SonyEricsson Aino
 (Review)

Sony Ericsson Aino is an elegant media based feature rich slider with large 3" display, 8 mega pixel camera, unique Remote Play compatibility with PlayStation 3, excellent connectivity options, full-featured navigation capability, enough internal storage and a touch screen advantage.

 The handset has a solid comfortable feel and comes with a great wireless bluetooth headset with a 3.5mm audio jack and a desktop docking cradle that is a boon.

Display & the Touch Interface:
Aino presents a 3 inch display having WQVGA resolution of 432 x 240 with good sunlight legibility. The capacitive touch screen unfolds an all new multimedia menu having five different icons for camera, gallery, music, video and FM radio which are pretty responsive.

Touching the camera icon you directly land into the viewfinder. The gallery gives you access to all the images on the handset, albums are displayed by default in timeline view. Tapping on the thumbs will open the selected picture full screen. Scrolling full-screen images with finger sweeps is very smooth. To go back from the sub-menus, you must touch blank space on the screen.

The Keypad:
Aino looks like a full touch screen phone because of its large display but amazingly a keypad slides out smoothly from a compact thin handset making it a long device. The keypad is convenient and has all required functions. When the keypad is out, main menu and other functions are all as usual without the touch screen operatibility. The user interface here is also classy with beautiful flash based graphics and animations. It can be customized too. Close the keypad to access the touch media menu.

Thus Aino has limited touch screen functionality only available in landscape mode and keypad closed for the media centric activities. The only exception is if you install a touch enabled Java application for example Opera Mini which works with Aino touch system even in portrait mode and having its own virtual QWERTY keyboard.

Desktop docking cradle and wireless headset - a welcome addition
Sony Ericsson Aino is accompanied with two amazing gadgets, one a desktop docking cradle and another a wireless bluetooth headset. The headset is actually a magic stick that does almost everything to manage your music or calls. The six cm long wonder has a 3.5 mm audio jack on the top and a charger port at the bottom which connects to the docking stand. The front of the Bluetooth headset has four multi colored LEDs which are indicators. The headset is a full-featured remote control too. The Call button on the front can do voice dialing, accept and reject calls. The playback controls on the side include skip tracks or fast-forward / rewind upon a press-n-hold and a play / pause button. Interestingly, the headset also acts as an antenna for the FM Radio.

On the other hand, the desk stand has a Fast Port on the left where you fix the Aino and on the right is the power plug for the wireless headset. The bottom has four rubber studs to hold the stand firmly. It can charge both the Aino and the headset at the same time and it holds the phone in landscape mode which is just perfect for viewing video or photo slide show. On the back of the cradle there are two Fast Ports - one for charging and other for USB connection.

Camera:
Sony Ericsson Aino has 8 megapixel camera with touch interface and it shoots images with a maximum resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. There is LED flash and a dedicated shutter key. The touch interface is very simple to operate and the toolbar has some basic controls like focus, flash, self-timer, image resolution and geo-tagging. The image quality is among the best till date. Aino can capture video, VGA@30fps. LED flash can also be used while video recording.

The Media Center:
The media center gives access to Photos, Music, Video, Games and Web feeds.

The Photo gallery offers various options for managing your picture collection like latest photos, camera album, photo tags, geo tags, photo feeds, web albums etc. Latest Photo provides quick access to the most recent photos. Photo Tags displays previously marked favorite photos. Sending options include Send as Picture Message, Email or through Bluetooth. You can also set a photo as wallpaper, screen saver, startup screen and contact picture. The Slideshow, pan and zoom are also available. Geo tagging  also lets you display the location on the map where the photo was taken.

For Music, Aino comes with the latest Walkman player 4.0. The display is made attractive with background pictures of  tape recorder, gramophone, CD player etc. The FM radio can accomodate 20 stations and supports RDS. It has a nice interface and makes use of  TrackID music recognition. The radio can be minimized in the background. The Sony Ericsson Aino audio quality is almost perfect with very clear Stereo and Bass.

 Video player supports fast-forward and rewind. The video files are accessible via the file manager too. Full screen mode and subtitle support is also there. Alhough there's no XviD or DivX support but Sony Ericsson's MediaGo desktop software takes care to transfer any video from a computer to the handset in the correct format and resolution. The video section of Aino also has pre-installed YouTube client.

Memory:
 An 8GB microSD card is included while the support is there for 16GB too. Unforunately, the microSD card slot is under the battery cover which is little inconvenient.

Organiser:
The organiser contains Calendar in monthly, weekly and daily views. Interestingly the monthly view has pictures depicting seasons. To-do application stores two types of tasks - simple Tasks and Phone calls. Text Notes can be stored where T9 dictionary is also available. Five Alarms with various options like repeat on chosen days, add text and picture etc. Other regular applications are all there like Calculator, Converter, Stopwatch. The Voice recorder has no limit to recording length, depends on available memory. LED flash light can be used as Torch through torch application.

Applications:
Aino includes many more applications like Photo Mate, AccuWeather, Music Quiz, Bluetooth Robot and YouTube. Photo Mate offers practical tips for the camera. AccuWeather gives up-to-date weather information for the desired location including overview, three day forecast and more. The data is downloaded in real time and data charges apply. The Music Quiz plays a part of the song and you have to guess the name, title, artist, album or year of release of random tracks in your music library. Bluetooth Robot can be assigned as wallpaper and it detect available Bluetooth enabled devices in the vicinity.

Internet:
 Preinstalled web browser is an updated version of  NetFront 3.5 which offers rich experience and renders web pages on full screen. Zoom facilitates clear reading. Home screen of the browser offers search, address bar and shortcuts for quick access. You can also copy text from web pages. But two things you miss while browsing is touch and flash support.

GPS:
GPS navigation is wonderful here. Aino has a built-in GPS receiver and Wisepilot navigation software that offers almost all features you might be looking  for including voice guided walk or drive, maps, rout planning, weather etc. The maps of the required area are to be downloaded.

Games:
Aino has two pre-installed games - Crazy Penguin Catapult and Quadrapop, interesting enough to keep you engaged in your spare time.

Connectivity:
Sony Ericsson Aino supports all means of data transfer. It includes Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, Wi-Fi along with DLNA support.

A unique feature of Aino is its Remote Play compatibility to PlayStation 3 which is adding to its popularity. Once connected to the PS3, you can stream PS3 media directly to Aino or browse pictures, listen to music and watch videos, stored on your console or download from PlayStation Store. You can also control the PlayStation 3 Home menu with your phone, without Sony PS3 controller.

Features at a glance:

Network Compatibility

2G - GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G - HSDPA 850 / 900 / 2100

Dimensions & weight

104 x 50 x 15.5 mm, 134 g
Colors - Obsidian Black, Luminous White

Display

240 x 432 pixels, 3.0 inches
TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Limited touchscreen functionality
Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate

Sound & Music

Stereo FM radio with RDS
 

Processor & Memory

Internal - 55 MB
microSD up to 16GB, 8GB included
phonebook - 1000 x 20 fields, Photo call

Internet

GPRS-Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
EDGE- Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G - HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, DLNA
Browser - WAP 2.0/HTML (NetFront 3.5), RSS reader

Connectivity

Blueooth - v2.1 with A2DP
USB - v2.0
GPS GPS with A-GPS support, Wayfinder Navigator

Camera

 Primary - 8.1 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features-Touch focus, geo-tagging, face detection, video stabilizer, videocalling
Video - VGA@30fps

Messaging

SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email

Games

incl. 2 motion based games + downloadable

More features

- Java - MIDP 2.0
- Remote play for Playstation 3
- MP3/AAC/MP4 player
- Google Maps
- Picture editor/blogging
- YouTube & Facebook applications
- Organizer
- Voice memo
- SensMe
- T9

Battery

Standard battery, Li-Po 1000 mAh
Stand-by time: Up to 380 h (2G)
Talk time: Up to 13 h (2G)
Up to 30 h music

Disadvantages:

  • Limited touch screen functionality, only for multimedia menu and some Java applications
  • No standard USB port
  • No 3.5mm audio jack, although there's one on bluetooth headset
  • No DivX/XviD support
  • No xenon flash

      Advantages:

  • 8 megapixel autofocus camera with flash
  • Desktop docking cradle
  • wireless bluetooth headset
  • Remote play for Playstation 3
  • 16GB microSD card support
  • Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS
  • Large 3" 16M color capacitive touchscreen
  • Wi-Fi with DLNA

o,   A great camera, excellent photo quality, superb music along with PS3 connectivity, if that sounds good then Sony Ericsson Aino is the mobile phone for you. The desktop cradle will always delight you while watching videos and wireless headset would be a big show off.