Sony Xperia T: Mobile Review

Back when the driving seat was shared with Ericsson, Sony was a little short of delivering a real winner in the high-end market, the company's top-range smartphones always a notch below the Galaxy S lineup and their HTC counterparts. Now on their own, Sony cannot shy away from the toughest of battles and the Sony Xperia T is ready to be thrown in the fire.

A true flagship, the Sony Xperia T comes properly powered by a Snapdragon S4 chipset, boasting a class-leading 13MP camera and a marvelously sounding 720p display. There's no quad-core on its resume, but the Xperia T is ready to take on the best Android offerings out there.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support
• 3G with 42.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 4.55" 16M-color capacitive LED-backlit LCD touchscreen of 720p resolution (720 x 1280 pixels) with Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine; Scratch-resistant glass
• Android OS v4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich
• Dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU, 1 GB RAM, Adreno 225 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260A chipset
• 13 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging, Multi Angle shot
• 1080p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound
• 1.3 MP front-facing camera, 720p video recording
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
• 16GB of built-in storage, microSD card slot
• microUSB port with MHL and USB-host support
• Stereo Bluetooth v3.1
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Voice dialing
• Deep Facebook integration
• PlayStation Certified, access to the PS Store
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• NFC connectivity

Main disadvantages

• Display has sub-par viewing angles for a flagship
• Slightly thicker than main rivals
• Relatively modest battery
• JellyBean update not available at launch
• Poor loudspeaker performance
• Video recording could be better

The Sony Xperia T hasn't got the raw muscle of some of its rivals, but there's enough to get you interested. And once you go and give it a try, the design and handling will hardly let you down. In a smartphone market as crowded as today's, handsets with this much character are hard to come by. Now, a grateful nod is well in order to old allies and the Xperia Arc.

Setting record benchmark scores is one thing, but having an excellent chipset in a body that's great to look at is to many a more than even tradeoff. The Sony Xperia T should not be afraid of facing its rivals in a raw processing power battle, though it's the beauty contests it enjoys the most.

And then there's the software enhancements, to which Sony paid more than enough attention. The Android ICS on the Xperia T comes with a great-looking UI, which Sony claims is also one of the most functional around.
Let's get going then - the unboxing and hardware checkup are this short jump away.

Posted in: Android,Ice Cream Sandwich,Mobile,Mobile Review,Sony Xperia T,Specification,Xperia T