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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.
Sony Ericssons Satio and Aino
The Sony Ericsson Satio puts an emphasis on its 3.5-inch screen with a 16:9 widescreen format. Originally introduced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February as the Idou, Satio features a “full touch media menu,” as the company describes it. Tap your feature of choice from among five standby panels, and begin watching movies or TV, listening to music, surfing the Web or taking photos with the 12.1-megapixel camera.
Satio runs the Symbian operating system, includes an MP3/AAC music player, offers the gamut of messaging options, has a memory of 128 MB, plus a microSD slot, and offers connectivity options include Bluetooth, TV-out and Wi-Fi. A-GPS with Google Maps and turn-by-turn navigation is also included.
Satio supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS/HSDPA 850/900/2100, measures 4.4 x 2.1 x .5 inches, weighs 4.4 ounces and will come in color choices of Black, Silver and Bordeaux.
Last but not least is the Sony Ericsson Aino, which includes both a keypad and an intuitive touch user interface.
With its 3-inch screen with a 240 x 432 pixel resolution, Aino emphasizes its easy access to television and gaming.
Over the Internet or a local network, users can access their Playstation3 and its media using Aino’s Remote Play software, originally developed for PSP.
Aino also offers Media Home, an application that pulls media content from a user’s desktop to the Aino over a Wi-Fi connection, using Media Go – a multimedia management software from Sony.
In the U.K., Italy, France, Spain and Germany – likely candidates for the devices’ launch – Aino can access PlayStation 3’s PlayTV service, enabling users to watch, pause and record like television from free channels.
Aino includes the same music player as the Satio and the Yari, features an 8.1-megapixel phone, offers Web browsing and all popular messaging options, as well as A-GPS functionality.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are included among the connectivity options, and Aino works over GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/2100 and UMTS/HSPA 850/900/1200 networks and will come in either Obsidian Black or Luminious White.
Pricing information for all three models has yet to be released.