Review: Sony Xperia S: Experience that Thrills

Continuing its legacy of luring users with handsets, Sony Mobile Communications launched its Sony Xperia S with a bang in the Indian market.

Design

The front panel with a 4.3 inch display is enabled with LED-backlit LCD and HD capacitive touchscreen and the touch sensitive control gives a visual delight. Below it is this phone's unique 'transparent element' with touch sensitive spots for back, home, and menu keys. However using the keys is a little uncomfortable, as they coincide with the home screen.

Hardware

Xperia runs on a 1.5 GHz dual core processor and a Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon chipset coupled with 1 GB RAM, which thrusts its interface at a lightning speed while loading apps, web browsing, smooth scrolling, and operating multi-tasking its 5 home screens.

The show stealer of this handset is its 12.1 MP camera, which delivers crisp and clear shots, loaded with Sony's Exmor R mobile CMOS sensor, which improves picture quality in low-light conditions and adds quality to the pictures.

The camera shutter button is very fast and snappy, retrieves the picture within seconds and gets back to the camera position almost in no time.

There's a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video calling or snapping low-quality portraits. The cherry on this cake is the snap 3D photos using 3D sweep panorama function, which gives an equal to 3D effect to an angle of 180 degree.

Display is made of scratch resistant mineral glass and shatter proof plastic sheet which makes it dust free and does not leave fingertips on the screen.

Battery life is improved as earlier Xperia models suffered battery problems. Sony Xperia S claims 25 hours of music playback and 8.5 hours of talk time. However continuous running of gaming applications and other multimedia features may drain up the battery life faster.

Xperia S has internal memory up to 32 GB and has no card slot. However this contradicts the phone's most vouched for feature of using HD videos, and on the other hand limiting storage capacity to internal memory only.

The phone uses a micro SIM and has a non-removable battery. Apart from the connectivity from Wi-Fi-Direct and DLNA feature, it also uses the NFC technology which helps in sharing data and making payments.

Software & Interface

Xperia S runs on Android 2.3.7 (Gingerbread) which will be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) in early Q2 of this financial year.

Xperia S is pre-loaded with Sony Timescape software, which allows social plug-ins on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, giving constant updates in a 3D viewing panes-a treat to experience.

With surfeit of applications in Android market powered by Google Play Store, this phone is also pre-loaded with Sony's own app store-Play Now. One more luring feature is the quick access of social plug-in on YouTube, Google, Play Now, and Facebook while using any multimedia file.

Overview

Comparatively over priced, Sony Xperia S fights tough competition from iPhone 4S, HTC One X, Galaxy S2 in its league. The limitation of storage capacity to internal memory is a negative side to this phone along with its slabby and chunky design. Having said that, the phone scores on excellent camera quality and dazzling HD display screen with 1.5 GHz processor thrusting thrilling multimedia experience with plethora of pre-loaded applications unique to the brand.