All on display
Encased within the somewhat quirky design are a set of display specs that are altogether more solid. There’s a 4.6-inch display on the front, with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, giving you an impressive 319 ppi pixel density. The result is a nice sharp display and plenty of space for Android to show off its talents.
But our biggest gripe about the device is that we’ve spent our time constantly trying to clean smears off it. The Xperia SP is topped with Corning Gorilla Glass, but it seems to spend more time being smeary than any other device we’ve used recently.
Hardware and performance
Driving the Xperia SP is a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, clocked at 1.7GHz, and backed by 1GB of RAM. It isn’t the latest generation of processor, nor is it the most powerful and that’s somewhat reflected in the experience. There’s 8 GB of internal storage, of which 5.37 GB is available, although you can add up to 32GB via microSD card.
In terms of physical connections, the Xperia SP has a 3.5 mm headphone socket on the top and a Micro-USB supporting MHL on the left-hand side.
The whole thing is powered by a 2300mAh battery, which is pretty impressive considering the level of this device.
Typically, the phone will make it through the day and we found that we’d get through 12 hours fairly easily. On light days we had no problems at all. It used to be the case that "mid-range" devices did well when it came to battery performance because of the lower specs. In the case of the Xperia SP, that’s not really the case.
You can turn off background data, but cleverly you can nominate those apps you want to stay connected. That means, for example, you could keep WhatsApp active for your social connections, but let all your Google syncing go quiet when the battery gets low. You also get hardware controls, so you can easily manage the endurance of your device when the battery level gets critical.
The result is that the Sony Xperia SP is a good performer on the battery. Sure, push it hard and the battery will drain itself in 6 hours or so, but with sensible use, the SP will see you through the day easily enough and Sony’s smart battery management options really work well, with all the flexibility we want.
The call quality of the Sony Xperia SP is good and there were no complaints from callers when using the phone. We also found the reception to be pretty good, with a good strong signal in places that some phone struggle with on our test network.
The external speaker is located on the back of the phone and isn’t great. It sounds rather tinny and there are certainly phones that give a much better account of themselves when being used for music and movies with the external speaker.
The Sony Xperiance
Sony’s customisation of Android is now at a level where it doesn’t inhibit much of what you love about Android. Some of the distractions of Xperia devices of old have been moved aside, so there’s no longer any Timescape or Mediascape, but there’s still a fair quantity of bundled apps and services.
But thanks to support for folders in the apps tray on this Android 4.1.2 (at launch) device, you can easily move any number of apps you don’t want into a folder. While we’d much prefer to be able to remove them, at least you can hide them away easily.
There are some superficial changes to the calendar that we don’t think really add anything over the stock Android offering and although Sony has added a great deal to its keyboard, we still don’t think it stands up against Swiftkey or the new Swype, which we used predominantly on this phone.
We also found the returning to the home screen sometimes left us with lots of blank spaces where there should be app shortcuts or folders, as though the SP was lagging behind what you were asking it to do. With the power on offer, this shouldn’t be the case, so perhaps points to something in the software that needs fixing. Not a deal breaker, by any means, but it detracts slightly from the package.
Photos, movies and music
Sony being Sony, it wants to own the entertainment space. Where you really feel the impact of its tinkering is in the entertainment apps. That means that visually, as well as operationally, things like the Gallery, here called Album, change dramatically. One of the things we like about Sony’s Album is the zooming to change the view of photos, a feature Sony has offered over a couple of generations of Android smartphones. It’s great to be able to zoom in and out of the whole album view and watch everything rearrange itself.
You also get in-built editing options, so you can add common effects like Lomo, change the saturation of a picture, crop, rotate, change highlights, shadows and a whole host of other things, so if the picture you snap isn’t looking its best, you can easily make some changes.
The Movies app is something of an oddball as it doesn’t give you all your movies, like those from the camera, which are accessed through the normal album. Movies will, however, pull together those videos you sideload, as well as those you might buy through Sony’s Movies Unlimited, but not those you download from Google Play.
Movie playback looks good head-on, although the display’s viewing angles will see the colour drop out if you lie it down flat. There’s good native support for a range of different file formats, however, as well as integrated support to share content or access content on a media server.
We’re still not totally sold on the music app. Even though it sports the Walkman branding, the home page for the music app feels a little antiquated with the top section given over to the depiction of a record player. When it comes to finding and playing your music we don’t have a problem with it, and the sound quality is pretty good through a decent set of headphones, with various enhancements available to tweak the sound to your liking.
Cameras
Sony packs a huge amount of functionality into the camera of an Xperia handset. The Xperia SP has an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 0.3-megapixel camera on the front. The rear is supported by an LED flash and as we’ve mentioned, there’s a dedicated camera button.
But the Sony Xperia SP suffers with noise, both in low light conditions and in good conditions, with blue skies turning speckled on a fine day, even with a reported ISO of 50. These shots are fine for sharing where the viewing size will probably hide those imperfections, but it’s not the best performer out there.
Specifications
Manufacturer and model
Sony Xperia SP
Network
GSM 850/900/1800/1900
HSPA 850/900/1700/1900/2100
Processor
1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core
RAM
1GB
Memory
8GB
Memory expansion
microSD
Display
4.6in, 1, 280 x 720 pixels
Main camera
8-megapixel
Front camera
VGA
Wi-Fi
Yes
GPS
Yes
FM radio
Yes
Battery
2, 370mAh
Size
130.6 x 67.1 x 9.98mm
Weight
155g
OS
Android 4.1