Sony Ericsson Xperia arc

I purchased this handset the very next day India won WC ... kindda my style to mark the celebration. Writing reviews have not been my cup of tea but still .. so here it goes. The reason why I decided to write one b'cos I see so many of myths .. incomplete piece of info's scattered over the internet in form of reviews.

Pros:
1 - Slick, absolute beauty, complete eye-turner.
2 - Very Light weighted
3 - Gingerbread as OS; few of 'em have in market
4 - Good battery life
5 - Display is far ahead of any current generation of Android Smart Phone (iPhone 4 stands out.)
6 - Speaker quality is very good but pair of headset provided sucks.
7 - The overall dimensions of this state-of-art device justify it being a very brilliant piece of hardware & software, together combined as Xperia Arc.
8 - Camera is very good (not sure what exactly exmor sensor has done as many other mobile cameras do provide same or better pic quality, but I am happy with this.)** - notice these two asterisks here, you gonna need it in the end.
9 - Video quality is very good, bit shaky and noisily at times, but much better than current handsets; unfortunately no 1080 HD video still. **
10 - UI layer has some really nice work done by SE engineers.
11 - I have black color model, you cannot make out where screen ends and bezel starts when screen is off, looks addictive at times.
12 – HDMI port along with cable is provided, useful feature.

Cons: Well this is one section, I would hate to write personally but then I feel its integral part of any review.
1 - At times software feels buggy and phone seems to have lag; responds late but as suggested that it's good to restart phone every day once so that memory space gets freed up. Trust me, this works and phone keeps running smooth.
2 - The UI layer by HTC on Android seems more featured packed and appears appealing to me (can be personal choice as well; I have used HTC Desire HD)
3 - The charging cum PC connector point has been left open in the right hand side, nearing the top, it makes phone like incomplete.
4 - Position of camera is on left hand side of back on top, on place where I usually keep my fingers so it might need time to get use to it.
5 - Good to have a dedicated camera button on side body of phone but donno why SE designers have kept it so small and hard to press that if you use it, you end in shaking up the picture.
6 - Position of headphone socket is on left hand side to body which I personally don't like.
7 - ** here’s the catch hence two asterisks. Note that SE claims to have 2.4x zoom but the hidden fact is that it's available in only 2 MP & VGA mode and not in 8 and 6 MP modes. Donno the reason but I felt disappointing on noticing this.
8 - ** Video camera DOES NOT HAVE ZOOM IN ANY MODE. Highly disappointed.
9 – Though led flash does pretty good job but making it dual led camera could have made me rate this more.
10 – Option to add home screen could have been good thing but I would leave this to individual choices.
I am not sure, how many of you would like the way of my review but this is just to make people aware of stuff before they could grab.

My Final View: Go for this phone if you like stunner piece of hardware combined with awesomeness of Android. No phone is perfect currently and this one out in market is meant for connoisseurs.

This is an amazing piece of hardware and what even better is that the the latest revision of Android ships with the phone. I have had this phone for the past 9 days now and i am enjoying it throughly, so much so that my primary blackberry device has taken the backseat for the first time in 3 years. This device does lack some features as compared to the other phones in the same price range like the level of customization in the OS. I frankly think that the Timescape UI is very slow, laggy and takes up a lot of memory making the phone ultimately slow.

One plus that i must give SE is that they have released an official Boot unlocker for all of us who like to load custom ROM's on the phone. And just realsed a couple of days ago was the one click root for Gingerbread too. I must say, it works great and thanks to it have freed up much of the original junk software that came with the phone.

On the hardware, i would rate this phone 4.5 out of 5 and on the software, a 3 out of 5. Well once the custom ROM's are released it will be much better. Overall this phone is the best buy for the price it is at. Compared to all the competitors at this price, SE Xperia Arc excels in the following:
1) Shape and Design
2) Weight
3) Feel in Hand (Yes one handed operation is possible)
4) Screen size and LED technology
5) 8.1 MP camera with sony Exmor sensor
6) and last but not the lest the LOOKS - this is an eyeturner. In a place where all phones look bulky and heavy, this just changes everything, you have to see it to believe it.

One problem with such a design though is that the accessories (cases, protectors etc.) are very scarce and tough to come by.

In the Box:
1 Phone
1 Battery
1 USB cord that doubles as charger
1 Power to USB connector
1 Leather Case
1 Screen Protector (YES its free)
Documentation

Well this is my first review about any gadget...all thanks to flipkart for giving me the chance to write reviews about this amazing gadget yet to be released..wakao im gonna lay hands on it the moment it reaches India market...watching many youtube videos and reading many review articles on plethora of tech sites here is my detailed view in a nutshell:

Design: 5 out of 5.
IMHO this is one of the best beautiful curvy and sexiest design i have ever seen after HTC unibody aluminium design( I personally own nexus one, htc desire, dell streak, htc desire hd) even though its made of plastic..the plastic is high quality unlike samsung galaxy series. Sony ericcson always comes with ultimate designs...this time they have crafted a beautiful..slim babe,the Xperia Arc...hats off for the design and for the Unique name Xperia Arc

OS: Android 2.3 (points: 5 on 5)
this phone comes with android 2.3 thats the best part....also they stripped out many mediascape elements which was causing problems in updating the previous models of xperia...with the streamlined eyecatching blue UI( i kinda hate black UI with stock roms) its definitely a piece of cake as updates would be easier in future...also many developers at Xda are eying at Arc...once the root is available it will easier to flash different android roms like MIUI(MIUIU is one of the hotest roms for android phones as of now) as it is android is an open platform...

Hardware: points 4/5

Well it comes with Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon System-on-a-chip featuring a 1 GHz Scorpion CPU and the Adreno 205 GPU which certainly is a beast as of now before dual core samsung galaxy S 2 and Lg optimus 2x launches in indian market..also the ram is quite less only 512 mb, 320mb storage...considering most htc phones now comes with atleast 1gb ram..so developers will have to come up with ext3 partition hack on sd card to install apps the way they have done it for Htc nexus one and htc desire so even though internal memory is less which i feel sony ericcson should have given a thought...ext3 hack comes as a saviour!!HDMI port is available...the power button is very small size.. will take time to get use to it..
Another feature from Sony Ericsson is noise cancelling - a small secondary microphone is dotted on the back near the 8MP camera with single LED flash, which should pick up background noise quite nicely.A 3.5mm jack for music lovers. micro sd lot expandable upto 32gb..battery Li-Po 1500 mAh which is not bad but should have been atleast 1650 mAh considering the display size of xperia arc..phone is 3g enabled HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps,Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, DLNA, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS

Camera: points 4/5

Well it comes with one of the best 8.1 megapixel (3264x2448 pixels) autofocus HD camera with Exmor R technology and flash which offers better response in low light situations.other features are Touch focus, image stabilization, geo-tagging, face and smile detection..
what is missing is front camera..IMHO sony lacks future vision here...

UI:5/5
so far its one of the best UI on android platform...if u remove few useless widgets from screen this is one of the snappiest UI..launcher is ossum...

Display: 4/5
Xperia arc has whooping real estate of 4.2" display with bravia engine techonology which gives crisp image quality..one of the best lcd displays but compared to super amoled xperia arc display is average...samsung is coming up with super amoled plus screen on samsung galaxy s 2 phones. Again sony lacks vision here as many phone makers including nokia are opting for amoled display

Sound quality:(5/5)
loudspeaker quality is unbeatable ...sound is quite loud....which is what is required from indian perspectives....sony is known for their sound quality...i was quite impressed even by xperia mini pro loudspeaker volume..again hats off for fitting all these things in very a slim model.

Rest of the features are as usual same as in other smartphones. I will update this review once i lay hand on this mobile

Verdict: Well for sound quality and camera quality i will go for this phone blindfolded

thanks for reading ...

My first Android phone and i love this phone.Be its awesome design,clear display,stylish looks,stunning camera.
Looks:5/5
it is the best looking phone in market currently,i love this phone whether it be in my hands or just keep looking at it.i will be frank enough to accept that i took this phone two weeks ago and not a single minute i have kept this phone unused,so beautiful are its looks.
Camera:4/5
the 8 mp camera and 720p hd video recording is awesome,but u cannot use zoom with 6mp or 8mp and also in video recording and also it does not has a front camera.
music:4/5
I have read so many reviews about this phone and see people say that loudspeaker is great,but in my arc it is not so loud but decent enough might be a fault in my set.but the music player is awesome and i have downloaded the poweramp music player which suits well for this phone
videos:5/5
This is the best and strong feature of this phone,actually by seeing its video playback made me take this phone,no regrets this phone has brilliant screen and bravia engine which comes to play here.watching mp4,hd,recorded videos is a great joy,if u watch any hd movie in this phone mind u will not watch ur HD TV again,such is its clarity and display.and playing games is also fun
Battery4/5
and the battery life also good gives 15hrs back up if i take 5 calls,listen to 6 hrs music,1 hour video playback,use camera,browse internet. but if u want good battery life please terminate bluetooth,wifi when not in use this will improve ur battery performance

Bought this is amazing piece of machine recently and I have to say it is amazing in every aspect. The phone has fantastic looks and good built quality. It feels very premium (unlike the cheap plastic quality of Samsung phones). The screen is gorgeous, producing very rich colors and quality. The music capabilities of the phone are again awesome, specially the earphones provided with the handset.

The inbuilt applications like Timescape, Track ID, Bravia Mobile Engine, X Loud etc. etc by Sony are very user friendly and more importantly useful.

Our favorite website..facebook works perfectly with Sony integration system. some other plus are the web browsing experience and the fantastic 8 Megapix camera and HD video recording.

Talking about some negatives...first of all the battery and the processor (sometimes it gets slow)..

all in all...an amazing phones...AVAILABLE ONLY ON SONY CENTER..across the country..go get it..eyes closed..:)