and the handset did seem to become a bit of a fingerprint trap when holding the phone, both on the screen and the bodywork. Pretty, but a little impractical on a daily basis…

The 3.5 inch display takes up most of the Satio’s real estate of the front of the device, with three discreet buttons at the bottom for ‘call answer’, ‘call end’ and ‘menu’ making for a sleek and minimal look from this angle at least…

The camera is undoubtedly the Satio’s party piece, and the handset is ready to rock out of the box. The Satio is well known for being one of the few phones to pack a 12-megapixel lens, and the generous 8GB of memory allows for thousands of photos at even the highest settings.

However, the camera is equally capable at lower resolutions, as the range of tweaks to exposure settings and shooting modes are enough to bring out the perfect photo.

Smile detection, touch focusing, macro mode, image stabilizers, white balance…the Satio’s camera credentials certainly cannot be disputed. There is also a ‘BestPic’ mode where the Satio automatically tailors lighting and aperture settings in an attempt to take a great photo, regardless of who is taking it…

Uploading images is a seamless process, where photos can be fired off to Picasa or the blog of your choice in a couple of taps. A great addition, and which pictures this good, you'll want everyone to see them.

Multimedia

The Sony Ericsson Satio isn’t just a Cybershot device however, and with a smart phone operating system acting as the master of ceremonies, the Satio also has a good crack at being a multimedia powerhouse.

Despite running on Symbian S60, an OS made famous by many an N-series Nokia, Sony Ericsson has done such a good job in customizing it that you wouldn’t notice…almost.

The home screen provides access to the web, photos, music and favourites in only a couple of instinctive swipes, and the preset links to the big names – YouTube, Facebook and the like – make getting to grips with the Satio a cinch.

Cracks start to appear when getting below the surface, and the shortcomings in Symbian become apparent when navigating menus. The age-old issue of Symbian inconsistencies (a confusion of single and double taps, iPhone style touch navigation switching to Windows-style scroll bars without warning) become even more apparent with the Satio’s otherwise great top-level user interface, and the unresponsive touchscreen does little to aid matters.

The media player is pure Sony, a system with shades of the Playstation 3’s Cross Media Bar enabling easy navigation between images and music files, and also bringing a bit of visual panache to proceedings with animated transitions and flourishes. Actually watching media on that screen is a joy, as the 3.5 inch display comes into its own without blurring, stuttering or bleaching on even the most frantic scenes in our test video.

One feature that is noticeable in its absence is the lack of a 3.5mm headphone port, an almost unforgivable omission considering Sony Ericsson managed to include one on the W995, and their now mandatory inclusion on anything daring to call itself a true multimedia device.

We are over using proprietary headphones with devices such as this, and that factor combined with the slightly disappointing dearth of supported media formats leaves a bit of a black mark in the Satio’s copy book.

Nevertheless, the Satio as a camera phone is almost peerless, and that fact only makes us wish that it was equally strong in other departments. The choice of using Symbian as a platform was a bold one, with the app support and added functionality puts the Satio firmly above mere feature phone status.

Connectivity

Messaging is where vintage Symbian rears its head, and the variety of input methods are a decent antidote to the resistive display's issues. The ability to use either a full QWERTY or a 12 button keypad to hammer out texts is nice, whilst the phone takes a little bit to get up to speed when moving from landscape to portrait. E-mail and all forms of messaging are ably supported, if in a slightly workmanlike manner.

Surfing the web is handled by the Symbian browser, competent for the odd search but lacking alongside in speed and feel alongside alternatives like Opera, as well as proving difficult to constomise as the Satio's ‘Favourites’ tab uses it by default.

Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS connectivity are available as standard, cementing the Satio as a great device on paper but definitely sucking the battery life by a huge amount when used more than sparingly.

Calling quality is competent, but we noticed that texts took a little longer than normal to be sent and received…an odd issue that seemed to sort itself out after a little persuasion.

So whilst it excels as a camera and impresses as a multimedia device, it is strangely pedestrian as an actual phone!

Verdict

The Sony Ericsson Satio comes so close to being a perfect muti-purpose gadget without looking like it was designed by a committee of heartless machines or a cripplingly expensive price tag.

Whilst making a couple of missteps in crucial departments, the Sony Ericsson Satio’s compact form factor, impressive user experience and peerless camera make it a unique device, and proof that you can have an excellent handset that doesn’t specialize…as long as it does everything pretty well.