Sony Ericsson S312 Review

It may come as a surprise to some, but there is a huge percentage of the mobile using market who do not want all singing, all dancing, all doing mobile phones. What they actually want are pretty basic, functional handsets that just ‘do’. More than your basic prepay user, this user wants form, functionality, but overall simplicity. A market that has been well served in the past by the likes of Samsung and particularly Nokia, Sony Ericsson are looking to muscle in on the action with the recently announced Sony Ericsson S312. (also known as the Athena)

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Sony Ericsson S312 reviews

The S312 is a standard candybar design, so typically Sony Ericsson. No-one carries the monoblock look quite as well as Sony Ericsson manage. Very light at just slightly over 80g, the S312 is also very slim, just 12.5mm thick. The TFT screen is the same as that found on the popular K770i, 176 x 220 pixels, supporting up to 256,000 colours, and measuring 2.0 inches point to point. The use of a scratch resistant screen cover is a nice touch, and should help protect the display against the dreaded trouser pocket rub.

Share is a good word to use to describe the main features of the S312. Equipped with Bluetooth 2.0, you can share images, video clips and songs wirelessly and easily with your friends. Another focus of the ‘share’ idea is all built around the handsets’ 2.0 Megapixel camera. The camera quick launches with a press of the dedicated camera button, which is also the button used for capturing images. The camera can be used horizontally, mimicking a standard digital camera, and once captured, images can be uploaded online thanks to the built in photo blogging application.

The camera will also record video, the dedicated camera key doubling up for video usage. It can’t be stressed enough just how easy and simple the imaging capture on the S312 is, which makes it ideal for the market it is aimed at. Another nice touch when the camera is active is the highlighted shortcut icons that are on the 3, 6, 9 and # key. These offer quick access to the most common options, such as turning on the camera light, adjusting the image size and so on. The light is also available for video capture, enabling video capture in low light conditions. If your captured images leave a bit to be desired in the quality department, just run them through the photo fix application, to enhance the quality and then share them with family and friends. Images can also be sent to compatible wireless enabled printers, as the S312 supports PictBridge printing.

Aside from imaging the S312 has a capable music player, with stereo widening and equaliser option. It will play back MP3 and AAC music files; Playnow is available on the handset, which allows you to browse online from a variety of media that you can download directly from the Sony Ericsson site. A quick shout out to my favourite Sony Ericsson application, Track ID, which is also included.

As you might expect, given the market the Sony Ericsson S312 is designed for, extra features such as 3G or HSDPA are not included. The handset has a small amount of internal memory, just 15MB, but there is support for memory expansion via M2 memory cards, up to 4GB in capacity.

Overall the Sony Ericsson S312 is a solid performing mid range handset, and would make an ideal phone for someone upgrading from pay as you go to contract; ideal for the not-so-technically savvy user to get to grips with the joy of image capture and multimedia sharing. Release date Q3 2009