Sony Xperia S

Say hello to the Sony Xperia S. Sony is the new brand name for Xperia mobile phones, now that the Ericsson name has been dropped from the line. The Xperia S is the downsized firm's new flagship 

Android smartphone.

Xperia S: Design

Rectangular is the watchword for the predominant style of the Xperia S with square edges but a curved rear. The smartphone isn't remarkably thin or light at 10.6mm and 144g 

The highlight of the design is the transparent strip of plastic along the phone’s bottom, with its own white backlight. This strip contains the Back, Home and Menu symbols in a stylish way but does present a problem. It feels natural to tap the icons but the actual buttons are above and only shown by small white dots. Worse is the fact that these buttons can be very unresponsive at times. 

A plastic rear cover is removable, providing access to a Micro-SIM card slot. However, the battery is not removable and there’s no microSD expansion slot. Sony has provided 32GB of internal flash storage, but that should be enough memory for a phone though. Xperia S is available in black and white colour - both styles look quite sleek.

The handset is solid and has a durable feel but is let down by the thin and flimsy removable rear cover. The overall effect would have been better if the Micro-SIM card slot was side mounted to leave the case in one piece.

In general Sony has equipped the Xperia S with a solid line-up of hardware. It is the processor which doesn’t quite stack up with the competition on paper, though. Many Google smartphones launched this year have a quad-core chip but the Xperia S takes a 1.5GHz Qualcomm dual-core processor. This is accompanied by the current standard 1GB of RAM.

The display is perhaps the best feature of the Xperia S. At 4.3in, it strikes a good balance between being large but manageable. It’s said to use Sony's Mobile Bravia Engine (a 19-page white paper fails to substantiate what that means) and has an impressive 720 x 1280-pixel resolution. This means it has one of the highest pixel densities we've seen on a smartphone at a whopping 341ppi - higher than even the iPhone 4S' 326ppi.The screen is up there with the best, competing with the iPhone 4S and HTC One X.

Other hardware features include dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microUSB, Micro HDMI and a near-field communications (NFC) chip.

Xperia S: Camera

Sony Ericsson was once renowned for making phones with good-quality cameras and Sony has maintained this trend with the Xperia S.

The device has a 12.1Mp rear-facing camera with auto-focus and LED flash. It has Sony’s Exmor R CMOS sensor, 16x digital zoom and an F2.4 aperture.

The camera app runs well and can be launched easily by pressing the dedicated shutter button - from sleep you can launch the app and take a photo in about two seconds. The auto-detect scene feature knows if you're shooting a portrait or macro shot for example and is a nice time saver.

Images were brilliantly sharp and we were particularly impressed with macro shots. The camera can automatically create a panoramic image using the 3D Sweep Panorama feature as you sweep the phone. It can record video in full-HD 1080p.

The Xperia S’ front-facing camera is for video chats or taking self-portrait pictures. This 1.3Mp cam is situated nicely on the phone and delivers a reasonably clear image.

Xperia S: Software

The Xperia S packs Google's Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system. We were told the handset is due to get an upgrade to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) but this didn't stop us wondering why a phone launched in spring 2012 is pre-loaded with an OS that was officially superceded in October of 2011.

It also remains to be seen how well a 1.5GHz dual-core processor will run Android 4.0 as reports have suggested some Android phones struggle with the more demanding software.

However, there are far too many apps pre-installed on the Xperia S; more than three pages worth to be exact.that's much apps to come with a phone. Crucially, most of these cannot be uninstalled.

Xperia S: Battery life

Sony doesn’t specify the energy capacity of the internal battery but touts a life of 25 hours listening to music, six and a half hours video playback, or eight and half hours of talk time.

Clever use of an included Power Saver app may help you get more out of the battery life. A power-saving mode can be customised to switch off certain useful functions or dim the screen. It can also automatically be enabled at a user-defined battery level or between certain hours of the day.