Sony Ericsson Aino review

Will PS3 connectivity make this a mid-range media marvel?

Sony Ericsson Aino review
Sony Ericsson Aino review

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Connectivity is pretty much limited to the PC via the USB cable, although if you've enabled your computer with Bluetooth you can go nuts with that too.

The range of options on offer in the Aino is a full complement, with all working well. Wi-Fi sometimes struggles to get going, but on the whole, everything powers up quickly and works when it's supposed to.

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We're particularly impressed with the GPS on board - assisted GPS (which uses cellular towers to triangulate your position) boots up blindingly fast, and GPS has a lock on you generally within 10 seconds. Good show, Sony Ericsson.

Bluetooth and the MH100 work together nicely as well, with the latter coming online as soon as it's switched on. The same can be said for a entering a zone with a paired Bluetooth PC - it connects nicely with the Aino and makes content sharing easy.

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We also liked the Wi-Fi as it brought Media Go - the only downside to having constantly updated media is you're often left feeling like you don't own enough, so a few too many trips to online MP3 stores were necessary out of sheer fear of being uncool.

PC software

Similar to the Sony Ericsson Satio (well, it's identical in actual fact, we used the same PC software as it was included on both phones) the phone will connect effortlessly to the PC with a minimum of fuss (once everything is installed).

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Once again, one of the attributes we particularly like is being able to save and view your text messages in an inbox/outbox format - meaning you can back them up for another phone in the future.

Media Go and the Sony Ericsson PC Suite offer you all the media options you need, such as converting video files and streaming media to the phone, and it's hard to find any fault with this setup really - the new Samsung PC Studio looks a bit nicer and the iPhone has iTunes' might behind it, but that's about it.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.