The Sony Ericsson Yari is a new species of gaming phone. It's a motion-sensitive, small version of the Nintendo Wii, beautifully tranferred to a mobile phone – a rather clever feat.

The latest of three phones that makes up Sony Ericsson's new multimedia range, the Yari is not quite a smartphone but it still features a five-megapixel camera, music functionality, well-integrated Facebook integration and GPS.

 

Appearance and user interface for Sony Ericsson Yari

For a low-cost handset, the Yari is a classy looking phone. It's got a black finish in plastic and rubber, and a stylish black face with white touches. A smooth slide action reveals a flat, rubber keypad with comfortable keys that feel nice to use.

It's got the standard Sony Ericsson user interface: a grid of updated, bright icons. The home screen contains hotlinks to the menu, search and media. Customisation is available in the form of a 'game carousel', a scrollable shortcuts menu to your favourite games.

 

Facebook on the Sony Ericsson Yari

Facebook integration is new for Sony Ericsson, and the app was developed especially. It's well integrated and you get push notifications of status updates and messages (as well as the 'like' option) straight to your home screen. You can also access Facebook via your Messages menu, but you don't get your notifications there as you would in handsets like the IONQ Mini 3G.

The 'Conversations' view, previously seen on Sony Ericsson's Satio, is a neat feature that lets you view your messages in threads from the Contacts menu and switch from one view to the other with ease.

 

Gaming on the Sony Ericsson Yari

As mentioned earlier, the Yari is a whole new kind of gaming phone, using motion sensor and an accelerometer to provide a Wii-like experience. To play, you put the phone on its bundled stand and swing your arms in front of the motion-sensitive camera. There are three preloaded motion games, remarkably similar to Wii titles, and gameplay is fairly realistic. The sensor is effective too, making playing fun and easy. The tennis game recognises five different strokes, for example.

Bowling makes good use of the accelerometer - you hold down the D-pad to aim and swing your arm to release, twisting your hand for a top-spin. It's really good, and doesn't get frustrating.

As well as the motion games, you get a few traditional arcade-style games and a heap of trailers for more complex titles like The Sims 3. Unfortunately, the 2.4-inch screen has a resolution of just 240x320, which doesn't make for sharp pictures. The Sims 3 clips and even the simple Bubble Town were pixelated. If you want more, you can link directly to PlayNow Arena from the Games menu, although most games cost £5, which could put you off.

There's no 3.5mm audio jack – an omission we've come to expect from Sony Ericsson – or even an adaptor so you need to rely on the bundled earphones. It's a shame because they aren't in-ear headphones and they're not very effective either.

The stand is somewhat unstable and just pressing navigation buttons caused the handset to topple on several occasions. It could do with being sturdier. It would also be handy to have a charging feature that lets you recharge while you're playing a game.

 

Camera and music on the Sony Ericsson Yari

Despite the Yari's entry-level status, it still has a five-megapixel camera. It's not the best – the dedicated shutter release button, which also launches the camera, has to be pressed hard at a particular angle and it's easier just to use the nicely weighted D-pad instead.

Auto settings produce nice results in good light, but in low-light situations you get a blurry effect. Switching the flash off in low-light to try for a more natural-looking photo results in an overly pink shot. Turning the flash on makes for over-exposed pictures taken over 60cm away, meaning your pics from a night out have a ghostly quality to them.

The Yari isn’t great with action shots either. Although the shutter released less than a second after pressing the button, the resulting shots were blurry and dark. The photo editing tools are great, though: you can pan and zoom to pick out the details, and photo fix does a good job of improving most pictures.

We've come to expect a decent music player in all Sony Ericsson phones, and the Yari didn't let us down. You can keep your tracks alongside your videos and photos, and there's a link to buy new songs (you can preview them first) from PlayNow Arena. It's just a shame that the headphones aren't much cop.

 

Internet and email on the Sony Ericsson Yari

The NetFront 3.5 web browser is really good – all your sites load quickly, whether mobile optimised or not. Sites that haven't been mobile optimised, though, aren't great on the Yari: the layout is all over the place, and pictures don't render well. Browsing is easy using the D-pad. You scroll around the page in little skips, and the cursor becomes a hand icon at hyperlinks so they can be identified easily.

Inputting text is a comfortable experience – you just need to select a field to fill it in – and it's a short switch between normal typing and predictive text.

Push-email is available for Microsoft Exchange and several webmail accounts. The phone will automatically search for and download the correct settings for popular webmail accounts, and stream each account into a separate inbox. We liked that you can switch between accounts easily, and efficient feature that makes life much easier for those of us with multiple mailboxes.

 

The verdict for the Sony Ericsson Yari

The Sony Ericsson Yari is not the most fully featured phone out there, but it still manages to offer plenty of good features in a stylish body, for a pocket-friendly price. We love the innovative motion-sensitive gaming, although the small display and flimsy stand keep it from being perfect. All in all, it's a good all-round device that will be appreciated by people who just want a normal phone instead of a smartphone.