CONSIDERING IT S THE phone 007 uses in Skyfall, it should come as no surprise that the Xperia T is a high-end smartphone that s packed with features. It s a formidable device on paper, with a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 4.6in HD display and 13-megapixel camera. Rejecting the matt-black appearance and angular lines of the Xperia S, Sony has given this handheld a more textured silver finish and slightly curved edges. These help it sit comfortably in your hand, despite the phone s size and weight. At 139g, it s heavier than the flagship phones of Apple, HTC and Samsung, and at 9.4mm it s thicker, too. The Xperia certainly sticks out, but it s no ugly duckling. The machined metal power, volume and camera buttons are a nice touch, although they feel too low down the right-hand side of the device. You have to stretch your thumb awkwardly or hold the phone at an angle to reach them if you re right-handed, although this is less of a problem for lefties. The entire unit is sealed, so there s no way to remove the battery, but there is a microSD card slot next to the Micro SIM card slot for future expansion if you fill up the 16GB of internal storage. Unfortunately, it s covered by a flimsy plastic flap that could rip off if caught when pulling the phone out of a pocket or bag.
The headphone jack on the top and MHL/ Micro USB port on the left side are uncovered. Wireless connectivity includes 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, DLNA support, Wi-Fi Direct and NFC. Sony has used onscreen shortcut buttons rather than physical ones, meaning the 4.6in LCD display takes up the entire front of the phone. It s a beauty thanks to the 1,280x720 resolution and Sony s own Bravia mobile engine display tweaks, which improve image and video playback by sharpening pictures, increasing contrast and removing digital noise. It works brilliantly, rendering text sharply, giving icons a crisp appearance and showing off photos. It can be a little tricky to see in bright sunlight, and the screen is a magnet for dust and prints, but these aren t big issues.
PLATFORM NEWS
With Sony finally switching over to Android Ice Cream Sandwich, the Xperia T feels much more like a flagship phone than the Xperia S did with Android 2.3. The tweaks made to the stock Android interface are minimal, with Sony concentrating on its widgets and preinstalled apps. Timescape is heavily integrated with Facebook, letting you swipe between status updates on the homescreen. The TrackID service lets you identify music, Sony Select suggests apps, music and films, Movie Studio is a fool-proof way to edit video clips and WisePilot provides turn-by-turn navigation.
Many bundled apps can be uninstalled without the need for a third-party app; we quickly removed the EA games hub and Astro file manager, which is a trial version. Sony s new Walkman music player is slick, but if you ve already moved your tracks to the cloud you ll still need to download Google Music, because the two don t work together. As well as the standard ICS multi-tasking, Sony has added several apps that let you take notes, record your voice, start a timer or open a calculator over the top of an existing app. There s a Google Play store link to add more. Scoring 1,793.7 in the Quadrant benchmark, the Xperia T is unquestionably fast. The dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor makes short work of GLbench, too, scoring 4,827 overall, although the Adreno GPU can t render the effects seen in many Tegra-enabled games. It felt snappy in everyday use as well, even when all five homescreens were filled with widgets
CAMERA MAGIC
The camera is one of the Xperia T s highlights. Launching in a second, either from a hard press of the shutter button or a swipe from the lock screen, the 13-megapixel sensor can take superb pictures and is also equipped for Full HD video recording at 1080p. The sweep panorama mode first seen in Sony s NEX compact cameras makes an appearance here, although it struggles to get a lock in low light. Even though it has an LED flash, low-light shooting was a problem, often resulting in washed-out or blurry images that lacked detail. Stick to bright subjects, though, and the results can be impressive. Just bear in mind that the recessed lens picks up quite a lot of dust and can be tricky to clean. The Xperia T managed five-and-a-quarter hours in our video-playback test. Sony claims it s good for seven hours of talk time, 16 hours of music playback or 400 hours in standby, but in our tests it fell short when compared with the competition. The Xperia T gets a lot right, including performance, its camera and the implementation of Android. However, its size and weight mean it just doesn t feel like a premium phone in the same way that its competitors do.
SPECIFICATIONSBattery life0% -50 Reference +50 +1005hr 17mOPERATING SYSTEM Android 4.0PROCESSOR SPEED 1.5GHzNUMBER OF CORES 2RAM 1GBMOBILE DATA GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPADISPLAY 4.6in 1,280x720 LCDCAMERA 13-megapixelINTERNAL STORAGE 32768MBMEMORY CARD SLOT MicroSDCLAIMED BATTERY LIFE 7 hours’ talktime, 400 days’ standbyDIMENSIONS 129x67x9mm, 139kgPART CODE LT30pDETAILS www.sony.co.uk