Sony Ericsson
Aino

The Sony Ericsson Aino (model number: U10i) was a slider phone with a three-inch touch screen. It supported tri-band 3G HSPA, quad-band EDGE, and had an 8.1-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and GPS. It was the first Sony Ericsson device to offer direct support for a Sony consumer electronics product — the PS3. The inclusion of Remote Play capability on the Aino made it possible for users to control and access media content stored on a PS3. Remote Play was developed to allow Sony's handheld games device, the PlayStation Portable (PSP), to communicate with PS3s over a local area network or remotely over the Web. In some markets, it was also possible for users to watch TV broadcasts through a digital tuner on the PS3 which place-shifted the content to a PSP or the Aino phone. Although it is questionable how many people actually used Remote Play on the Aino device, it provided a unique and differentiated sales proposition for Sony Ericsson. The other notable feature of the Aino was that it introduced touch-screen capability to Sony Ericsson's proprietary operating system. Although touch interactions were only limited to certain multimedia features, this was an important step forward for Sony Ericsson as touch-screen devices proliferated into lower-priced devices. Up to that point, Sony Ericsson had only been able to offer touch on a limited number of high-end devices based on open software platforms.