Sony Ericsson Xperia Active, Not for the Couch Potatoes

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Active is that kind of a phone made for kicking the butts of its competitors. Literally. This soldier over here can survive under water for half an hour, is dust proof and shock resistant and, besides being a tough guy, the Xperia active is also smart and you’ll find out what I’m talking about if reading the following review. Let’s take a look at the main specs:

Key features

•    Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
•    3G with 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
•    3.0" 16M-color LED-backlit LCD capacitive touchscreen of HVGA resolution (320 x 480 pixels) at around 192 ppi
•    Bravia Mobile engine
•    Dust and water resistant, wet-finger tracking
•    Dual back cover design for increased protection
•    Arm case and wrist strap in the bundle
•    Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread
•    1 GHz MSM8255 Snapdragon processor
•    512 MB RAM
•    5 MP autofocus camera, single LED flashlight, Geo-tagging, image stabilization, smile detection, touch focus
•    720p video @ 30fps
•    Wi-Fi b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot functionality and DLNA
•    GPS with A-GPS, Wisepilot navigation
•    microSD slot (32GB supported, 2GB card included)
•    Accelerometer and proximity sensor, notification LED
•    Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
•    Stereo FM radio with RDS
•    TrackID music recognition
•    Relevant package of apps
•    MicroUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
•    Adobe Flash 10.3 support
•    1200mAh Li-ion battery

 Full specs here.

http://www.mobilephonedeals.com

In its box, you’ll find the charger, a microUSB cable used for both charging and making data connections, a pair of headphones with in-ear buds, an exchangeable rear cover, a 2 GB microSD card, a wrist strap, an arm case, some ear hooks for your earphones and the user manuals.

 Wow, that’s really something, isn’t it ? In this package, you’ve got everything you need for taking your phone everywhere you go and not worry about it.

When reading all the above, I bet you expect this phone to be a heavy and bulky device, but it’s not. It measures 92 x 55 x 16.5 mm and has a weight of 110.8 g, so it’s not heavy at all. It feels comfortable in the hand and your pockets will like it too. Its design is nice and sporty, you’ll find it to be an interesting device to look at and handle. Its back is curved and rubberized, feeling nice in the hand and it also keeps your fingerprints away from sticking to it. The most important thing about it is that you won’t be afraid of dropping it on the floor or in your soup ( I wanted to say toilet, but that would be kind of gross).

The Xperia active comes with a 3 inches LED-backlit LCD capacitive touchscreen that has a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels, a ~192 ppi pixel density, scratch resistant glass and is also powered by Sony’s Bravia Mobile engine. Its colors are bright and vibrant, the contrast is great and the sunlight legibility is wonderful – as it should be, as a matter of fact, because the phone is made for being used mostly outdoors.
The screen can be handled with wet fingers and is still very responsive. How cool is that ? You’ll be able to make phone calls and stuff like that in the shower, or if it rains – this fellow is not afraid of water.
Above its screen are the earpiece, a status LED and the proximity and ambient light sensors.
Beneath the display are the microphone, three capacitive keys for Back, Home and Menu and a strap eyelet.
The left side of the phone is home for the lonely Power/Lock key.
On the right side of the phone reside the volume rocker and camera key.
There’s nothing at the top, meanwhile at the bottom, you’ll see the 3.5 mm audio jack and the microUSB port.

If you take out the phone’s battery cover, you’ll find.. another battery cover. Under these two are the SIM and microSD card slots and the battery.
Now that we’ve seen how strong it is, let’s check out the Xperia active’s brain. It comes loaded with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and is upgradeable to v4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It also has the Timescape user interface, which gathers your call logs, email, SMS, MMS, Facebook and Twitter updates and enables you to filter the contents and see the important information only.
Our little champion is powered by a Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon processor, having a 1 GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 205 GPU, 1 GB of internal memory (but only 320 MB are user available) and 1 GB of RAM. The overall performance of the phone is great, as it’s very snappy and won’t bug you with lag issues, freezes and stuff like that.

In terms of telephony, the Xperia active comes with a smart phonebook that remembers tons of information about your contacts, syncs with your online accounts, has the quick contacts feature and voice dialing. The phone has a secondary microphone for active noise cancellation, so, the in-call quality is great, with the voices being loud and clear for both ends of the line and the reception was also free of problems.
At the messaging section, your SMS and MMS are organized in threads and displayed as conversations between you and your contacts. You can copy, paste, lock your messages against deletion and search within them for a certain one.
For instant messaging, Google Talk is here for you and supports clients like Pidgin, iChat, Kopete and others.
Your emails are managed by Gmail, which supports batch operations, and by a generic email application, that handles your other email accounts.

For typing, you get the Gingerbread on screen virtual QWERTY keyboard for portrait and landscape modes and a numeric pad that’s available only in portrait mode. Typing is pretty easy if you don’t have sausage-fingers, but even if you do, the landscape mode will be of a real help.
At the connectivity department, the phone has support for quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 3G with 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA, Wi-Fi b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR and microUSB 2.0.

For surfing the web, you have the Gingerbread standard browser that comes with support for Adobe Flash 10.3 and has a simple user interface. It also features text reflow, double tap and pinch zooming, multiple tabs and switching between them, bookmarks, find on page and others. The pages are loaded fast and the overall browsing experience is very pleasing.
The Xperia active comes equipped with a 5 megapixel autofocus camera that takes pictures at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels and has a single LED flash for helping in low light situations. The camera interface features geo-tagging, touch focus, image stabilization, face detection and others. The image quality is very good, with accurate colors and decent amount of resolved detail.
The video camera is also very capable and produces 720p videos at 30 fps.
For audio playback, you get a fancy music player which is very similar to the Walkman players and features several equalizer presets, the Infinite key for searching a song on YouTube, the xLOUD enhancement for boosting the loudspeaker volume and others. The audio quality is great.
For watching videos, you don’t have a dedicated player, as the videos reside in the gallery, but you can easily download one.

In its basket of goodies, the Xperia active carries some nice applications, like the WalkMate for counting your footsteps during a day, the iMapMyFITNESS+ for information about your training, which are sent to your mapmyfitness.com account, which is free. For viewing Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files, you have the Office Suite. You also have Notes, Reminders, Calendar, Calculator, Alarm  - which has the desk clock and night modes. A Facebook app is also on board.
A built-in GPS receiver is also here and has support for A-GPS. For navigation, you have Google Maps.
The Xperia active holds inside its tough body a 1200 mAh battery and it endured almost a day and a half on moderate usage.

In conclusion, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active is a great choice if you’re living an active life. If you’re going hiking, for example, this phone is going to be your best buddy and you won’t have to worry about it if it rains cats and dogs over you or if you drop it into a puddle of mud. This fellow is both a survivor and a smart guy, so you’ll definitely grow feelings for it and keep it close in your adventures.

continue reading "Sony Ericsson Xperia Active, Not for the Couch Potatoes"

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Review

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro deals

There's a lot to like about the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro. Of course it helps if you're not a fan of large screens; if you are then you're probably not going to like this phone. But then if that's the case, why are you looking at a phone with “mini” in the title, hmm? A lot of the time people who do prefer smaller screens have to put up with lesser specifications though, but that is not the case with the Xperia Mini Pro. So as long as you're not dead-set on getting a large-screened phone, then you might be tempted by the phone deals available on this device.

Defining Characteristics

We recently reviewed the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini, so what makes the Pro different? Well, the major difference is that with the Pro you get a full QWERTY keyboard which slides out from underneath the screen. We suspect that's going to be the main pull for anyone who is going to be interested in this phone. If you like physical keypads for your texting and emailing on the go, but you also want access to the vast array of apps that Android smart phones offer (rather than the minimal apps on a BlackBerry, for instance) then this has got to be one of the top contenders.

If you're looking for the highest specs available, then you won't find them on the Xperia Mini Pro, however this is no entry level Android either, and for a small phone it's really quite powerful. We say small, which it is of course in terms of width and height (92mm x 52mm) but it's also twice as thick as many androids at 18mm. Of course with a QWERTY keyboard that slides underneath the screen you have to expect that. It also means that there's room there for a 1GHz processor as well as 512MB RAM, which is plenty for the Gingerbread OS from Android, with operations feeling very smooth and flowing. Sony Ericsson also use what they call “Hot Corners” which are present on every home screen and provide short-cuts to things like your SMS app, the dialler, media apps and address book. These are customisable, and make up for the fact you can't fit as many apps on the screen as you would with other smart phones.

You do have to be willing to put up with a smaller screen than usually found on smart phones though. When it comes to web browsing, for instance, you're going to have to zoom in pretty close to be able to read even normal text. The screen is 3 inches on the diagonal which, in fact, is better than a lot of small Androids, and only half an inch off the iPhone size. Also, if you're planning to watch videos, although the 320 x 480 pixel resolution is okay for a screen of this size, and contrasts are actually good, the screen is so small that it's difficult to really feel involved in what is going on in the video. Not a phone to watch a whole television episode on, or a feature film, in other words.

Other Features

Everything else on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro is pretty much what you would expect from a mid-range Android. You have all the usual connectivity possibilities, as well as DNLA support meaning that you can stream videos or pictures from your phone through a PS3 or a DNLA equipped TV to see it all up on the big screen.

The Xperia Mini Pro comes with a 5 megapixel camera, which is pretty standard but the results from it are not great. Also, although it can record 720p HD video, the quality doesn't come out very well, there is often quite a lot of blurring. It also has a VGA camera on the front for video calls.

Check out the full specs at Sony's website.

Summary

On the whole this is a very good phone if you're looking for an Android smart phone with a small screen, a QWERTY keypad, or both. If you're not interested in either of those features though, you might be better off looking elsewhere. If you're searching for a truly pocket sized Android phone which doesn't compromise on the specs though, it's well worth looking in to the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro monthly contract deals that are available.  Or the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro white deals if you prefer.

continue reading "Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Review"

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini: Good Things, Small Packages...

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini white contract deals

Are you in the market for a smart phone, but hanker for the days when mobile phones didn't look like something that apes might start dancing around and killing each other over (and if you don't get the 2001: A Space Odyssey reference this just means that lots of smart phones are practically monolith size these days)? If so then it's worth checking out the phone deals for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini.

Size is Everything

The size of the screen on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini is quite small at 3 inches, but that is not really a down side. To complain about that would be to entirely miss the purpose of this phone. It's small, that's the point. It fits snugly in to your hand and even though you are still basically going to be carrying a mini computer around in your pocket, it's not going to feel like it quite so much. With 320 x 480 pixel resolution images are sharp as well.

What's more, for a mini phone, the screen is actually pretty large. It's only half an inch off the size of an iPhone screen, so it's still easy to use the touchscreen. More so than with other mini phones. Plus a full QWERTY keyboard can fit on the screen, even in portrait mode, so it really doesn't have to be used any different to a regular smart phone.

Having said that though, you can't fit as many icons on each screen but they make up for that by having shortcuts to apps in each corner. In that way you can have more than enough apps available to you at the swipe of a finger.

In fact the whole design is good, including the physical buttons. There's a nice and large home screen button at the bottom, and on either side of that you have touch sensitive buttons for accessing a menu and to go back.

For the full specs check out Sony's website.

Power

Just because the Xperia Mini is small, that doesn't mean that it doesn't pack some punch. It runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread with a 1GHz processor, which is more than enough for the majority of apps out there. These days the high end Androids come with dual-core or even quad-core processors but unless you need to be able to play all of the latest 3D games, a single-core is more than adequate. Sliding between menus is nice and smooth and watching videos is a pleasure as well, especially considering that it's such a small screen.

Added Extras

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini comes with some custom apps, the one that stands out probably being Timescape, which provides you with an animated stream of your combined Facebook and Twitter feeds. It's optional though, you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

There's also a 5 megapixel camera, which is pretty standard for all but top of the line smart phones. You can also record video in 720p HD.

Summary

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini might be small in size, but it's large in stature. No compromises have been made with processing power and it's a perfectly good little Android. Of course if you prefer big screens then it's not going to be your cup of tea but if you prefer phones on the dainty side, be sure to check out the best Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini monthly contract deals on offer. Or even better perhaps, Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini white deals instead.

continue reading "The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini: Good Things, Small Packages..."

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S: Is the Upgrade Worth It?

Coming just a few months after the release of the original Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, the Sony Ericsoon Xperia Arc S has to work pretty hard to make the upgrade worthwhile. So does it reach new heights or is it destined to plummet from the lofty heights off great expectations?

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S Black

Let's find out, shall we?

We don't want to keep you in suspense any longer. The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S is an excellent phone, however the upgrades on the orginal Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc are probably too minor to make the upgrade wotth it.  Having said that however, they're probably good enough for the people who bought the original to be a little bit peeved that they don't have the best version of the phone anymore, just months after it was brand new. But it's probably not enough of an improvement for many of the people who have that phone to actually make the upgrade though.

Okay, so what are the differences, and what makes the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc a good phone to begin with? Well, one of the major improvements is the processor, which has been upgraded from the original 1GHz in the original Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc to 1.4GHz in the S class. Actually though that is not a major upgrade and you won't notice a major difference most of the time. In fact a dual core processor could have been hoped for and that would have kept it in the race for being a contender for the top Android phone throughout 2012.

Indeed the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S is one of the flagships of Sony's smart phone range and it is plenty impressive. One of its very best features is the camera which can record 720p HD video and take 8MP stills. What's more its screen is one of the best in the Android range, at 4.2 inches and with a screen resolution of 233 pixels per inch (ppi) which is bested only really by the iPhone 4S (at 330 ppi) it's a major asset. There's plenty of storage space for your pictures and videos as well, with 400MB internal storage being backed up by an 8GB micro SD card.  The only downside of the big screen is that it drains the battery fast, and you might find yourelf having to recharge twice a day with extensive use.

Plus you have access to Sony's Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited libraries which are pretty well stocked so there's plenty to download. The web browser is exceptionally fast and it's Adobe Flash supported too so you can have the full web-browsing experience.

It packs Android 2.3.4, and the xLoud technology makes the external speaker louder (although that can lead to distortions so you might want to turn it off sometimes). Something that could lead to irritation is the comprehensive facebook syncing. If you like connecting everything to your facebook page then it's great, but if you don't it's tough to get all the messaging to stop.

The only other negative really is the case. It looks plenty stylish and it's an unmistakably great design, however it's made out of plastic and feels like it.

Check out the full specs at the Sony website.

Overall

If you already have the original then forking out for the upgrade probably isn't worth it but otherwise this phone is well worth a look, comparing well to other top Andoid phones. So check out Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S contract deals if you're in the market for a high end Android phone (or Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S white deals for a variation on the traditional black). 

continue reading "Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S: Is the Upgrade Worth It?"