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Review Sony LT26i Xperia S Black

Sony has unveiled its new smartphone Sony Xperia S. The 12-megapixel camera and 4.3-inch Bravia HD screen are simply delightful. What else do you need to buy this phone for? Read on in our review.

Main technical characteristics of Sony Xperia S:

Black color

Material: plastic

Operating system: Android 2.3

Processor: Qualcomm MSM8260, 1.5 GHz, dual core

Dimensions (LxWxT): 128x64x10.6 mm

Weight: 144 g

Battery capacity: 1750mAh

Standby time: 450h

Talk time: 7.5 h

Display: TFT, 16 million colors, 4.3-inch, 720 x 1280 pixels

Touch screen: capacitive

RAM: 1024 MB

Wireless interfaces: WiFi, DLNA, Bluetooth, NFC

Ports: microUSB, USB, HDMI, 3.5mm

Camera: 12-megapixel with a resolution of 4000x3000 pixels

Flash: LED

Design and ergonomics

The appearance of the device is very stylish. The front panel is made of glossy black glass with a transparent strip at the bottom that acts as an antenna. All other panels are made of matte black or white plastic, which is very pleasant to the touch thanks to the new soft-touch technology. The prints on the phone are almost invisible. Even if the ink of the pen suddenly gets on the white plastic, it is easy to get rid of the dirt with a damp cloth. After wiping off the dirt, we did not notice any damage to the surface.

The device looks rather large in the hands. Its dimensions are 128 x 64 x 10.6 mm. In appearance, the smartphone is very similar to the Samsung Galaxy S2. Although Sony Xperia S weighs a little more - 144 grams. Due to the convex back panel, the device seems to be somewhat thicker than it actually is.

On the top of the smartphone, you will find an on / off and unlock button for the device, as well as a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

On the right side there are volume control buttons, an HDMI connector, and a camera start button.

On the left side there is a port for charging and synchronizing the phone. There is a groove for the strap below.

On the back, manufacturers have placed a camera lens and flash. There is also the Sony Ericsson logo, although the Sony inscription flaunts on the front panel. The Sony Xperia S has a very good build quality. On the front of the phone, we see a small recess for the speaker and a 1.3MP front-facing camera. There are touch button indicators on the transparent strip at the bottom of the screen. These same buttons are a little higher. Some may find it a disadvantage that there are no conventional keys. The phone uses microSIM, although, in principle, there would be enough space for a regular SIM card.

Contents of delivery

The phone comes with two NFC SmartTags, headphones, an HDMI and USB cable, and an AC adapter.

Interface

The Sony Xperia S ships with Android 2.3 Gingerbread pre-installed, although most phones already boast Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

This device has a Timescape interface like many Xperia phones. We were never particularly impressed with Timescape, but here it did its best. Sony is providing some cool new widgets that take common actions like switching between menus or controlling music in a new way. And the Xperia wallpapers are very pleasing to the eye with their appearance.

The Sony Xperia S boasts a brilliant Bravia display that delivers crisp, vibrant images. Undoubtedly, the Sony display can compete with the Retina display in Apple devices. It is necessary to see it in order to believe it.

There are five desktops, which are enough for comfortable phone control.

The only minor flaws we found were the inability to turn off Android notifications and the inconvenience of turning Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on / off. This is not a big problem at Sony, since it is possible to transfer widgets to another desktop, but in the HTC Sense or Samsung Galaxy S smartphones, this is done more thoughtfully.

A number of application icons are arranged in a standard 4x5 grid, although Sony gives you the ability to arrange them however you like. You can run many applications on this smartphone at the same time, and this will not embarrass him in the least.The 1GB of RAM and the 1.5GHz dual-core processor do their job well.

Contacts and calls

Some changes also affected the handling of user contacts. You could see the default Android address book, but Sony has done some work and made it better.

First of all, we expected to have the ability to sync Google contacts here, as with most Android phones. But besides that, we were given three options: sync with a computer, sync with online sources, or import contacts from a SIM card. We chose the online sync method and were pleasantly surprised by the number of options that are provided: Facebook, WhatsApp (pre-installed), Exchange Active Sync, SyncML and Google. It's weird that Twitter is missing on this list.

Synchronization with Facebook is possible in two ways: standard using the Android Facebook application, where you can import all contacts, or simply sync with those that already exist, and using Facebook Inside Xperia, which takes data transfer to a new level and has many additional features.

You can access contact information in one of three ways: directly through the Contacts app, which is in the default grid by default, through the phone icon at the bottom of the screen, or by using the Google search bar at the top of the screen. Adding contacts is as easy as using any Android phone.

Contact information is presented in the Address Book section with a beautiful gray-black background that looks aesthetically pleasing and stylish. Below there are three icons: Contacts, Phone and Favorites.

Talking on this phone is a pleasure. Excellent sound reproduction and noise cancellation, which is to be expected from Sony.

Posts

It is very comfortable to correspond with messages on phones with the Android operating system. With the help of synchronization with social networks, you will always be aware of all the events taking place. You have the opportunity to add a number of useful communication applications such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Skype, Windows Live Messenger, ICQ. Despite the fact that there is no universal mail, there is an Android status bar, which combines all your entries from different sources for the convenience of working with them.

For Gmail users, there is a built-in application of the same name. It can use labels and full-text search. This is very convenient in practice. For other email accounts, Sony provides its own email application that does its job well and has the same nice gray and black design as Address Book.

It is very easy to write SMS, MMS or e-mail. This can be done by launching the appropriate application, or by selecting the appropriate item in the contact menu. Even a novice user can easily cope with such a task.

When composing messages, you will use a comfortable QWERTY keyboard that supports Swype typing. Until now, HTC smartphones have been famous for their excellent keyboards, which were second to none. Although the Sony Xperia S cannot dethrone them from the top, we can now confidently say that they are on an equal footing.

the Internet

On Android phones, surfing the Internet is a real pleasure. Most phones no longer support Adobe Flash Player, but nevertheless, we are glad to see it in the Sony Xperia S. Thanks to the large and bright 4.3-inch display, website pages look amazing. Even when zoomed in, they remain clear.

Pages load instantly thanks to a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and Wi-Fi or HSDPA. It took 12 seconds to load the standard version of the rather full site. Basically, the page was completely ready to use in four seconds, which is incredible. The rest of the time the material was loaded in the background. The text is easy to read even without zooming.

Of course, the ability to resize the page is also present here. If for some reason you do not like using a standard browser, you can choose a decent alternative, for example, Dolphin HD, Maxthon, Firefox or Opera. You will also have the opportunity to try BETA Google Chrome.

Here, access to bookmarks can be obtained through the shortcut, which is located next to the address bar. Here you can also go to the section of the history of visits. And, of course, you have the ability to bring individual bookmarks to the desktop as widgets. Everything is very convenient and easy to use.

Camera

Many high-end phones have an 8MP camera. We were pleasantly surprised that the creators of the Xperia S installed a 12-megapixel camera with a maximum image resolution of 4000x3000 pixels. There is also a 1.3MP front-facing camera for video calling. Pictures on the displays of both the phone and the computer look amazing. The smartphone has an LED flash. We shot photos in low light, practically in the dark, and were pleasantly surprised with the result.

While some phones' camera shots have a white tint, here are warm and natural colors. The shutter speed is quite fast. You may get a little blur when trying to photograph a fast moving subject in the dark, but this figure is significantly less than in other smartphone cameras.

Also pleased with the settings. You will be able to set the parameters for launching the camera convenient for you. Here it is possible to take pictures one by one, because they are processed immediately. In addition, here you can instantly launch the camera application by holding the corresponding button for a second. You don't even need to unlock your phone. These features save you a lot of time.

There are many different modes here. One of them is Sweep Panorama. Pictures are taken three times and saved as one image. The smile detection function works well.

You will also have the opportunity to try yourself in creating 3D photographs. We use this term tentatively here, as the Xperia S has only one lens. When you select 3D mode, the camera takes several pictures, which are then superimposed on each other. This is how the 3D effect is created here. You will not be able to view such an image on your phone, for this you must have a TV with 3D playback capability. Therefore, we were unable to appreciate the photographs we created. A similar mode was in the Sony Xperia Arc S. The shooting results were not very impressive.

When shooting with flash in low light conditions, it produces a warm color without bright white reflections.

The photos taken on a cloudy day are also good.

A photograph taken without using a flash in a well-lit room.

Shot with a flash in absolute darkness.

Fast moving subjects are subject to slight blur even in daylight.

Autofocus works great, even in macro mode.

Photo taken in panorama mode.

Video

You will be able to shoot video in Full HD format with a resolution of 1980x1080 pixels. As you might expect, there is a choice of video size from the listed options. True, HD files will be large, and you are unlikely to send them to someone. But watching the footage on the phone display, you will get great pleasure.

Here you will have the opportunity to use the face recognition function, as well as you can adjust the exposure levels, white balance and metering. Image stabilizer is on by default, but in practice it doesn't work as well as we would like. When the camera moves, the video is not clear enough. I am glad with excellent sound transmission. Overall, the daylight performance is good. We were also impressed by the video filmed in a dark room.

Multimedia

Obviously, the Sony Xperia S phone with Bravia HD display is simply built to handle a variety of multimedia files.Oddly, the Xperia S doesn't have the ability to use memory cards, so there's no way you can expand your phone's space. In all fairness, 32GB of internal storage is sufficient.

We were disappointed with Sony's attitude towards owners of personal computers without a Windows operating system. When we connected the Xperia S to the Mac laptop, nothing happened. Many attempts have been made to make the phone at least perceived by the computer as a hard drive. All is in vain. In the end, we downloaded Sony software for an old Sony Ericsson Xperia phone, but we never got a perfect sync. This is a significant disadvantage as most people use Mac products.

Working with multimedia is a pleasure! The music playing app has a great design. We also liked the additional menu, which provides many useful links, for example, to find a clip on YouTube or information about the author on Wikipedia. You can also easily get the lyrics of a song or find a karaoke version of the desired melody. There is also the option to download missing album covers using Gracenote. We noticed that the phone played any type of file without any problem. The sound is excellent with or without headphones. If you suddenly get bored with music, you can always listen to FM radio.

Watching the video is, as you'd expect, immersive. Of course, the battery will drain a little faster, but when you start watching a movie, you will understand that it is worth it. A trailer for the cartoon "Cloudy with Chance of Meatballs Chance" was recorded on the smartphone, it looks fantastic. In principle, other videos that we watched look no worse. The large display and small weight of the phone allow you to comfortably watch movies while holding it in your hand. Again, the smartphone supported all sorts of file formats. You can also watch videos on YouTube without any obstacles, because there is a pre-installed application of the same name. We were able to enjoy watching HD videos on the Bravia screen thanks to the powerful processor and high data transfer rate.

Photos are viewed using the standard Gallery application. There can now be even more albums with photos, thanks to synchronization with social networks. For example, all Facebook albums appeared in the gallery as if those photos were originally on the phone.

Battery

The smartphone uses a 1750 mAh battery. We've been using the Xperia S throughout the day. At 8 am, the battery was 100 percent charged. We spent about an hour taking photos and browsing social media pages while listening to the radio. By 10 am, the charge was already 69 percent. We actively used the smartphone all day, and its battery was completely discharged by 8 o'clock in the evening. The phone has a talk time of 8.5 hours and 420 hours of standby time.

Ports and interfaces

The Xperia S phone includes wireless interfaces such as Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and NFC. Although the latter is still very rarely used, it has good prospects in the near future. Strange, but our phone was unable to automatically find Wi-Fi networks. We had to find our network settings and then join it.

You can also connect your phone to a PC using a USB cable. DLNA is also supported here, with which you can transfer images, videos or music to compatible devices. Thanks to the HDMI port, you can view photos or videos from your Xperia S phone on your TV. Even on a 50-inch screen, the shots looked amazing.

Maps and Apps

We were scared when we did not find Android Market, but quickly calmed down when we learned that it was simply renamed to Google Playshop, which has many interesting and useful applications. However, we recommend that you first install some kind of antivirus, for example, Pro Lookout, which has never let us down. Basically, you can also use the pre-installed McAfee antivirus.

This smartphone contains all the standard applications such as calculator, clock, etc., which are not even worth mentioning. There is also an opportunity to comfortably use Gmail. Satellite navigation and Google Maps will be available to you.

Sony is a partner of the UEFA Champions League and decided to introduce the Xperia Football app, which we really liked. But for some reason, Android Play users did not like it, as they unanimously left negative comments about this application.

There is also a preinstalled OfficeSuite widget for working with Office documents.

All applications are arranged in a standard grid. Here you can change their placement order.

conclusions

The Sony Xperia S phone has many positives. The device has a strict and elegant design, excellent build quality and is made of pleasant, and most importantly, reliable material. The huge screen with good color rendering will not leave anyone indifferent. A powerful 1.5 GHz dual-core processor allows you to comfortably use high-speed Internet and work with several applications at the same time without slowdowns. The 12MP camera on the back of the phone is one of the best. It makes the Xperia S a worthy competitor to the iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S2. You will be able to enjoy high-quality videos and photos that will be taken by you. They will be fine even on a large TV display. Captures and watch movies on this phone.

There is 32 GB of internal memory, but perhaps this will not be enough for someone. Unfortunately Sony did not provide a microSD slot on the Xperia S for storage expansion. We were also disappointed by the lack of software to work with the Mac. We hope that this deficiency will be eliminated. The battery lasts for one day with active use of the phone. Overall, this smartphone is well worth the money.

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