Although similar to the Nokia N82 from several months ago because of Xenon flash, the SE Satio is Sony Ericsson’s own version of a powerful night camera because of the aforementioned flash feature. This is the new line of Sony Ericsson phones, noted with the shift away from the numerical naming convention to proper nouns.

Sadly, the SE Satio does not come with built in WiFi. It makes up for this with the 12MP camera, face detection, image stabilizer, and of course, the really awesome Xenon flash that takes great photos at night.

[image source from SE Global]

Just came from a huge reunion concert of a popular band here called the Eraserheads. I couldn’t help but notice that amidst the sea of over 20,000 people were the glittering screens of mobile phones and point and shoot cameras taking video. Concert organizers do not allow the public to bring in DSLRs.

It is quite rare for a concert venue to allow these prosumers cameras in, thus making the public opt for less sophisticated forms of video capture like your phone, for instance. I think the market demands some forms of accessories like mini cellphone tripods (actually these do exist but aren’t very stable) or cellphones to come with standardized tripod holes.

Ah the phenomenon that is social media - it is the consumers themselves who are the ones who get to upload these videos and photos faster than traditional media. So why make them settle for the “uglier” cameras? Please, let them in with their DSLRs!

Windows Mobile has paved the way for mobile computing. Being at the forefront of portable OS deployment alongside Nokia’s Symbian powered phones, Windows Mobile, formerly known as “Pocket PC” has allowed for the impossible to happen - Exchange server synchronization, the best line up of portable games, and a wide array of devices that support the operating system.

Despite all the technological advances with Windows Mobile 6 (we’re up to 6.1 now), why do all the cameras that are built into the hardware of any Windows Mobile still so poor in quality compared to the other camera phone offerings in the market? I’ve honestly never seen a WM device that boasts an impressive camera. We’re up to 5MP now with the Samsung OMNIA, and the megapixel count is going through the roof, but I’ve honestly never seen decent print quality photos come out.

Choose your adjectives: pixelated, blurred, out of focus, over saturated (with flash), underexposed (without flash).

My theory as to why this is the case is because most of these devices are outsourced to 3rd party manufacturers and the big brands just slap their branding and home screen on top of them. So there isn’t really much control over some of the multimedia features.

A second theory is that since these devices are targeted primarily to the enterprise market, an ugly camera decreases the chances that top secret company items will be photographed clearly. Hyuk.

What’s the “best” Windows Mobile camera you’ve ever held? What’s up with these???

UPDATE: Alas poor BenQ-Siemens we knew you well. Sadly, BenQ-Siemens is no more. Read more about it here. My friend in retail is now having a much harder time selling off the S88 after the company declared its last hurrah.

The S88 is BenQ-Siemens’ first flagship phone for 2006. It comes in two colors - black and white and from afar borrows a lot from the Sony Ericsson design. I was able to borrow the S88 for a few days and here is my hands on review.

The front of the unit real estate has the regular 0-9 keypad with two menu buttons and two call buttons. At the center is an embedded 5-way joystick that for once, doesn’t hurt my thumb.

The sides of the phone contain the volume control keys on one side and the camera shutter button on the other. I was dissapointed with the camera button because it wasn’t very well constructed: it’s hard to tell if you did a full or half press.

What gladdened me was that BenQ-Siemens applied the Nokia keymap layout (the “0″ is spacebar) for SMS which means that I didn’t have to relearn another user interface for sending SMS.

In a nutshell I was impressed by the improvement in design. The pictures here show the vibrand difference between typical cellphone displays and the OLED screen of thte S88. When I first held it, it seemed like I was holding a dummy unit because the screen seemed like it was plastered on.

Camera

The S88 comes with a built in 2.0Mp Sony lens. I was expecting it to fare in the likes of the k750i but was gravely dissapointed by its slow shutter response. Images on the viewfinder were a bit laggy which makes still night shots a bit hard to do unless you have a really steady hand. Fortunately the S88 also comes with a built-in flash. Here are some samples of the S88’s pictures:

Macro Mode

Normal Mode Focused

Normal Light

Music

The S88 comes with a microSD card. Internal memory houses 20MB of data. So this leaves very little for internal memory music. Now since music is better heard that read about, watch this video.

Wireless Connectivity

Bluetooth beaming was a little slow. The S88 comes with its own sync software. Sadly I was not able to pair the phone with my Macintosh. iSync would recognize it but have no software available yet. I’m pretty sure of the rollout in the next few months though since BenQ-Siemens will be a powerful player in the phone market this 2006.

Availability is set for April 2006 in Asia.

Pros
Bright OLED screen
Loud speakers
Nokia-like button-mapping for SMS

Cons
Camera is a bit slow
Phone UI a bit slow
Does not sync with a Mac (at least now yet)