My Sony Xperia P Review - A great masterpiece!

Sony Xperia P Review - A great masterpiece!

PICS OF THE PHONE ARE UPDATED

Specs on GSMArena

Price => 18k (without bill)

Place => Alfa store, Vile Parle, Mumbai

Interface => Official ICS 4.0.4

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean confirmed by Sony

Package Details:
Included => Phone , earphones, USB cable, Charger, manual
Not Included => USB OTG Host Cable, HDMI Cable, Case, Screen Protector, Dock


Just a one word => truly gorgeous....It's one of the great phone I have ever encountered with.

Build quality:

Feels premium. Solid built. Aluminium unibody design feels really great. Little bit bulky while handling but who cares when ur internals are so powerful . Drawback => apart from premium feeling of aluminium body, scratches can be easily getable in future depending on ur way of handling. I suggest those who take this phone buy a case to protect this device from dust and scratches. Also get one good quality screenguard as the display is not made up of Gorilla glass, it is scratch resistant though. U have camera shutter key on the bottom right side as usual unlike many mid and high-end mobiles. Volume rocker, power come lock screen and loudspeaker protected by nice mesh can be found on right side. On the left side, you will find all connectivity options like HDMI, standard Micro-USB supporting USB OTG Host feature (see in memory section), micro-SIM slots. 3.5mm jack can be found on the top left side. Nothing at the bottom side. Heard that bottom strip is removable but don’t wanna experiment on it, or rather not interested in such stuffs. Back side is bit curvy. 8mb shooter followed by powerfull single LED flash can be found at the top of back side. On the bottom side, you will find Xperia and Sony’s logo.


Display:

Supporting mobile BRAVIA engine, 4" capacitive display also boasts Sony's so claimed WhiteMagic technology (4th white subpixel) which results in excellent brightness and outdoor sunlight legibility. And believe me, at one point u will even start to compare this panel with AMOLED unit. You can adjust brightness settings too (it’s new to me though) to bright mode and power saver mode with auto brightness adjustment to save battery drain (as 90% battery drains coz of display according to my observation on xperia p). Usually 3.7” to 4” screens come with 400 x 800 or 480 x 854 resolutions like all last year xperia lineup or this year’s xperia u, sola. But xperia p coming with 540 x 960 qHD resolution means higher ppi resulted in crispy UI experience. Touch response is also good.


Dual Core Cortex A9 clocked at 1GHz + Mali 400 (Single Core) + 1GB RAM + ICS 4.0.4:


(Note: UI Screenshots are re-sized i.e. trimmed down resolution but game screenshots are of full resolution.)


It’s great to have ICS released for xperia line-up, waiting for JB release though . Having dual core processor is necessary nowadays to get fluid UI experience. Although it isn’t clocked at 1.2GHz or higher like the one present in high end mobiles, it is fast enough to accomplish your tasks. I found no lags at all while navigating UI. Tried different launchers like Nova, TSF Shell, GO, all are smooth enough. I opened any application even while playing games. Multitasking is powerful enough. I give this credit to enough amount of RAM present in xperia p. When I visit running processes in settings, it always shows me 400MB or more memory is used and more than 300MB free. When I saw the same on brother’s Defy Plus, it showed me just 20-30MB free resulted in laggy UI. Opening an application on his phone was a tedious task. So you can imagine the importance of good amount of RAM. Playing games on Mali 400 is a pleasure. Tried high titled games like N.O.V.A.3, Asphalt, Shadowgun. No lags. Found one weird accelerometer problem while playing Asphalt. 2-3 times I came to this problem. When I started racing, screen got completely tilted and lost accelerometer controls too. Had to restart the game then finally it ran correctly. This problem came in this game only. I wonder why. But graphics are good enough to play any game.


Typing too is pretty comfortable on 4" screen. I can even type on portrait keypad comfortably.


Gallary is now Album in ICS and is well organized and have new feel unlike traditional Gingerbread look. You can even set thumbnail sizes in Album app.


Memory:

Like we all know, Xperia S, P, U have memory limitations up to 32GB, 16GB, 8GB respectively with non-expandable means you cannot use memory card . This is major drawback especially for Xperia U and P users. When u install high titled games, they usually use 1-2GB memory to store data files. Installing such 2-3 games plus storing 2-3 HD movies and you will end up with “out of memory” notification. So installing more than two high memory consuming games and storing more than 1-2 full movies is strict no go. Also, few days ago, I came up with USB On-The-Go Host support present in Xperia line-up, most of you are already know this feature though. This is something interesting and new to me. You can attach your USB flash drive to extend phone’s memory. Using USB keyboard, mouse make your tasks easy. I’m gonna buy OTG cable soon to use my 32GB pen drive. So, non-expandable memory is not at all problem. Just imagine, u connecting today’s highest capacity 128GB pen drive to your mobile having all your favorite songs and movies stored in it .

Audio and Video:

SUPER AWESOME . Xperia P has a GREAT audio quality. Trust me. The provided bundled ear-phones are great too. While purchasing phone, I thought I will have to buy good quality in ear-pieces like Sennheiser or SoundMagic. But the provided ear-phones are good enough. Listening your favorite songs is a pleasure. Crystal clear man! Bass is good enough. You can try good apps like PowerAMP or Winamp (the one m using) to unleash full power of various equalizers’ effects. Watching 1080p fullHD videos on BRAVIA display, awesome man. The stock player is so great that you won’t even need to install 3rd party player. It played divx, mkv, mp4 fullHD files too. No lags at all. It even starts the video quickly when u move slider timer bar. Stock player doesn’t support subtitles though . so u can try different player for that. MX Player is my favourite.


Camera:



It’s indeed a great 8mp Exmor R shooter. Various options I found in camera settings such as various scene modes, exposure value adjustment, Red-Eye reduction in flash, focus modes, ISO settings, metering modes, white balance adjustment, capture method, image / video stabilization (important for shakers ). As m into photography (though beginner ) and I go on treks so much, I wanted to buy a camera phone. That’s the only reason I opted out XOLO X900, Atrix 2 and Nexus from my list while purchasing. Otherwise the three phones are great. So if u are not much into photography and want a clear performer, get Nexus straight away. Trust me captured photos have enough details. I will soon post pics too as I haven’t taken enough pics. Phone supports 1080p recording too. And with HDMI interface, you can even see your stuffs on large HD TV. I liked so called 3D-Sweep Panorama feature from Sony, though u need to be a master to use sweep panorama option precisely as u experiment with different environments. Image and even video stabilization feature works great and Exmor R sensor works great under low light conditions.


Battery:

Battery is just merely over 1300 mAh. If you compare it with other phones fall under same price bracket, it’s not at all good enough I must say. Atrix 2, nexus, XOLO are providing over 1700 mAh. But, I must say, Sony’s engineers did great work with this masterpiece. Fortunately and unbelievably battery easily lasts long a day with moderate usage like an hour listening music, hour of surfing, watching videos, 3-4 games for an hour. Don’t know how this piece is so power efficient. Xperia P is the first phone supporting Extended Standby Mode feature from Sony. When u lock the screen or turn off the display, this feature disables data traffic and background data usage like whatsapp, google, facebook synchronizations. This helps to optimize battery lifetime. As battery of Xperia P is non-replaceable, this feature provides great help. If you are a heavy user while travelling, you must carry charger. As of my observations, browsing, playing games, and screen (including its brightness) consumes more power. So I suggest you to enable this Extended Standby Mode feature and set your screen sleep time as low as possible like 15 seconds. Also one good thing I found related to battery. It’s charges fast enough. It took just less than hour to charge it fully from 10%. Don’t know how but again a great engineering work from Sony. I even compared it with my Nokia 5230. It has similar capacity battery (1320 mAh), took more than one and half hour to charge. Also, noticed one thing. Xperia P charges faster when u connect your phone to charger adapter than when u get USB power from computer.

Benchmarks of Xperia P (ICS):

(Benchmarks of Xperia P (GB) compared with other phones - GSMArena)


Final words:

It is really worth to buy this masterpiece at 22k (with bill) considering trademark features such as 8MP Exmor R sensor, BRAVIA display, WhiteMagic technology, Extended Standby Mode, Data Usage app over other similar category phones.

My Rating:

Package => 3/5

Build Quality => 4.5/5

Screen => 4.5/5

UI => 4/5

Camera => 4.5/5

Browsing => 3.5/5

Messaging => 4.5/5

Battery => 3/5

Sound => 4.5/5

Calling => 4/5

Gaming => 4/5

This is my first review of any electronic gadget. I will be glad to have your suggestion, replies and questions as they always encourage me..