Idou gets a new name, meet Satio

The retail name of Idou is no longer a mystery – the Sony Ericsson Satio is how the 12 megapixel full touch 'Multimedia monster' phone will be marketed.The Satio will be Sony Ericsson’s flagship for 2009. It’s the first of a brand new line of phones, namely the Entertainment Unlimited brand. Key features include, the mind-boggling 12.1 megapixel camera with a xenon flash, an active lens cover, touch focus, face detection, the self-explanatory Smile Shutter technology, Smart Contrast, Photo fix, BestPic , Geo-tagging, red-eye reduction, 12x digital zoom and Web Albums. VGA recording at 30fps is included as well.

“With Satio you can enjoy any form of entertainment anytime, anywhere. Whether its music or movies you will never be more than a tap away from your favourite tracks or shows,” said Fredrik Mansson, Market Business Manager at Sony Ericsson. “Just tap directly into your favourite videos and music with the unique full touch media menu, standby panels and music player. Snapping perfect pictures also just got so simple thanks to the 12.1 megapixel camera, intuitive touch focus and Xenon flash. Share them with your nearest and dearest via your social networking site, produce huge prints and you can even comment directly on your images.”

The front is graced by a large 3.5 inch touchscreen, capable of showing up to 16 million colours and sports a 640×360 resolution (16:9). The UI of the Satio features 5 standby panels, which you can switch in an instant. The phone itself runs on Symbian S60 5th edition, which means that there’ll be lots of apps available for the phone once launched.

As a true Walkman - Cyber-shot merger, the Satio has also been endowed with the Clear Bass and Clear Stereo sound enhancement technologies, which further improve the audio output. Speaking of which, you can also use Bluetooth A2DP-equipped headphones to listen to your music. The tracks themselves can be stored on a MicroSD memory card, as those are the ones the phone supports (Yea, the usual M2 is missing). FM Radio with RDS and TrackID - Sony Ericsson’ excellent music recognition service - is also included. On the entertainment side the Satio supports “HD” and 3D games, both Java and, supposedly, non-Java. A Facebook and a YouTube application also come preloaded with the phone.

In terms of connectivity, the phone supports quad-band GPRS/EDGE and tri-band HSDPA. A Wi-Fi and a GPS module reside within the phone’s housing as well. Google maps and turn-by-turn navigation come along with the aGPS feature.

The Satio’s dimensions are pretty decent, measuring 112×55x13.3 mm and weighing 126 grams. What’s cool is that the phone also comes with a charging stand and an 8 gigabyte MicroSD card. Brilliant move Sony Ericsson!