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Japanese-Swedish joint venture Sony Ericsson has finally announced officially its 12.1-megapixel behemoth, the Idou, which is expected to become available on the market in the fourth quarter of the ongoing year under the name of Satio. Not only that it comes with the highest-quality camera out there, but it can also provide users with fast access to their favorite multimedia features through five standby panels on the screen.

“With Satio you can enjoy any form of entertainment anytime, anywhere. Whether it’s music or movies you will never be more than a tap away from your favourite tracks or shows,” said Fredrik Mansson, market business manager at Sony Ericsson. “Just tap directly into your favourite videos and music with the unique full touch media menu, standby panels and music player. Snapping perfect pictures also just got so simple thanks to the 12.1-megapixel camera, intuitive touch focus and Xenon flash. Share them with your nearest and dearest via your social networking site, produce huge prints and you can even comment directly on your images.”
The new Sony Ericsson Satio, unveiled for the first time at the MWC show in Barcelona under the name of Idou, is meant to deliver a wide range of mobile entertainment features to users, including video playback capabilities, video streaming, music playing, FM radio with RDS and support for HD and 3D games. Those who would like to enjoy the entertainment features that Satio offers can find music, movies and games available for download from the PlayNow arena.
The specification list of the new Satio includes a 16:9 3.5-inch widescreen display that boasts a 640 x 360 pixel resolution and support for 16M colors, the 12.1-megapixel camera that features auto focus, face detection, geo-tagging of photos, image stabilizer, Xenon flash, video light and video recording, Bluetooth stereo (A2DP), on-screen QWERTY keyboard, USB mass storage, Wi-Fi capabilities, A-GPS, and speakerphone.
The S60 5th edition Symbian OS-powered handset also sports a wide range of features, including Exchange ActiveSync, Facebook application, support for Google Maps, 128 MB of internal memory and a microSD memory card slot for additional storage space, as well as support for GSM GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS HSDPA 2100 (a variant with support for UMTS HSPA 850/1900/2100 will also surface). Satio measures 112 x 55 x 13.3 mm and weighs 126 grams. It is expected to come to the market in three color variants, namely Black, Silver and Bordeaux.

Japanese – Swedish joint venture Sony Ericsson was somehow expected to come to the market with its own mobile phone based on the increasingly popular Google Android operating system, yet it seems that this won't happen in the near future. The company's chief executive is reported to have said that the company would take its time with the development of such a device, yet no possible time frame for the release of the

device was announced.
As many of you might already know, a wide range of mobile phone makers around the world announced at the beginning of this year plans to come to the market with their own iteration of an Android-powered handset, while also rushing out to see traction from the users, yet Sony Ericsson seems to be a little late at the party.
“It does require a lot of evaluation, as well as a lot of testing, a lot of acceptance from a consumer viewpoint, and there is still some time to go,” Chief Executive Hideki Komiyama told Reuters in an interview. “Looking ahead I think that we see this as one of the important operating systems, there is no doubt,” he also added.
It seems that in the end Sony Ericsson will go for three operating systems for its devices, namely Symbian, Android and Microsoft's Windows Mobile. The company is also expected this year to come to display with a high-end device sporting a 12-megapixel photo snapper, the Idou, which should run under Symbian.
Things are not looking too bright for the phone maker at the moment, as the joint venture has seen great losses in the past few quarters, and posted high losses for the Q1 2009 as well. At the same time, the Swedish company Ericsson was rumored to plan on leaving the joint venture, while Japan's Sony Corp was expected to buy Ericsson’s share.