292% growth in SE smartphone sales

Canalys reports in its latest smart phone market report that Sony Ericsson smartphone sales gre by 292% year-on-year growth in its smartphone sales. Incredible isn't it?

Sony Ericsson successfully delivered its first Android-based devices at the end of the quarter, but its boost in volumes came instead from its Symbian platform products, the Vivaz and the Satio, which performed well in APAC and EMEA.

Via: se-blog

Equalizer App for Satio and Vivaz

There were a lot of people clamouring for this, including me. Guess what? Sony Ericsson has finally heard our pleas. One of the key feature missing on both the Satio and Vivaz was a built-in equalizer, hence a team of SE developers have come up with a fix for it.

For most markets there is now a free application called “Equalizer” available on PlayNow in the music category under applications. This equalizer will give you the following different options: Off, Classical, Jazz, Dance, Party, Pop, Rock, Spoken Word, Loudness, Mega Bass and Treble Boost. And it's free of course!

The  Equalizer  is a separate app - it does not integrate into the music player (you can't access it from the Options menu in the music player), so each time you want to change the equalizer setting you need to switch to the app. However, the good thing is that the setting will persist even after you exit the app, or even after you restart the phone. It's a system wide thing - so it'll  work for all installed players, 3rd party apps etc.

And here's a video of the Equalizer in action:

Via: SE Product Blog

Satio update enables WVGA video recording

The Sony Ericsson Satio is geared for another major update, which should bring over WVGA (864 x 480 pixels) video recording, an  upgrade from the current VGA ( 640x480) capabilities. 

The list of changes include:


- Direct Facebook and YouTube uploads from the media UI
- Better integration of threaded messaging 
- DLNA support for easy transfer of audio and still pictures ( video is not supported)
- Various UI improvements to improve performance ( No confirmation yet on whether Kinetic scrolling is enabled)
- Facebook App preloaded in the firmware.

Timing on the update is however different for different markets and operator branded versions. The first ones should start to come up this weekend and then continue over the coming week. However it might differ slightly between markets as some kits might need approval from operators and can therefore take some more time.

You can check if an update is available here:
www.sonyericsson.com/update

Via: SE Product Blog

Navigation on the Satio

Here's a nice demo video showing the navigation app on the Satio. I love this phone! :)

Via: se-blog.com

Sony Ericsson Satio Review

My friend Michell Bak at se-blog.com has posted an extremely detailed review of the Sony Ericsson Satio.

There’s no doubt the Satio is a good sign of change at Sony Ericsson and perhaps a glimpse at what’s to come, not only from Sony Ericsson but all the manufacturers.The camera is undoubtedly one of the prime features of the Satio and I reckon many people would buy or consider buying the phone purely because of the camera. I’ll admit that it was one of my primary reasons for getting the Satio, despite having a much, much better professional grade dSLR – having a decent camera on you at all time is something you’ll end up appreciating. Another positive side of the Satio is its media functionality, which is without a doubt among the best of its class. Sony Ericsson’s Media application works brilliantly, and although it lacks a few features (which will hopefully be added in future firmware revisions!), I would reckon it makes up for it on speed and user friendliness.

Read the entire review of the Sony Ericsson Satio