There is a new Satio software update due soon. Not only should it bring bugfixes and performance improvements, it’s also bringing new features, which I’m glad to see as it proves Sony Ericsson haven’t given up on the Satio yet. Here’s the new features highlights copied from Sony Ericsson themselves:

• Support for WVGA video recording – The already great video recording will be enhanced to fit the wide screen format and hence resolution is also slightly increased to 864 * 480 pixles. (the preset size will still be VGA, user has to change to get WVGA)
• Upload of pictures to Facebook – It will be possible to upload pictures directly from the picture menu you have on the home screen or from the Media UI.
• Youtube video uploading – It will be possible to upload videos to Youtube directly from the Media UI.
• Conversational messaging – “Conversations” will be nicely integrated in the messaging menu in order to easily find and inspire to more conversations with your friends.
• DLNA support – The new software will support DLNA media server for easy transfer of audio and still pictures. (Note that video is not supported)
• UI improvements – On top of above, several minor UI improvements have been done in order to optimize the user experience.
• The Facebook application that is now available on PlayNow for free download will be included in the sw.

I’m impressed with the video resolution upgrade. A lot of people wanted HD video as found in the Vivaz, but that was never going to happen as it would remove a unique selling point of the Vivaz. It also would have been difficult to implement for hardware reasons – the Vivaz has a 720 MHz processor compared to the 600 MHz processor in the Satio. I know the Samsung i8910 has HD video and uses the same 600 MHz processor as the Satio, but it’s been plagued by frame rate issues and audio sync problems. I think the extra 20% processing power is probably necessary. That said, Sony Ericsson could have just left us Satio owners with VGA video, but they didn’t, they increased the resolution and actually improved the handset rather than just fixing broken bits. I suspect it’s a typo in the announcement, 854 * 480 is more likely since that’s still 16:9.

Facebook and Youtube uploading will be greatly appreciated. I know uploading is currently possible by means of the Web Publishing app, but it’s fiddly and involves entering custom email addresses. One touch upload is just the kind of polish that was lacking and we all wanted originally.

Conversations isn’t new, but by default it was buried in Entertainment > Chat > Conversations. Not exactly intuitive. I’m not sure that there’s anything wrong with it, but if they’ve managed to integrate it nicely into a blade in the Messaging app I’d be happy. Sure, I’ll probably still never use it, but that’s out of choice rather than because it was inconvenient before.

DLNA is a good thing, because it’s an international standard and implemented on hundreds of millions of other devices. Don’t know I’ve ever used it… but that doesn’t matter.

I’m certainly intrigued by “UI improvements”. I hope this is the ability to change the active panels like on the Vivaz along with kinetic scrolling, but if I’m honest, I expect it’s not.

Facebook app built in – excellent. This was one of the biggest gripes people had with the Satio, that it advertised Facebook support and didn’t appear to have it. Sure the app has been around for ages, but lots of people never downloaded it or couldn’t find it. Hope it’s not one of the rubbish Java ones however.

I plan on loading this new firmware as soon as I can and letting you all know how it stacks up.

Source.