Sony Ericsson Yari preview: First look

The Sony Ericsson Yari may miss the mark as the most innovative slider, but only if you don't look closer. Upon a second look, you will find that the Sony Ericsson Yari is a tiny little thing that's full of surprises.

The Yari has got a pretty decent 5 megapixel auto focus camera, but it's main focus point is another thing - gesture gaming. And we're not talking about accelerometer-based gesture recognition.

Thanks to an optical tracker technology developed by GestureTek, the Sony Ericsson Yari can use its camera to detect your movements and translate them into games moves. It can even do wireless multiplayer.

The technology has already been available to Japanese DoCoMo cellphones but it's only now that it's making its way to world-wide availability.

Sony Ericsson Yari

Sony Ericsson Yari at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100, GPRS/EDGE class 10, HSDPA 3.6Mbps
• Form factor: Slider
• Dimensions: 100 x 48 x 15.7 mm, 115 g
• Display: 2.4-inch 256K color TFT display, 240 x 320 pixel resolution
• Memory: 60MB integrated memory, hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 16GB)
• UI: Proprietary Flash-based UI
• Still camera: 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, geo-tagging, face detection, smile detection
• Video recording: QVGA video recording
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, GPS receiver with A-GPS support
• Misc: Gesture and motion-based gaming, Shake control, SensMe
• Battery: 1000 mAh battery

The Sony Ericsson Yari also has a built-in GPS receiver to deliver location-based services as accurately as they come.

Unfortunately, Wi-Fi support is not present on our Yari test unit despite the numerous videos presenting that in YouTube and such. As Sony Ericsson are not advertising the feature, we guess the retail unit won't be Wi-Fi capable as well.

The Sony Ericsson Yari feels pretty good to handle right now

Jump on the next page for a chance to see the Sony Ericsson Yari live in action.