Review Sony Ericsson may not be churning out Android handsets in the bulk of HTC or Samsung, but its has produced some consistently good phones recently in its Xperia range. Building on last year’s X10 Mini Pro, this new version adds a slightly bigger screen, faster processor and Gingerbread, the latest version of Android for mobiles.
Sony Ericsson‘s Xperia Mini Pro: take it out for a slide
The Xperia Mini Pro is one of the smallest Android handsets you’ll find anywhere at 90 x 53 x 18mm and weighing 136g. But it has also got a trick up its sleeve, as it slides open with a reassuring clunk to reveal a 43-key full Qwerty keyboard. The teensy keys sit proud of the casing and while they don’t have much in the way of grading or angling, there’s enough room between each for mis-keying to not pose much of a problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Sony Ericsson’s top of the range Xperia Arc was a bold move, cramming a feast of the company’s very latest technology into a case seemingly not a whole lot thicker than a credit card. The Xperia Neo winds things down a notch, not least the price, and the style, but this Android mid-ranger still manages to pack a serious punch.
The Neo is decidedly chunkier than the Arc, at 116 x 57 x 13mm and 126g, though it retains an echo of the ‘human curvature’ design we’ve seen on recent SE handsets. Beneath the screen is Sony Ericsson’s by now familiar approach to the Android control buttons, with slivery hard back, home and menu buttons, but no search à la the Arc, though the Xperia Play had it. Read the rest of this entry »
The evolution of smartphones has introduced a divide between gaming capability and gaming playability. Powerful processors and operating systems allow increasingly complex gaming. But complex games demand complex controls. Finger swishing and prodding might suffice when flinging belligerent avians around the screen, but virtual thumbsticks and buttons largely fail to convey more rigorous controls into the hands of players.
With the Xperia Play, Sony Ericsson attempts to bridge the divide by combining the functionality of its Xperia smartphone range with Playstation-certified gaming controls. But while the result proves far from epic fail, glaring design inconsistencies and tech concessions mean the Xperia Play is not so much compelling convergence but more confused chimera. Read the rest of this entry »
Sony Ericsson’s Xperia series got off to a rocky start back in 2008 but improved greatly with last year’s X10. The Xperia Arc is the company’s latest flagship offering that runs the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS and features an 8.1Mp Camera with a low noise CMOS sensor and a high-end screen with a Bravia engine. Evidently, Sony Ericsson wants you to know it means business.
Indeed, the Xperia Arc is impressively slim at 125 x 63 x 9mm and 117g with a lightly tapered look to the back. This is a further refinement of that humanising curvature feature that Sony Ericsson started with the Vivaz. In addition, it has a very classy chrome and graphite look that screams quality handset. Read the rest of this entry »
By Sandra Vogel and Alex Poyner (via reghardware.co.uk)
Review Sony Ericsson‘s latest marketing wheeze is to release a slew of new handsets with seemingly meaningless names. Satio, Yari, Naite and the handset currently under scrutiny, Aino, are models the company has lined up to compete with Apple and Android. The Aino is meant to be a media fan’s handset first and foremost. It also has a fairly strong set of general specifications, including an 8Mp Camera, Wi-Fi and GPS.
If you have a PlayStation 3, you can control it from a distance with Aino’s Remote Play feature. The phone will pick up video and audio streamed from the PS3, and you can use the console’s Play TV DVR add-on to watch, pause and record live TV if you live in Italy, France, Spain, Germany or the UK – more on this later.
Overall, it sounds like quite a lot of innovation is going on with the Aino, but in reality it doesn’t hang together that well. Things can be clunky and Sony Ericsson may well be trying to do too much fancy stuff without getting the basics right. This is a chunky slider phone. It has to be to accommodate its 3in screen. But with dimensions of 104mm x 50mm x 15.5mm when closed, it isn’t ideal for slim-fit pockets. It weighs 134g and extends to 150mm with the slide opened.
Underneath the smooth and responsive slide, is the relatively cramped number pad. The overall balance of the handset doesn’t sit comfortably under the fingers and feels as though the phone might topple forwards when tapping out numbers. The navpad and function keys are based around Sony Ericsson’s classic circular design. Visually, it’s fine but, again, all buttons, bar the navpad, are a bit small. And yet there‘s a 4mm of empty space to left and right of this area, which could have utilised to allow for larger keys. Read the rest of this entry »
