Sony Xperia T review

Back when the driving seat was shared with Ericsson, Sony was a little short of delivering a real winner in the high-end market, the company's top-range smartphones always a notch below the Galaxy S lineup and their HTC counterparts. Now on their own, Sony cannot shy away from the toughest of battles and the Sony Xperia T is ready to be thrown in the fire.

A true flagship, the Sony Xperia T comes properly powered by a Snapdragon S4 chipset, boasting a class-leading 13MP camera and a marvelously sounding 720p display. There's no quad-core on its resume, but the Xperia T is ready to take on the best Android offerings out there.

Key features

Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support

3G with 42.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA

4.55" 16M-color capacitive LED-backlit LCD touchscreen of 720p resolution (720 x 1280 pixels) with Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine; Scratch-resistant glass

Android OS v4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich

Dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU, 1 GB RAM, Adreno 225 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260A chipset

13 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging, Multi Angle shot

1080p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound

1.3 MP front-facing camera, 720p video recording

Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA

GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS

16GB of built-in storage, microSD card slot

microUSB port with MHL and USB-host support

Stereo Bluetooth v3.1

Standard 3.5 mm audio jack

Stereo FM radio with RDS

Voice dialing

Deep Facebook integration

PlayStation Certified, access to the PS Store

Accelerometer and proximity sensor

NFC connectivity

Main disadvantages

Display has sub-par viewing angles for a flagship

Slightly thicker than main rivals

Relatively modest battery

JellyBean update not available at launch

Poor loudspeaker performance

Video recording could be better

The Sony Xperia T hasn't got the raw muscle of some of its rivals, but there's enough to get you interested. And once you go and give it a try, the design and handling will hardly let you down. In a smartphone market as crowded as today's, handsets with this much character are hard to come by. Now, a grateful nod is well in order to old allies and the Xperia Arc.

Setting record benchmark scores is one thing, but having an excellent chipset in a body that's great to look at is to many a more than even tradeoff. The Sony Xperia T should not be afraid of facing its rivals in a raw processing power battle, though it's the beauty contests it enjoys the most.

And then there's the software enhancements, to which Sony paid more than enough attention. The Android ICS on the Xperia T comes with a great-looking UI, which Sony claims is also one of the most functional around.

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