00:14
Abdul Waheed
With Sony Ericsson as a company undergoing a slight change, one would expect their devices to do so as well. Sadly that’s not the case, however, there never really was a general cause of concern for users to take up issue with too many of SE’s devices with regards to functionality or style. The same can be said about the newly launched Xperia Pro. Here’s a closer look.
Form Factor
Available in 3 colors – silver, black and red with a chrome rim and a superbly slick slide-out QWERTY keypad, the Xperia Pro gets high scores in the design segment. It features a 3.7-inch LED backlit LCD capacitive touchscreen (480 x 854 pixels) with Sony’s Mobile BRAVIA Engine enhancing the colors, brightness and contrast. Overall, it makes for crystal clear viewing in all lighting circumstances. The scratch-resistant display appeared to be much more adamant about keeping scratches away as compared to the Xperia Arc. Android’s home, return and menu keys find themselves at the bottom of the display in the form of 3 physical buttons that are nevertheless soft to the touch for activation.
Having had the opportunity to handle all three color options, it appears that SE has made a slight faux pas with regards to the lighting and shading of the keypad in the sliver model. Being devoid of a sensor to activate the backlight of the keys, thus leaving them on whenever the keypad is out, due to the light coloration of the handset the keys are not clearly visible in bright light. This is not the case with the darker models. If you’re versatile enough with the QWERTY style, it won’t matter a bit as the keypad itself with individual spaced keys is soft, well spaced and makes for speedy and comfortable typing.
The lack of a Hot Swap slot for the microSD card is a bit of an issue but since SE bundles an 8GB card, finding a reason to ever remove the card will be hard. The USB port is placed squarely at the top of the handset (a good idea) with a micro HDMI port on the right side above the camera shutter release (bottom) and the volume rocker. The 3.5mm handsfree socket is on the left hand side above the power/screen lock button
The Xperia Pro is designed to both make a style statement and be simple but effectively usable and it does this with a sense of elegance and class.
Features and Performance
Interface
Running under the hood of the Xperia Pro is a 1GHz Snapdragon processor that SE has managed to put to extremely effective use. The UI is super fluid with apps that will literally open up instantaneously with the slightest tap of your finger or gesture. Screen rotation was sooth and lag free and so were gesture control based parts of the UI and Anroid 2.3 aka Gingerbread. It scored very well in benchmarks as well with a Linpak scoring of 37.5 in a Single Thread run and 33.8 in the Multi Thread run.
Sony Ericsson’s customised Android UI, although seemingly well designed has never been to smooth on quite a few of the smartphones we’ve tested. However that was not the case with the Xperia Pro. Of course running alternative UI’s like Launcher Pro etc. worked out much better in terms of usability. TimeScape is also part of the UI package and a new widget called Type and Send that allows you to do exactly what it says and even post your message to social networks or send an email is quite handy. Adao File Manager is also provided to access directories.
Media
Audio settings include EQ presets and an option called xLOUD designed to boost the output via the built in speakers. Either way, audio quality is top notch and the rather comfy handsfree included works out in the handsets favour again. The tone quality is very well balanced and distortion at peak volume is negligible but non-existent with a higher end quality of earphones. An FM radio is also thrown in and although it may not have provided the very best reception in certain areas, overall it was a non-issue. Unfortunately the Xperia Pro has no codec support for AVI files so you’ll need to download a third party player like Mobo or Rockplayer. With these 720p files in almost all formats will play seamlessly.
Form Factor
Available in 3 colors – silver, black and red with a chrome rim and a superbly slick slide-out QWERTY keypad, the Xperia Pro gets high scores in the design segment. It features a 3.7-inch LED backlit LCD capacitive touchscreen (480 x 854 pixels) with Sony’s Mobile BRAVIA Engine enhancing the colors, brightness and contrast. Overall, it makes for crystal clear viewing in all lighting circumstances. The scratch-resistant display appeared to be much more adamant about keeping scratches away as compared to the Xperia Arc. Android’s home, return and menu keys find themselves at the bottom of the display in the form of 3 physical buttons that are nevertheless soft to the touch for activation.
One seriously slick handset
Having had the opportunity to handle all three color options, it appears that SE has made a slight faux pas with regards to the lighting and shading of the keypad in the sliver model. Being devoid of a sensor to activate the backlight of the keys, thus leaving them on whenever the keypad is out, due to the light coloration of the handset the keys are not clearly visible in bright light. This is not the case with the darker models. If you’re versatile enough with the QWERTY style, it won’t matter a bit as the keypad itself with individual spaced keys is soft, well spaced and makes for speedy and comfortable typing.
The lack of a Hot Swap slot for the microSD card is a bit of an issue but since SE bundles an 8GB card, finding a reason to ever remove the card will be hard. The USB port is placed squarely at the top of the handset (a good idea) with a micro HDMI port on the right side above the camera shutter release (bottom) and the volume rocker. The 3.5mm handsfree socket is on the left hand side above the power/screen lock button
Slim, curvey lines
The Xperia Pro is designed to both make a style statement and be simple but effectively usable and it does this with a sense of elegance and class.
Features and Performance
Interface
Running under the hood of the Xperia Pro is a 1GHz Snapdragon processor that SE has managed to put to extremely effective use. The UI is super fluid with apps that will literally open up instantaneously with the slightest tap of your finger or gesture. Screen rotation was sooth and lag free and so were gesture control based parts of the UI and Anroid 2.3 aka Gingerbread. It scored very well in benchmarks as well with a Linpak scoring of 37.5 in a Single Thread run and 33.8 in the Multi Thread run.
Customised SE UI works smoothly
Sony Ericsson’s customised Android UI, although seemingly well designed has never been to smooth on quite a few of the smartphones we’ve tested. However that was not the case with the Xperia Pro. Of course running alternative UI’s like Launcher Pro etc. worked out much better in terms of usability. TimeScape is also part of the UI package and a new widget called Type and Send that allows you to do exactly what it says and even post your message to social networks or send an email is quite handy. Adao File Manager is also provided to access directories.
Media
Audio settings include EQ presets and an option called xLOUD designed to boost the output via the built in speakers. Either way, audio quality is top notch and the rather comfy handsfree included works out in the handsets favour again. The tone quality is very well balanced and distortion at peak volume is negligible but non-existent with a higher end quality of earphones. An FM radio is also thrown in and although it may not have provided the very best reception in certain areas, overall it was a non-issue. Unfortunately the Xperia Pro has no codec support for AVI files so you’ll need to download a third party player like Mobo or Rockplayer. With these 720p files in almost all formats will play seamlessly.
Does well in the media department
source: http://tech2.in.com/reviews/smartphones/sony-ericsson-xperia-pro-android-smartphone-review/253072
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