Sony Ericsson Idou Preview and Video

When the Sony Ericsson Idou (pronounced I Do) does eventually launch, it won’t be called the Idou. Thankfully. Idou is just a code name used to recognise the device whilst it is still in development. Although publicly announced at this year’s Mobile World Congress, the Idou is a long way from being a ready to release handset. In fact, the operating system on the handset, from the new Symbian Foundation, hasn’t even finished being prepared yet. I guess one of the reasons Sony Ericsson announced the Satio Idou at this event is otherwise they would have only had one other device to talk about. Despite the lack of market readiness, the Idou promised enough to keep Congress attendees talking about the device’s potential long after the congress has finished.

The Symbian Foundation, officially announced on June 24th 2008, aims to create a proven, reliable, open and complete mobile software platform. Many big industry names are members of the foundation, including Sony Ericsson, Nokia, LG, Samsung and others. Sony Ericsson, in announcing the Idou, is publicly showing their support for this initiative. But the Idou is going to be big, and popular, not just for the software it runs.

The Idou is the first GSM device with a 12 Megapixel camera. It is only just recently that we hit the 8 megapixel mark, and already Sony Ericsson is pushing on to the next imaging milestone. Sony Ericsson has always had a big say in the development of mobile photography. From their Cybershot range, some truly memorable quality cameras have been released. The 3.2 megapixel K800, the 5.0 megapixel C902 and the 8 megapixel C905, all bringing high quality imaging to mobile devices. We can only wonder how good the Idou will be upon release. Initial information suggests the Idou will come complete with a Xenon flash. This is good news for the camera geeks in the mobile world, who regularly berate cameraphone manufacturers for the lack of a true flash on their devices.

Whilst Nokia seem intent on supplying their handsets with Dual LED flashes, Sony Ericsson see the value of having a Xenon flash. As well as offering a Xenon flash for imaging, the device also offers an LED flash, which can be used to help with low light level video capture. The camera will be equipped with face and smile detection, and can also add geotags to captured images thanks to the built in GPS receiver on the handset.

As well as GPS, the Satio Idou will be equipped with aGPS to aid quick location fixes for network triangulation. Google Maps will be included on the device as standard. Other features we can expect to see include a full media player, for music playback and video playback too. Also included is a stereo FM radio.

All of the major data connections are included; 3G, Dual band HSDPA up to 3.6 Mbps, Class 10 EDGE and GPRS, HSCSD and WiFi 802.11 The device will be DLNA compliant, which is a major boon for people who want to connect their device to their home network but may have lacked the technical know how on how to achieve this with previous devices. DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) is a standard used by many electronic manufacturers to enable end users to share content between devices across a home network. This puts the mobile phone right at the heart of your home network, and will allow you to control playback of media files through your PC or home entertainment system.

Despite all these power packed features, the Sony Ericsson Satio is by no means a large device. Dimensions wise it measures in at just 111mm x 54 mm x 15mm. The screen on the device will be a huge 360 x 400 pixel TFT touchscreen, measuring an impressive 3.5mm point to point, supporting up to 16 million colours. Finally, it is good to see Sony Ericsson moving up in screen quality, from the average QVGA screens they normally offer, which usually only support up to 256,000 colours. There’s no current indication of internal memory capacity on the device, but expansion is available, although with Micro SD cards, not the usual proprietary M2 cards used with Sony Ericsson handsets.

There’s a lot to like about the Sony Ericsson Satio Idou (apart from that silly name!) The device promises a lot; the only hope is that it delivers on what it promises. Times have been hard for Sony Ericsson recently, and if the Idou fails to deliver, it may just be a blow from which they will not recover.

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