I’ve been waiting with bated breath for the Sony Xperia T ever since it became clear that’s the new phone of James Bond, err. that it will feature a 13MP camera sensor from Sony.
It is not just that 13MP shooter that the Xperia T has to flaunt – it is powered by a modern 28nm Snapdragon S4, has a large HD screen, and is one of the few to take advantage of Android’s on-screen navigational buttons, allowing it to keep the size compact and bearable.
Would these be enough to stand out against the thin quad-core competition coming in spades from Samsung and LG?
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
In the box:
Design:
Sony sort of pioneered the arched handset design of its big-screen phones with the Xperia arc, and the Xperia T falls into that tradition, offering a slightly curved inwards back, like a stretching cat, which helps with the grip and looks more interesting than the regular flat rears. The back cover is also made of soft-touch plastic and has tapered edges, aiding the grip further.
The front also has a distinctive slope at the bottom, which, together with the rounded corners, makes it more distinct than most flat rectangular fronts out there. In addition, Sony has placed three nice, laser-etched metal buttons on the right – the power/lock key, volume rocker, and the dedicated shutter button – which class the handset up some more. The side keys have a pretty nice tactile feedback, but are somewhat smallish, and crammed at the lower right side, so adjusting the volume requires some more thumb-gymnastics than needed. That’s because the upper right side is reserved for the microSD card and micro SIM card slots, since we have a unibody design with a sealed battery compartment, which are very easy to access under the protective lid.
There is an LED notification light at the front, which, however, is as small as if it is made with a sowing pin, and hardly noticeable except in a very dark environment.
Overall, a distinctive design, which immediately screams Xperia, and, thanks to the smaller screen and the lack of physical navigational keys at the front, has kept the Xperia T shorter and narrower than any of the other big-screen flagships out there, easing one-handed operation. The phone is slightly thicker and heavier than the current high-ends, though, leaving you with the impression that you hold a much larger device.
Display:
The 4.55” HD screen is pretty bright, which is good for outside usage, but here the experience is diminished by higher than usual screen reflectance, messing with the view. The other downside of the screen are the weak viewing angles, which make the colors and contrast look faded when the phone is observed from the side.
Apart from those gripes, we have 1280x720 HD screen with Mobile BRAVIA Engine-powered popping colors in pictures and video mode, plus a very high 323ppi pixel density, making small text and icon edges sharp and distinct.
The largest Bravia screen in the business
The Sony Xperia T comes with a 4.55" LCD screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels which breaks down to a pixel density of 323 ppi. That’s a rRajeev_Vermactable number and the real-life performance doesn’t let you down. The Bravia-powered screen is as sharp as it gets and you’ll be unable to tell individual pixels apart even if you look from up close.
The brand new gallery
The Sony Xperia T comes with a new Sony Ice Cream Sandwich gallery, called Album.
Images are organized into stacks of thumbnails and sorted by date. You can opt to show all of your albums in one place, and there are three tabs above the stacks - Pictures, Map and Online.
New video player includes powerful editor
The video player is dubbed Movies and it too has a new interface. It’s connected to Gracenote, which helps you find additional information about the movies you have preloaded - although it identified our version of The Mask not as the famous Jim Carrey flick, but rather a horror movie from 1961 by the same name.
Walkman music player on board
Another of the redesigned Sony media apps which has gotten a facelift is the new Walkman music player. It retains all the functionality of the older music players but adds a little bit extra here and there.
It is divided into Playing and My music panels.
13 MP Camera comes with its own interface
The Xperia T boasts a 13 megapixel camera with a back-illuminated Exmor R sensor and a single LED flash. It’s capable of producing stills of 4128 x 3096px resolution.
The camera controls on the Xperia T are available on two taskbars on either side of the viewfinder. On the left you get four shortcuts to various settings, while the still camera/camcorder toggle, the virtual shutter and a thumbnail of the last photo taken are on the right.
The menu key brings up two pages of extra settings - scenes, resolution, smile detection, geotagging, image stabilization and focus mode among others.
Conclusion
The Sony Xperia T is by all means an impressive phone. The dual-core Krait does a great job of competing with many other flagships not only on its home turf, but in the quad-core arena as well. Add to that a display that pushes out an impressive amount of pixels without issue, and a streamlined Android ICS interface that introduces some nifty features and optimizations not offered by other OEMs, you have a package that is very well put together.
DISCLAIMER: Taken from various internet sources