Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S Review

FULL REVIEW

Recently it has been interesting times for Sony Ericsson, with Sony announcing that it is to buy Ericsson's part of the business, and then comes the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S to India. But what is the Arc S all about? This is a minor hardware revision with some nice improvements over the original Arc. There's a new colour that looks good and a quicker processor that should make this phone a fun device.

Design & Formfactor

By the first looks of the Arc S, you would be mistaken just for the new color and might not find anything different than its predecessor. It has the same lines on the phone, an arched back with flaunting curves and looks to kill for sure. The grip is the same as the previous Arc, and the camera button is still a bit unpleasantly placed. But what will awe you about the phone is the white color that it sports and by God it looks like a very elegant phone; better than the whites that even manufacturers like HTC have to offer. The chrome finished sidelines give it more a feel of class and would look good even if Popeye’s girlfriend uses it. Upfront it sports a 4.2 inch display which is beautiful to look at and at the back the neat curve just makes you skip a heartbeat.

Features

The Arc S is the successor of the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc and it is powered by a 1.4Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).  It comes with a 4.2-inch Reality display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine and 8 MP auto focus camera with Exmor R image sensor, LED flash and 720p HD Video recording. The Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S is 8.7 mm thick and weighs 117 g. Other features include, 3.5 mm audio jack and FM radio with RDS. The connectivity features include, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP, aGPS and USB OTG, HDMI port. It has 512MB RAM, 320MB user memory that is expandable up to 32GB with MircoSD and comes with a 1500 mAh Battery. It comes with Office suit and 3D and 2D sweep panorama photography that could be viewed in 3D TV using the HDMI output.

Performance

The Arc S performs almost similar to its predecessor. Being an upgrade we were hoping that at least it’ll feature a dual core processor and obviously with better performance but I think Sony Ericsson just wanted it to be more of a fashion upgrade than a geeky one. So over all the phone performs nice and smooth a good buy if you like garish color phones.

Battery

The 1500 mAh battery on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S offers 7 h 25 min talk time and 460 h standby. Though for a phone like that its enough but with us it was able to withstand about 6 hours under heavy usage.

Camera

At the back, the Xperia Arc S sports a 8 megapixel camera which is quite brilliant and better than many 8MP cameras that we see in smartphones these days. Its capable of doing 720p HD video recording which is decent enough. What I didn’t understand is the concept of 3D sweep panorama, I coudnt find one place in my daily life where I could use that feature. All in all it’s a good camera phone and right up there to buy.

Verdict

The Arc S all offer truly modern mobile functionality, with stunning design and a good range of features. Battery life is disappointing, but you can live with that. Lack of a dual core processor for such a price might be an issue for the phone but overall I am sure Sony Ericsson would eventually realize the need for faster processor. This was just a minor update to the Arc S but I am sure over time they would be able to better this effort.