Sony Xperia V (Bond's Wetsuit): Mobile Review

It won't be long before those full-HD five-inchers start stealing the show and the older Xperia generation should be preparing for life in their shadow. It doesn't mean though that the Xperia V cannot hope for a good time.

We don't see why a phone with dual-core Krait and an LTE connectivity shouldn't enjoy life in the midrange. OK, the upper midrange - but the Xperia V isn't easily caught off guard. Of course, people are not as easily impressed today as, say, a year ago. Yet, a select few phones are willing to offer 1080p videos and 13MP stills, while putting an HD touchscreen at your fingertips.

And there's more to the Xperia V than that. It's more durable than your average smartphone without looking like an army bot. You should've figured it by now, what we have here is a dust and water-resistant Xperia T with 4G connectivity and a tad smaller screen. Oh, well they needed to make sure the wetsuit would still fit the user.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support
• 3G with 42.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• LTE Cat3 DL 100 Mbps UL 50 Mbps
• 4.3" 16M-color capacitive LED-backlit Reality LCD touchscreen of 720p resolution (720 x 1280 pixels) with Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine 2; Scratch-resistant glass
• Android OS v4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean coming up
• IP57 certified for dust and water resistance, up to 1 meter immersion for 30 minutes
• Dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU, 1 GB RAM, Adreno 225 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 chipset
• 13 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging, Superior Auto mode
• 1080p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound
• VGA front-facing camera
• Wi-Fi a/b/g/n with DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct and hotspot
• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
• 8GB of built-in storage, microSD card slot
• microUSB port with MHL and USB-host support
• Stereo Bluetooth v4.0
• 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

• No JellyBean at launch
• Relatively modest battery capacity
• Video recording fails to impress
• No hardware shutter key
• Comes across as overpriced

Source:
GSMArena

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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.

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Mobile Review: Lava Iris N501 >> Launched in India

Lava has unveiled it’s 5-inch Iris N501 smartphone in India  and the phone is now available via all the major online stores and retailers across India at a price of Rs.9,999.

The Lava Iris N501 sports a 5-inch WVGA display (800 x 480 pixel resolution) and is powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor coupled with 512MB of RAM. The smartphone has a dual-SIM card slot and runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which is a tad bit of disappointment as we expect every smartphone launched now to ship with Jelly Bean at least.

Quick specifications of Lava Iris N501:

• 1GHz dual-core processor, 512MB RAM
• Android Ice Cream Sandwich
• 5-inch WVGA display
• 4GB internal storage, micro-SD card slot
• 2,300 mAh battery
• 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS
• dual-SIM card slot
• 5MP rear camera, 0.3MP front camera

The Iris N501 houses a 5 megapixel rear snapper with LED flash and a 0.3 front facing camera which can be used foe video calling. the smartphone comes with 4GB of internal storage and has a micro-SD card slot for storage expansion by up to 32GB. The Lava Iris N501 comes with all the standard connectivity features like 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

The smartphone comes with an impressive 2,300 mAh battery which according to the company, can give up to 7.8 hours of talk time. To lure more customers towards this new device, Lava has included an additional back cover and a 4GB micro-SD card for free with the Iris N501.

As far as the competition is concerned, the Iris N501 has tough task at it’s hand as the market is already crowded with many smartphones offering similar specifications at this price point like the Zync Cloud Z5, Intex Aqua 5.0, iBall Andi 5c and arguably the most popular smartphone in this segment, the Micromax A110 Canvas 2.

Source:

Softpedia 

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