I Wanted a Phone to Match my Macbook Pro, So I Got A Sony.

Let me begin by saying, this was a reluctant upgrade. I liked my Xperia ray, it was no speedy performer even back then, but I could tolerate the so-so performance given the size advantage and design of the phone. But with ICS installed, and all the new apps coming in, the 1GHz CPU and 512MB RAM started feeling very sluggish. (For those that don't really run multiple background apps 24/7, and hate the larger phones, the ray is still a decent phone) I needed something current.. but small..er than the 4.5"-5" phablets that are slowly becoming the norm.

My daily machine is a 13" Macbook Pro. I love the simplicity of the design, and the feel of the aluminum shell. So naturally, I wanted a phone that matched this design ethos. Which drew me to my last phone, the Xperia ray, which had an aluminum frame and was decent performing Android. Now, the Xperia P matches my Macbook Pro perfectly, but how does it perform?

This is an initial review for those looking at a decent mid-level upgrade. That being said, I'm saddened to see the lack of high performance smartphones with smaller screens. A 4" screen seems to be the smallest you can go on a mid-level model right now, and anything smaller is considered "entry-level" and usually lacks a lot of current day tech (NFC, HDMI, etc). The Xperia P falls in the mid-level category, with a price to match. (Should be approx US$350 unlocked from official Sony stores) Had Sony made a newer equivalent of the ray with more RAM and a better CPU, but the same size and design cues, that actually would've been my preferred choice. But alas, the market demands larger screens, and larger phones. So here we go...

First the run down. The specs are decent, but not jaw-dropping. There are many phones out there that out-class the P with brute-force. But if there's anything I've learned over the years, specs don't always matter.

The specs most people want to know are:

1 GHz Dual-Core CPU

1 GB RAM

16 GB Built-in memory

No SD Card Slot

Built-in 1350mAh Battery

4" qHD display (960 x 540) w/ Sony's "White Magic" technology

Micro HDMI port

8 MP AF Camera w/ 1080p HD recording

The Design: The aluminum unibody is just beautiful. Bolted to the internal frame of the phone, it feels solid, and smooth to the touch. The sides of the phone are graced with the speaker, power, volume and camera keys on one side, and the Micro USB, Micro HDMI, and SIM card slot on the other. The back has the camera and LED flash, while the top has the standard 3.5mm headphone jack. On the lower part, is Sony's love-it-or-hate-it (I love it) transparent light band which houses the 3 Android keys (Back, Home, Menu) and connects to the antenna section at the bottom (yes folks, there's something in that lower part not just an aesthetic piece) The front is jet black for all models (black, silver, red) with the antenna section retaining the unit color (this is a painted plastic cap) below the touch-sensitive function buttons.

The Screen: A 4" LCD powered by Sony's "White Magic" technology and Mobile Bravia Engine. The idea behind Sony's White Magic is that the screen contains an extra white pixel that boosts over-all brightness when needed like under direct sunlight, or offers power-savings by being able to lower backlight brightness without making the screen too dim. In practice, it works quite well! The auto-brightness is probably the best I've seen with extremely quick adjustments and very gradual changes, it allowed me to get rid of the auto screen dimming app I had in my ray.

The Camera: Sony's Exmor R sensor, and an aperture of f2.4 seem to be pretty standard across Sony's line. The Xperia P comes with an 8 megapixel version and is nicely recessed within the rear aluminum shell. This gives excellent low-light shots and very quick standby-to-shot time. Sony calls is Quick Launch where the phone goes to a special Camera-only mode when you hold down the shutter key when in stand-by mode. This is pretty handy coming from a phone that didn't have a dedicated shutter key. The whole screen-on-swipe-to-enable-camera was just too slow. There are 2 modes it can function in, one opens the camera app, while the other opens the camera, focuses, then takes a shot as quickly as possible. The latter mode isn't very good and more often takes blurry shots... use the first one to launch the app, then take the picture after.

The Audio: First the good news. The Xperia P comes with Sony's Official Walkman app. This has much better controls than previous Xperia models. Clear Bass, 5 band EQ, and Surround modes are all present and are quite decent in their features. The interface is clean and intuitive, and overall user experience is very pleasant. Now the bad news, internal speaker is quite weak. Weaker than the ray, which was in turn, weaker than the X10 Mini Pro. XLoud, a feature that enhances the external speaker's loudness works, but it makes the speaker louder but a metallic. Unlike the Xperia ray, I recommend leaving XLoud off for the Xperia P. The only good thing about the design of the external speaker is that it's on the side of the phone (instead of at the back like most Sony models). Some people find this weird, but it makes more sense since placing the phone face up usually blocks the external speaker. Having it on the side minimizes chances of it being blocked by a desk, or seat cushion. In real-World use, I have an easier time hearing the P over the ray due to this design call.

The Interface: Sony's UX Homescreen has matured over the years. It's a lot smoother and has better integration with Android 4.0. Timescape however, no longer has SMS and Calls as options. Perhaps users only used Timescape for social networks. Not a deal-breaker. The weather app is quite strange, there are several major cities and capitals missing. Although the timezones are complete, people unfamiliar with one city, aren't presented with alternates within the same time zone. My personal picks for a homescreen is Apex. Others use Nova, or Launcher Pro. But certain Sony widgets only work with Sony's UX. The Timescape, Walkman, Calendar and weather widgets are only available in the default homescreen. Top Contacts is usable with other launchers. Out of the box, Sony's launcher is very nice. For those looking for more control and customization options, there are tons of other options available in Google Play.

The Initial Verdict: A big step forward from the Xperia ray. The dual core CPU and 1GB RAM make a huge performance difference. For those that may complain about the lack of an SD card slot, take note, SD cards are a lot slower than the built in memory. App performance is very good as is HD video recording, multi-tasking, and video playback. The White Magic screen performs as advertised (there is a slight yellow tinge but this is only apparent in an A-B comparison and is negligible). Battery life is almost 2x that of my Xperia ray despite the smaller battery capacity which makes me believe that the screen is delivering the power savings it has promised as well. A competent mid-level phone with an excellent screen and beautiful aluminum unibody design. A phone that gives you tech that you can actually use on a daily basis, nothing more.

For the curious, my next entries will deal with the nitty gritty details: NFC, camera tests, video playback, and HDMI output.

Ever need to text someone while swimming? (Liquipel)

Ever jump into a lake or a pool and forget your iPhone was in your pocket?

Ever have your phone fall into a toilet?

Ever think... "gee, I really need to call ________." while you're in the shower?

It's just so frustrating when your gadgets can't handle a little water right?  Well, no more!

Introducing... LIQUIPEL!!!

It's NOT a case.  It's a coating.

Ok, seriously, this has got to be one of the coolest non-gadget, gadget-related products out.  What they do is, they take your existing gadget (currently a limited line-up), place it in a small chamber and coat it with their water-repellant coating. I just wish there was some way to have this done here in the Philippines without going to the US. 

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray Review: Part 4 - TimeScape, Facebook and UX

Continued from Part 3

A while back, when I first got my X10 Mini Pro, I commented on the promise, and limitations of Sony Ericsson's TimeScape interface, cool looking but not ready for public use just yet.  Two Android generations later, and Sony Ericsson has learned quite a bit from their past mistakes.

TimeScape w/ Infinity button

TimeScape used to be heavily integrated into their version of Android.  This, in theory, was supposed to make it better, but instead made the interface slow and very difficult to update.  This in turn slowed the development of the X10 family and despite the positive feedback on the phones, the quickly outdated software became a huge ball and chain.  Today, I'm happy to report that TimeScape is more like an app, rather than a core system.  This means that it doesn't bog down the system nor does it hamper software updates.

Running on Android Gingerbread, the new TimeScape looks gorgeous, and allows much better plug-ins like RSS, other Social Networking sites, and email integration via 3rd party plugins available in the Marketplace.  The new widget is also live, unlike the older TimeScape which only showed the newest message, the current one allows you to scroll through messages without having to launch the app.

It now also integrates the Infinity button for messages received from contacts, pressing it will bring up a separate 3D stream of messages from that particular contact.  No need to look through your call history or email history to see your correspondence with someone.

Graphics are a lot smoother, thanks in part to a faster CPU, but mostly to much more efficient coding.  Gingerbread is supposed to have a 400% increase over Eclair, and TimeScape itself has been cleaned up... all these things combined really has improved the over-all user experience (or as Sony Ericsson wants to call it, UX) and enjoyment of using the app.

Facebook integration

Facebook Inside Xperia is another neat (or annoying, depending on your view of Facebook in general) feature.  I'm a heavy Facebook user, so this level of integration is great for me.  What once took 3-4 apps on my X10 Mini Pro, now is all built-in the UX of the Xperia ray.  Contact photos, numbers, status updates, and other important info are all automatically synced and updated.  Your phonebook cards can now contain all the info on that particular person's Facebook page.  Twitter is also integrated, just sign in with TimeScape.

Some people aren't fond of social integration, you don't have to use them.  Just don't log into your Facebook or Twitter accounts.  One caveat is if you're on Google+, unlike Facebook and Twitter, you need to log into your Google account to use your Android phone, Google+ integration is AUTOMATIC, and must be disabled if you don't want your phone to automatically update your status and upload photos.  Or you can just not download the Google+ app.

A few issues: This integration overlaps with Facebook's own app sync... so you will have 2 Facebook apps using up your data connection.  The other is purely aesthetic, the app seems to try to sync even when  mobile data is off, so you always get this annoying red triangle saying "Facebook Sync Failed" when you're data connection is lost, even when the app is set to manual sync.

SonyEricsson has been really slow the past few years... fumbling about for a unique fingerprint to put on Android.  I think they've found it with TimeScape and Facebook Inside Xperia.  Let's hope that future software updates and upgrades won't exclude previous generations so quickly.  For now, good job on the big improvement!  It makes looking through status updates actually fun!  Hahahaha!

Up next - Movie Time!  Video formats, playback, and the built-in gallery

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray Review: Part 3 - Smile! You're On Exmor R Camera!

Continued from Part 2

Since the introduction of the celfone cam, people have documented every single moment of their lives (both drunken and sober) and has caused a boom in digital photography.

The latest generation of mobile phone cams boast specs that exceed most professional cams a few years ago... but do specs tell the whole truth?  Numbers are quite easy to fudge, and test parameters can easily be biased to favor one manufacturer over another.  I've found that most of today's mid-to-high end devices are all comparable to each other.  This review is to give a real-world comparison and evaluation compared to point-and-shoot cameras.

Most phone cam lenses are fixed at around 28mm (in full-frame DSLR equivalent) this gives the most practical field of view for group shots, parties, and roughly 95% of the events people use their phones to take pictures of.

The Xperia ray sports an 8 megapixel Exmor R sensor which is supposed to be excellent in low-light situations.  I'm not fond of using a flash, on any of my cameras... so this was something that caught my attention.  Along with the claimed f2.4, this should make the ray perfect for capturing events at concerts, clubs, parties, candle-lit dinners and other things that happen in the dark...

But does it really work well?  How does it fare against the previous generation X10 Mini Pro?  Against a decent point & shoot camera?

The following marco are shots taken in automatic mode.  Photos were not processed, but resized using Adobe Lightroom, minimal jpeg artifacts were added so that isn't really going to affect over-all photo quality.  **edit: my apologies, I forgot to mention, these are zoomed crops to show both the detail, and flaws of the camera.  Original uncropped photos can be viewed here.**

Panasonic Lumix ZS3

The first shot was taken using my Panasonic Lumix ZS3.  This is one of the better all-around point and shoots on the market with a focal range of 28-300mm and a Leica lens.  It shoots in 720p HD so this will also be the baseline for the video comparison.

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro

This was taken using my X10 Mini Pro.  As you can see, colors are a bit washed out compared to the Lumix, but general detail is preserved.  A noteworthy observation is that the grill on the car looks more 'detailed' with the X10MP, but it's just heavier post processing on the phone's part.

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray

And finally, the shot taken using the Xperia ray.  Bokeh is slightly nicer on the ray... not by much, but if you look at the car in the background, the rims have stronger lens blur.  Color accuracy on the ray is also closer to the Lumix which is a plus.  I initially thought that the X10MP was sharper, but it turned out to just be stronger sharpening post processing.

With the absence of a dedicated camera button however, it is harder to take a shot with the ray.  Touch focus doesn't always work and can sometimes give a completely blurry shot.  Auto focus gives decent results most of the time, but limits compositional freedom.  Over-all the ray has a better camera, but without a dedicated camera button, it takes longer to take a shot.

Forget the front camera... it's sad.  Washed out and very soft focused.  Flashback to an 80's webcam.  It's there.  But don't expect iPod Touch/iPhone 4 quality video calls.  But there is hope for self-portrait fans.  Sony Ericsson's "Smile Detection" allows you to use the rear camera, then the phone automatically takes the shot when you smile.  Although this doesn't guarantee it's framed properly.

Now onto the video.  The Xperia ray records in 720p HD.  Movies are in the standard MP4 format and trimming recorded clips is possible on the phone itself.  I did find it nice that the phone records in stereo.  Utilizing the back mic for the left channel, and the phone mic for the right channel.  The odd position of the mics does create an issue for users that are unaware that both mics are on.  If you're holding the bottom part of the phone, you may be blocking the "right" mic and thus audio may sound weak.  Because the mics are farther apart than on most point and shoot cameras (like the Lumix ZS3), stereo separation does sound more prominent on the ray.

The following video was taken at night using only automatic settings.  This is how most people will be using the camera on this phone so I decided to make a direct comparison with the ZS3's HD capabilities as well.  Audio on the left channel is from the ray, audio on the right channel is from the ZS3.

As you can see, the Exmor R sensor does an excellent job of low light recording.  Not much noise is added, and detail is quite good.  Focusing is ok, but not great.  Clarity is still better on the ZS3 of course, but I would have more practical use for the ray's shots than the ZS3.  And a little post processing on the Xperia to improve black levels and the shots taken would actually look better than the ZS3.  Audio is decent for a device of it's size.  I didn't notice any weak audio, I suspect that early reports either had different firmware, or were accidentally covering the right channel mic with their hand.

Video verdict?  The Xperia ray is a very capable video recorder.  The Exmor R sensor does work and can be used in very difficult lighting situations.  Make sure you have a lot of storage though because HD video does chew up quite a bit of space.  I can now leave my ZS3 to the dedicated task of just scuba videos.  The Xperia ray will now be my everyday video device.

In the next entry -  The Interface : Timescape, Infinity Button, and Facebook Inside Xperia ... are they all that Sony Ericsson markets them to be?

**A usability tip: There are different camera shortcuts that you can add to your homepage for easy access.  I added the Camera and Video Camera shortcut.  It may not be a dedicated button, but it's a lot easier than scrolling through a menu!**

The Smart Netphone

I was invited to the launch of the Smart Netphone.

On a branding note, I would've simply gone with SmartPhone, but then that's me.

Smart Communications has just recently launched it's own Android-powered smartphone (See? How cool would that have been?)

It's a 3.5", 600MHz model targeted as an entry-level Android device starting at Php 9,900++ (or roughly US$230 based on today's exchange rate of 42.50)  Thankfully it runs FroYo (Android 2.2) because this adds a LOT OF SPEED and stability over Eclair (Android 2.1).  Trust me, I've lived with 2.1 for almost a year now, it's neat and all, but you really feel the sluggishness of the software.  Great decision to use 2.2 instead!

Decent specs for an entry-level model.  What I do find interesting is the unique app exclusive to the Smart Netphone.   The app is a combination of services custom built by Smart for people that are just starting mobile computing.

One of the major hindrances of 3G/4G data services in the Philippines is cost.  Without a data plan, a subscriber could easily be slapped with a Php40,000 or higher bill due to the fact that current smartphones connect to the internet for almost all their functions.  Smart solves this by having a widget data manager to control data costs.  Unlike generic data apps, this one is specific for Smart's services and prices so you only spend as much as you want to.

The other great part of the app is what they call the Social Stream.  Currently tied to Facebook and Twitter, it allows you to view your Facebook Status and Twitter streams for only Php1.00 (yes, 1 peso).  What it does is isolate Facebook and Twitter streams from the rest of the internet services.  This allows you to disable mobile data charges, but continue to Facebook and Tweet all day!

Over-all I think it's a decent entry-level Android.  Thumbs up to Smart for the cost-management app and custom social stream ticker.  Although a bit on the pricey side, Smart says they have intentions of introducing lower cost NetPhones in the future.  I think this is a great campaign because they're helping consumers try out the benefits of mobile internet without hiding costs or secretly charging customers without knowing how much they're actually spending!

Sony Ericsson xperia ray unboxing

FULL REVIEW COMING SOON!!!