With the Xperia arc now officially out of the bag let’s take a look at exactly what the handset offers and dispel some of the conflicting rumours and reports over its specifications.
The design of the handset is one of its most prominent features and with its thinnest part measuring just 8.7mm thick it could lay claim to being the thinnest smartphone in the world. The screen is a rather massive 4.2 inch affair, which means it’s a tall handset even if it is thin.
In terms of the actual hardware I’ve presented the full spec sheet at the end, but we’ll go over some of the more interesting points in detail.
The screen, as mentioned above, measures 4.2 inches, and it’s packing in what Sony Ericsson are calling a ‘reality Display’. This seems to be the way forward these days, you’re display is no good unless it has a catchy title. More importantly though the arc features a Mobile Bravia Engine to help power the whole thing and make multimedia flow smoothly.
The screen itself is an LCD, no Super LCD or AMOLED I’m afraid, but on the bright side it supports 16 million colours, up from the X10’s 65k and it will support multi-touch out of the box! That’s a huge improvement over the X10 as multi-touch really is a basic feature in smartphones these days.
Camera wise it’s an 8.1 MP effort, in contrast to earlier reports that suggested it would be 12 MP. 8 MP is more than sufficient and compares well with the likes of the Nexus S and iPhone 4, which muster up 5 MP cameras. Of course the megapixel count isn’t the be and end all, but Sony Ericsson does still do well on the camera side of things and its interface for the X10 was roundly praised as a step up from the stock Android interface so we can expect similar results here.
The camera supports HD video recording, 720p in this case. 1080p is obviously better, but that’s probably a bridge too far for Sony Ericsson at the moment. To be fair it’s probably a bridge too far for most manufacturers at the moment and in any case 720p is more than adequate for most people. It’s again another step up from the X10, which received HD recording support through an update, but here we have it straight from the start.
The handset will be shipping with Gingerbread, which is not only great in terms of being able to use the latest version of Google’s OS, but a huge relief for those worried that Sony Ericsson would repeat the huge mistake they made with the X10 and use an outdated version of Android. In fact not only will the arc ship with Gingerbread it has already been spotted running an uprated version of Gingerbread, version 2.4 instead of version 2.3. The handset will ship with version 2.3m, but it’s a promising sign for future updates that a newer version is already being tested on the hardware.
You can check out the full spec list below and the official press release here.
Camera | 8.1 megapixel camera Up to 2.46x smart zoom Aperture f/2.4 Auto focus Face detection Flash/LED Geo tagging Image stabilizer Noise suppression Send to web Smile detection Sony Exmor R™ for mobile CMOS sensor Touch Focus Touch capture Video light Video recording, HD 720p |
Music | Album art Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP) Media player Music tones (MP3/AAC) PlayNow™ service* TrackID™ music recognition application * This service may not be available in every market |
Web | Bookmarks Google™ search NeoReader™ barcode scanner Pan & zoom Web browser (WebKit) |
Communication | Call list Conference calls Facebook™ application* Sony Ericsson Timescape™ Speakerphone Vibrating alert * This service may not be available in every market |
Messaging | Conversations Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync® Instant messaging Picture messaging (MMS) Predictive text input Sound recorder Text messaging (SMS) |
Design | Auto rotate Keyboards (onscreen, QWERTY) Picture wallpaper Reality display Sony Mobile BRAVIA® Engine Touchscreen Wallpaper animation |
Entertainment * This service may not be available in every market | 3D games Media browser Motion gaming Radio (FM) Video streaming Video viewing YouTube™ * |
Organiser | Android™ OS Alarm clock Calculator Calendar Document readers Flight mode Infinite button Phone book |
Connectivity | 3.5 mm audio jack aGPS Bluetooth™ technology Google Maps™ HDMI Modem DLNA USB mass storage USB support Wi-Fi™ Wisepilot™ turn-by-turn navigation * * This service may not be available in every market |
Google™ services* * These services may not be available in every market | Android Market™ Client Gmail™ Google Calendar™ Google Gallery 3D™ Google Latitude™ Google Maps™ with Street View Google Media Uploader Google Music Player™ Google Phone-top Search Google Search widget Google Sync™ Google Talk™ Google Voice Search Set-up Wizard YouTube™ |
Screen | Sony Mobile Bravia Engine 16,777,216 colour TFT Capacitive multi-touch 4.2 inches 854 x 480 pixels (FWVGA) Shatter proof sheet on scratch-resistant mineral glass |
Accessories | In-Box:
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Facts 1)2) | Size: 125 x 63 x 8.7 mm Weight: 117 grams Phone memory: Up to 512 MB Memory card support: up to 32 GB Memory card included: microSD™ 8 GB Operating system: Google™ Android 2.3 Processor: 1 GHz Qualcomm |
Availability and versions | Networks UMTS HSPA 900, 2100 GSM GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900 UMTS HSPA 800, 850, 1900, 2100 GSM GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900 |
Colour | Midnight Blue Misty Silver |
Thank you for this. Really nice piece of work. All the contents you mentioned in post is too good and can be very useful. I will keep it in mind, thanks for sharing the information keep updating, looking forward to more posts. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI did not know that Google have these many apps. Thanks a lot.
ReplyDeleteFace detection system of xperia arc is awesome. i specially liked this camera specially Image stabilizer option. thank you so much for sharing.
ReplyDelete