Sony Ericsson Aino is a state-of-the-art phone with such an abundance of features that was unthinkable even a year ago. This phone has it all: versatile connectivity, great digital camera, touchscreen and an alphanumeric keyboard, plenty of built-in memory and much, much more.
Sony Ericsson Aino pros:
+ 3″ 16M-color capacitive touchscreen, 240 x 432 pixels
+ Quad-band GSM support
+ Tri-band 3G with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 2Mbps HSUPA
+ Touch works in Java apps
+ Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS;
+ Wi-Fi with DLNA
+ 8 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and plenty of features
Sony Ericsson Aino cons:
- No standard USB port
- No standard 3.5mm audio jack
- Media library updates very slowly in the touch media menu
- No DivX/XviD support
- No xenon flash
The design:
Sony Ericsson Aino measures 4.1x2x0.6 in. and weighs 4.7 oz so it is not as long as the LG BL40 New Chocolate but it also has a smaller screen. The front of the phone is dominated by the 3-inch screen so it makes an impression of a touch-operated cell phone. However, the touch functionality is limited to multimedia and the rest of features is accessed by the hard buttons on the alphanumeric keyboard. When you slide the phone open you will see the alphanumeric keyboard with responsive and comfy buttons. The left side of the Sony Ericsson Aino features the Fast port, whereas on the right side are the volume rocker and a camera button. The bottom of the Sony Ericsson cell phone houses the loudspeaker grill and the microphone pinhole. The back of the Sony Ericsson Aino features the 8 megapixel camera lens, and a LED flash.
The Sony Ericsson Aino comes with a deck stand and a headset both of which might turn out very useful. The headset is very functional and helpful not only during phone calls, but also when it comes to controlling multimedia. The deck stand is used for charging, transferring multimedia and it looks nice on a desk.
Performance:
The 3-inch screen has great direct sunlight legibility and good overall image quality. The screen shows somewhat unusual resolution (240 x 432) but as it is in 16:9 aspect ratio everything looks great. Moreover, the entire user interface is touch (and resolution) optimized so it is comfortable to use. Since the Sony Ericsson Aino has a little limited touch functionality its interface might seem a bit hard to manage at first. However, when you discover when you may use the touchscreen and when you have to use the hard buttons everything is simple and easy to use. The interface is full of pretty colors, animations and transitions which do not slow it down so it all looks really good. The phonebook and messaging are great, as always with Sony Ericsson. The phonebook is customizable and the messaging is comfortable as you might expect.
Multimedia:
The biggest flaw of the multimedia section of the Sony Ericsson Aino is the time it takes the phone to refresh the media library when you change the memory cards. It is hard to say why but it takes 10 minutes on average. The image gallery takes full advantage of the touchscreen and so you might use your fingers to browse images. Zooming and scrolling is fast so watching photos with the Sony Ericsson Aino is a real pleasure. The music section with its animations and album arts works great and since the video player looks almost the same it is equally awesome. The phone comes with the Walkman 4.0 so the sound quality is outstanding (comparable to the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, or Apple iPhone). The video player is also good, but unfortunately it does not support DivX/XviD videos.
The 8 megapixel camera in the Sony Ericsson Aino is capable of taking up to 3264 x 2448 photos. The camera interface is entirely touch operated and the image quality is truly superb. The images are sharp, with accurate colors and little noise.
The phone can also record VGA videos at 30 fps which is nice, yet since they are recorded in 3gp files 1 minute of video takes about 3 MB.
Selected Sony Ericsson Aino features and specification:
- Network:
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
- Display:
TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors, 240 x 432 pixels, 3.0 inches
- Ringtones:
Downloadable polyphonic, MP3, AAC ringtones
- Vibration:
Yes
- Memory card:
microSD (TransFlash), up to 16GB, 8GB included
- GPRS:
Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
- HSCSD:
Yes
- EDGE:
Class 10, 236.8 kbps
- 3G:
HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps
- Wi-Fi:
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, DLNA
- Bluetooth:
Yes
- Infrared:
No
- USB:
Yes
- Messaging:
SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email
- Camera:
8.1 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
- Battery:
Standard battery, Li-Po 1000 mAh
Other recently reviewed mobile phones:
LG GD900 Crystal, Nokia 3720 classic, Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, Sony Ericsson C901, Nokia 6600i slide, Acer beTouch E200, HTC Touch2, Nokia 6760 slide, Sony Ericsson Satio, LG BL40 New Chocolate
