Sony Ericsson Aino review

We feel like we're constantly picking at the Aino, which does feel like it should be a decent handset, but we've got another gripe - the battery life isn't good.

Sony Ericsson is touting standby times of up to 367 hours for the Aino - it's more like 20 hours in real use.

While the battery life can be extended to just about last a day when everything is turned off, the Aino is designed to be always on. You don't want to be turning Bluetooth on and off whenever you want to listen to music - and not least because it's hidden down in the settings menu (or the slow to launch QuickLaunch box).

And Wi-Fi is necessary for the Media Go application - so we can't see why the battery is a paltry 1,000mAh effort.

And while we did listen to a fair chunk of music on the phone, this was offset by not watching video and barely browsing the web, so in real terms it lags way behind its competitors.

Organiser

As we mentioned above with the applications, the amount of organisational ability on the phone is impressive. It's not going to rival a Windows Mobile, what with its push email, calendar, contacts and whatnot, but it's got a stopwatch and a timer, and we can't tell you the amount of people who have told us this is crucial (OK, we can, it's eight. But they were adamant).

The calendar is easy to use, and now comes with a charming piece of artwork, and there are five customisable alarms with some lovely melodic ringtones to choose from.

There's not a lot more to say about organising yourself with the Aino - it might not be the Filofax replacement you've been after, but it will let you know when you're about to miss the footie (as long as you wrote it in there, of course).