Review: Sony Xperia S
The boxed contents were pretty much normal and the same old Sony Ericsson branded accessories including a pair of in-ear headphones, a data cable and a charger with a USB port.
- 4.3 inch LED-backlit LCD touchscreen (720 x 1280 pixels) with Sony Mobile Bravia engine
- Android 2.3.7 Gingerbread
- Dual-core 1.5 GHz Scorpion CPU
- 1 GB RAM
- 12 MP autofocus camera with LED flash
- 1080p video recording
- 1.3 MP front-facing camera
- Wi-Fi with DLNA
- NFC
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
- 32GB built-in storage
- 3G HSDPA and HSUPA
- microHDMI port
- microUSB port
- Bluetooth v2.1
- 3.5 mm audio jack
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- PlayStation Certified
- 1750mAh battery
Below the display, are three capacitive buttons which are quite hard to get used to as they are marked with tiny dots. Below that you have a transparent strip which lights up with a white LED when you receive a call, a text or when you put the phone on charging. It’s a pretty attractive addition to the design, but it doesn’t do anything useful, so a kind of a letdown. There is a tiny LED on top of the display which is really handy as it lights up on various notifications and you can customise the colour of the LED for each kind of notification, a feature that has been on most Sony (Ericsson) smartphones.
The top has the power/sleep key which is pretty easy to use and the 3.5mm audio jack. Below there is a slot for you to put your lanyard. The back has the amazing 12MP camera with an LED flash, a small mic hole and also the speaker. While the back does come off, you can only fiddle with the SIM card, as the battery is sealed inside and of course there is no microSD card slot. The battery has a capacity of 1750mAh, which sounds decent and with a dual-core processor it should give out a decent backup, however comparing it to the Galaxy S II it ran out of juice slightly quicker.
The smartphone also has NFC connectivity, but sadly we didnt get any NFC tags or stickers, so we could not test it out.
You get the Timescape layout in you widgets, which we have already seen. Being on the latest Gingerbread version, it still tends to lag a little but handles apps and games easily.
The only flaw I see in Sony (Ericsson) smartphones is the lack of video codec support, so you need to install some apps to play videos on. Although the native video player app supports the basic formats, but then there are some which force you to install a third party app to play your videos. Other than that, viewing videos is a beauty on the 720p display and if you are watching HD content, then you will be in love.