Sony Ericsson Yari

There are quick options for sending your pics to Facebook using a dedicated app buried in the messaging menu that you can also set it to display your updates on the home screen. You can create web albums and there’s a funky slideshow setting called X-Pict Story that allows you to show off your pics to preset musical and display themes: harmonious, nostalgic, relaxing, joyful and energetic. Picture quality is respectable, with good colour balance and generally sharp edges.

There's certainly more to the Yari than meets the eye

Watching movies on the 2.4in screen is possible, but not recommended – the screen's sharp enough, but just too small to enjoy for any length of time. The music player on the other hand may not have all the bells and whistles of SE's Walkman series but has a few of its own, with the option to show cover art, or a selection of decent little Flash animated graphics, including a reel to reel tape machine or mixing desk. There's a five-preset graphic equaliser too.

It's a nicely presented player, and easy to load using SE's latest PC Suite 6.0 software, but sound from the supplied headphones is less than stellar, with a little too much high-end harshness and thin bass. There's an FM radio too, with auto search and SE's TrackID service for namechecking those mystery tracks. Unfortunately, there's no 3.5mm headphone jack that would make it easy to upgrade, and there's no adapter for the FastPort plug, though wireless Bluetooth headphones are an option.

There's only 600MB of memory on board for storing your tunes, but you can bump up to 16GB with a micro SD card. Call quality was generally fine, though the speaker volume could perhaps have gone a little louder, and e-mail messaging proved easy to set up, requiring just address and password. Battery life was quite hearty, as we managed a little over three days of regular use.

Verdict

The Sony Ericsson Yari scores pretty well in the light/bushel stakes. It has the appearance of a bog standard SE mid to low ender, but manages to pack in a decent music player and web browser, a fine camera and the latest in SE's gaming technology, as well as a fistful of other useful extras. Yes, a bigger screen would have made more of all these functions, but then it wouldn't have been so pocketable. ®

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