Sony Ericsson Introduces Yari, Satio and Aino Entertainment Phones

Sony Ericsson will be releasing three new phones early in the fourth quarter of 2009 — though calling up friends is the least interesting thing a person could do with the Satio, Yari or Aino, all of which are likely to debut in Europe before reaching the United States.

The Yari is a Nintendo Wii meets all-around-entertainment phone. It’s the first mobile phone with gesture gaming outside of the Japanese market, according to Sony-Ericsson. Launch an imaginary bowling ball, swing a tennis racket or drive a race car — Yari offers gesture and motion games for playing on or off the screen.

Through Yari’s game carousel, users can access games from their desktop, as well as browse and download content from Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow arena, a site offering music, games, ringtones and wallpapers.  

Users can SMS their location to friends, and should conversations grow dull, a one-button feature called “Music Call” can play a favorite song over the line.

Also included is a feature 5-megapixel camera that includes smile detection, video recording and a video light.

There’s a music player for MP3s and AAC — or, Advanced Audio Coding, which is said to offer better sound quality than MP3 — a Web browser, e-mail, IM, MMS, SMS and Exchange Active Sync.

Connectivity options include A-GPS, Bluetooth and DNLA, which lets devices speak to one another. Yari works over GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/18001900 and UMTS/HSUPA 900/1200 networks. A second version, Yari(a), works over the same GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks, as well as UMTS/HSUPA 850/1900/2100.

Yari measures 3.9 x 1.9 x .6 inches, weighs 4 ounces and its 2.4-inch screen has a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. Included memory is 60 MB, expandable with the included microSD slot, and talk time is up to 10 hours. Available colors will be Achromatic Black and Cranberry White.

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