SONY XPERIA S REVIEW

      One of the biggest news of 2011 was the announcement of end of partnership between Sony and Ericsson. At the MWC 2012 Sony made it quite clear that it has a fantastic line of phones which will awe the consumers in post-Ericsson era. Sony introduced the Sony NXT line of Android-powered Smartphones which currently includes Sony Xperia P, Sony Xperia U and the magnificent Sony Xperia S. Sony Xperia S is not exactly like the familiar Xperia Smartphones. Bigger screen, full HD recording, 12 MP rear camera clearly convey that it is a high-end Smartphone. Let's take a brief look at the Xperia S' capabilities.

FIRST LOOKS: Turn your head towards Xperia S for a quick glance and your eyes would get struck onto the 4.3 inch LCD screen which produces brilliant and natural looking colors (more on this later). SONY logo at the top of the screen might make you feel a bit amazed but you would come to the fact that Sony Ericsson logo is history. A 1.3 MP camera at the front (intended for video chats basically) fulfills formalities. At the bottom of the screen are three Android navigation buttons which when light-up give a nice impression. Performance- friendly users might have felt better if these were more responsive but that's not a big issue.

           
At the back of the phone you will find powerful 12 MP camera and the speakers for music and audio playback. The device might seem a bit bulky but it isn't really a pain to hold it for quite some time. A nice tapering shape( not as much as ARC S) looks pleasant to the eyes but not really amazing or breath-taking.

HARDWARE AND SCREEN: Sony Xperia S has some really powerful hardware specifications. The phone may not have a Quad-core processor but its  1.5 GHZ Quolcomm MSM8260 Processor gives it enough horsepower to perform every task and deliver a rich user experience without any lags. 12 MP camera that can shoot videos at 1080p resolution along with a 1.3 MP front-cam do brilliant job in capturing images and videos and for video chats, of course.

           

4.3-inch LCD screen with 1280x720 resolution renders everything smoothly though LCD sounds quite outdated with AMOLED ruling the market but make no mistake, you wont complain about that for sure. Below the screen is a transparent strip that illuminates. Below the strip, you will find a customizable cap that clips to the bottom of the panel.(The image at the right shows yellow and pink caps) Also there is a smart notification LED that glows different colors like blue for a missed call and orange for charging.

CAMERA: Sony Xperia S' 12 MP camera does a wonderful job of capturing those moments that matter to you. Hold the dedicated camera button while  the phone is still and voila! you can capture a snap in just 1.4 seconds. Though this might not produce professional quality images, this feature comes in handy at times. For those who like to be professional photographers,  can get fuller controls over setting and can adjust white balance,exposure, ISO, focus mode to take snaps like they desire. Camera app has been well designed and users will find the camera extremely responsive in clicking images.See a few images below.

          


Sony Xperia S produces stunning images be it a portrait, a macro shot or any other sort of an image. Since the phone features a high-resolution screen,  viewing images on the phone is a joy. Though one thing that I found quite annoying was that images take a lot of memory. For example, a 12 MP shot usually takes 3MB of space which is a bit too much. Comparing with previous high-end models of the company this is an improvement but considering the likes of I-phone 4S this is still not enough. Also images are stored only in JPEG format and you cannot change the default storage format in any way.
         
Videos too take up much of your valuable memory(if you record at 1080p, be ready for 100MB of spending every minute just like other phones which record at full HD) Though it is good to see that audio is consistent while recording and there aren't changes in exposure.


PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE: It was quite surprising to see that Xperia S gives much better battery life than its predecessors considering the fact that a higher resolution screen generally reduces the battery life considerably. On moderate usage, you may go through 2 days without charging. While during heavy usage such as when WI-FI is kept on and while browsing heavily and watching a few videos while a few apps are running in the background, expect to get around 15 hours of play which is again worth applauding. For those who like to watch few HD movies on their phones(with such a brilliant screen on your phone,everyone would watch a few) will have to keep the charger handy because battery would be drained in every five hours while doing so.
          
As written above the phone's processor even without being quad-core is very capable of handling everything that the user throws at it and it does so without any hiccups. Xperia S gets full marks when it comes to handling many apps without giving even slightest of lags.

Software: Quite strangely, Sony Xperia        S ships with Android 2.3.7 which is in one word-outdated. But there's no need to worry since Sony has announced to start updating it to Android 4.0(ICS) from early June. Also present is familiar Xperia skin atop the Android OS. Built-in apps include amazing Timescape and an improved music app with better equalizer. McAfee antivirus notifications are quite annoying since they are hard to get away with.

             
 Sony has smartly tried to use the NFC technology in this device with creations such as Smart Tags which can be used to change profiles and a few more things n a snap.(watch the video above) Truly justifying its tagline 'Make.Believe' Sony has also created some mind blowing accessories including Xperia SmartWatch and Sony smart wireless headset.Watch the video below to see what they can do 

WRAP-UP: Innovations, performance, better battery life,gorgeous screen and a little bit of disappointment-Sony Xperia S has it all. With announced ICS update, it is sure to catch eyeballs and impress. It has made sure that Sony has moved on since Ericsson left and proved it is still a dominant force in the smartphone market. Expect Xperia S to create a mark in the market
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