The time of 4 inches wide flagships has come to past, now the new truth is full-HD five-inchers stealing the show. Even in these terms, the Xperia generation still has something to say, enters Sony Xperia V, a dual-core Krait powered smartphone, featuring next gen LTE connectivity, kicking ass in the upper mid range.
It has a few things to brag about, like a 1080p full HD display and an uber cool 13 megapixels still camera,capable of shooting videos in Full High Def, which is also kind of cool.
The cherry on top, besides the pretty impressive specs, is the water and dust resistance, and without sacrificing the good looks of the Xperia range. Let's take a look at the main specs, shall we?
Main Features:
- Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support
- 3G with 42.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
- LTE Cat3 DL 100 Mbps UL 50 Mbps
- 4.3" 16M-color capacitive LED-backlit Reality LCD touchscreen of 720p resolution (720 x 1280 pixels) with Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine 2; Scratch-resistant glass
- Android OS v4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean coming up
- IP57 certified for dust and water resistance, up to 1 meter immersion for 30 minutes
- Dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU, 1 GB RAM, Adreno 225 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 chipset
- 13 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging, Superior Auto mode
- 1080p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound
- VGA front-facing camera
- Wi-Fi a/b/g/n with DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct and hotspot
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
- 8GB of built-in storage, microSD card slot
- microUSB port with MHL and USB-host support
- Stereo Bluetooth v4.0
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- Voice dialing
- Deep Facebook integration
- PlayStation Certified, access to the PS Store
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- NFC connectivity
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Sounds pretty impressive, isn't it folks? And it is, by all means. Moving along, the phone comes in a pretty standard box, containing the usual A/C adapter, a micro USB cable and a headset.
The Sony Xperia V measures 129 x 65 x 10.7 mm and weighs 120 g, even if it looks ample, it feels very light and comfortable in your hand. You must keep in mind that this baby is IP57-certified for dust and water-resistance, this weighs hard on my scale.
The phone has a curved shape, it's a minor redesign of the Xperia T, the overall finish quality is excellent, the phone is a pleasure to look at and to handle.
The back panel has a rubbery finish, for extra grip and the body is all plastic made, with no glossy parts. The screen is a 4.3 inches wide Reality display, above it you will find the earpiece, a VGA camera, the ambient light/proximity sensors and a notification LED.
There are no physical buttons under the display, just the capacitive keys Home, Back and Task switcher ones. The power/lock button and volume are placed on the top right side, the bottom houses only the microphone, the micro USB port is on the left side and it's protected by a plastic lid, on the top you will find the 3.5 mm audio jack, also sealed with a piece of plastic against water and dust.
The back panel is made of plastic with a rubber finish, the 13 MP camera lens is on the top, next to the secondary microphone, used for noise reduction.
If you remove the back panel, you will see an insulating trim of rubber which protects the phone from getting wet and also the 1750 mAh Li-Ion battery, capable of up to 400 hours of standby time and 7 hours of talk time, in real life, under medium use including calling, web browsing and video, the phone lasts about 30 hours on a single charge.
As mentioned before, the display is a 4.3 inches wide Reality variety, the quality is above average, with 342 ppi pixel density and powered by the Bravia engine, the screen is sharp and bright, a pleasure to use, honestly.
In terms of handling, the smartphone is light and feels great in hand, it's not too big, nor too heavy, the finish quality is great and many buyers will appreciate the dust and water resistance of the device.
The Sony Xperia V comes with Android OS version 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich on board, the User Interface is familiar for Sony aficionados, it features the usual five-pane homescreen setup and you can change the color theme of the launcher whenever you feel like it.
The hardware platform consists of a Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset with two Krait cores, clocked at 1.5 GHz, graphics are handled by an Adreno 225 GPU and there's 1 GB of RAM on
board, needless to say that with this setup everything runs smooth, you can watch 1080p videos without issues, the phone does an amazing job overall.
Tested against superior phones, the Xperia V performs better on some tasks.
The phonebook is the standard Android, you can sync multiple accounts, like Facebook with your phone contacts, you also have custom ringtones.
In terms of telephony, the Xperia V performed with flying colors, it holds well to signal, you get active noice cancellation and smart dial. The messaging is well taken care of, messages are displayed in threads, Gmail handles the email business, the app supports multiple accounts. For instant messaging, you have Google Talk, compatible with a variety of popular clients like Pidgin, Kopete, iChat and Ovi Contacts, also you can use the integrated Timescape app for Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Typing on the virtual keyboard is pleasant and comfortable, especially with the Gesture function, which works like Swype.
The video player has a new interface and a new name, it's called Movies, also is connected to Gracenote, an app which helps you find additional information about the movies you have on board, just like an automated IMDB. You can also edit video, via an editing app called Movie Studio.
The music player on board is a Walkman variety, SensMe is included,with this featyre you can filter your songs by mood - upbeat, energetic, mellow, dance, also you may create playlists and share your music on Facebook for your friends to see.
Another new option added to the Walkman is ClearAudio+, which enhances sounds, also a Surround mode, ClearPhase for speakers and xLOUD for a more powerful sound. You also get an FM radio built in, with RDS. Audio output quality is pretty good, in Sony tradition.
When it comes to pictures, you're in for a rare treat, the Xperia V comes with a 13 megapixel camera with a backside-illuminated Exmor R sensor and a single LED flash, the pictures are taken in 4128 x 3096px resolution and you also have quite a few options, like the Superior auto mode, Sweep Panorama etc.
The camera is a very good one, pictures look great, sharp and with nice levels of detail. The phone is capable of recording full HD videos, 1080p at 30fps, in mp4 format, in stereo sound.
For the multi media users, the phone shines in terms of connectivity, you have quad-band 2G, tri-band 3G connectivity and
penta-band LTE. Mobile data speeds are an impressive 42 Mbps of HSDPA
and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA.Local connectivity is covered by Wi-Fi a/b/g/n with DLNA and Wi-Fi
Direct, so you can easily share content from your phone on a DLNA TV or
music player. There's also Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP.
For web browsing, the Android works flawlessly, as usual, with a minimalistic interface and quite a few options, it handles HTML 5 videos, it works very fast and smooth.
For business users, they will be delighted by the solid organizer and mainly the OfficeSuite 6, which allows you to view any type of document,
The phone comes with a GPS receiver with GLONASS support, Google Maps handles navigation and you can also use the always cool StreetView option. For any app imaginable, you have the Play Store, with over 700 000 apps.
As a final word, this baby is the water proof version of the latest flagship, the Xperia T, well, not quite identical but almost, Sony cut down the secondary camera performance and the internal storage capacity, but these are hardly things I would complain about.
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