Sony Xperia P review: Ironclad

1 June 2012
Sealed in an aluminum unibody but still oozing the new NXT series style, the Sony Xperia P joins an elite club of metal-clad phones. And then there's the WhiteMagic screen to make it unique in the mobile world. In short, the Xperia P is one of...

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  • j
  • jose
  • vG@
  • 05 Jun 2012

chrisx, 04 Jun 2012my camera shutter key is not working please help!put in water

    • D
    • Dreal
    • PUi
    • 05 Jun 2012

    Widen up your view people. Go read multiple reviews. Bashing simply because you only follow 1 P.O.V really sounds like rigid-minded extremist.

    Other professional reviews rant more on GB-not-ICS out of the box, but praise the display and average battery life "from their 1 week use of the phone as their daily driver".

    gsmarena... what have you turned you readers into? :P

      • D
      • Dreal
      • PUi
      • 05 Jun 2012

      Hmmm... Now I can see why I prefer real-life-feel review from "The Verge". But I still love gsmarena for the more detailed technical review.
      Best tech info + best real life opinion = Almost perfect picture of the device :D

      Anyway already bought my Xperia S. 1day+ battery life with my light browsing/gaming/chatting. I guess not being in the social network bandwagon saves me a lot of time, money, trouble, and unnecessary anxiety/need to check+update status. :P

      Internet really has turn people to attention-poor skimmers who know everything but nothing... LoL

        • D
        • AnonD-36731
        • UFG
        • 05 Jun 2012

        Guy, 04 Jun 2012why u guys want to buy a phone which display shows poor bl... moreIt doesn't show poor black. Read the results carefully and you will see that they made that judgement while having the phone up much brighter than other phones and probably brighter than it needed to be.
        this review is a screen and battery nightmare. Can gsmarena please retest and analyse where needed

          • G
          • Guy
          • 0C0
          • 04 Jun 2012

          why u guys want to buy a phone which display shows poor black is beyond my understanding

            • ?
            • Anonymous
            • vfx
            • 04 Jun 2012

            rush, 04 Jun 2012please tell me that xperia p is having mali 400 gpu or adre... moreAdreno is proprietary Qualcomm gpu series, and are integrated on their system on chip family - Snapdragon and Krait chipsets.

              • M
              • Mohamed alsaati
              • p7A
              • 04 Jun 2012

              I'm using it right now, everything looks owsum except it has a very weak network comparing with my iPhone that I'm using it at the same time!!

                • c
                • chrisx
                • wc7
                • 04 Jun 2012

                my camera shutter key is not working please help!

                  • r
                  • rush
                  • uvg
                  • 04 Jun 2012

                  please tell me that xperia p is having mali 400 gpu or adreno 205?? The pdf provided by sonymobile site states that SX P is having adreno....
                  and
                  Bluetooth 2.1 in xperia p will make any difference with the phones having bluetooth-3.0??but i dont want theoritical answer as i know that 2.1: having 3MbPS speed and 3.0: having 24MbPS data transfer rate....please someone state the practical difference....

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • v0X
                    • 04 Jun 2012

                    lol "smart tag" another xperimental s**t from sony, haha good job for magicwhite! best unnovation ever lol

                      • D
                      • AnonD-4963
                      • utu
                      • 04 Jun 2012

                      Every technological innovation is moot when it doesnt have the capacity to utilise the innovations.
                      Whitemagic was meant to help increase power efficiency but sadly it has failed. Sony has done a big mistake with the battery. Maybe they over estimated the efficiency of the NovaThor chipset and counted too much on the Whitemagic tech. The Galaxy s Advance has the same chipset,with a power efficient Super AMOLED and 1500MaH batery. Sony could have a learned a thing or two from this phone..and realise that the NovaThor isnt THAT great -_-

                      However, it will find buyers among those who want a good looking phone and dont do heavy tasks regularly like wifi browsing or gaming.

                        • T
                        • TruthSeekr
                        • tRn
                        • 04 Jun 2012

                        AnonD-57516, 04 Jun 2012The phone looks very matured with metal casing but is it go... moreIf you've read the review more carefully, you'd have found it does not:
                        It clearly says the bottom part (which holds the antenna) is plastic so there's no death-grip.

                        I like this phone; except for 3 things.

                        1) metal is cool - but scratchprone. My 1year old E55 with Aluminum back looks like trash

                        2) No micro-SD. Seriously? How hard can it be to put a card slot in?

                        3) Pathetic battery. I love all the NXT phones (esp. Sola) but a 13xx battery? Wasted!

                        Also, Sony Ericsson became SONY a while ago- you need to get out more.
                        :)

                          • D
                          • AnonD-57516
                          • vju
                          • 04 Jun 2012

                          The phone looks very matured with metal casing but is it gonna be like another iphone4 case where the recption would be badly affected by the metal casing and antenna layout/design?
                          What happened to the Sony Ericsson name? Have they shed the Ericsson joint-venture?

                            • m
                            • memama
                            • iwp
                            • 04 Jun 2012

                            Great phone.i love it.but cant afford it. :-(

                              • D
                              • Dreal
                              • PUi
                              • 04 Jun 2012

                              What's up with you Cowz.
                              Coz... I totally AGREE! :P
                              I've research and compare XP to other phones and eventually prefer XP better. But never had a chance to go hands-on with it yet. So I too was looking forward to know what the White Magic has in store for me. Questions:

                              1) If I'm prefer my Galaxy SL at 40%, what % will I have to set in XP for the same brightness? Sry I don't have lux meter.

                              2) Yes, the display does look awful at 90% brightness, but both pictures seems like taken indoors. Wonder how is it outdoors with bright sunlight? As in put i4S, S3, XS & XP side by side with screen facing the sun. At that time, is a non-posterized display prefered over a readable screen?

                                • D
                                • AnonD-57294
                                • JGx
                                • 03 Jun 2012

                                AnonD-36731, 03 Jun 2012:) no I just want the review test results to be more accura... moretotaly agree! I also want an answer because i want to know if it worth the change, instead of Arc S.

                                  • D
                                  • AnonD-36731
                                  • vxK
                                  • 03 Jun 2012

                                  AnonD-56187, 03 Jun 2012You really want people to like this phone, ehh? See, the po... more:) no I just want the review test results to be more accurate and hence useful.
                                  I would have preferred a larger battery too. I wish that the back was not curved and was a uniform 10.5mm so that they put a larger battery in. Surely that would allowed for a 1700mAh battery.
                                  Overall this GSMarena review is quite well written and performed ans is really useful. I saw a really poor review from another really well known website today that said that WhiteMagic uses more power because the phone has to power an extra sub-pixel. How rubbish is that.
                                  GSMarena are really good but I wish they would correct the test method on their battery tests.

                                    • D
                                    • AnonD-36731
                                    • vxK
                                    • 03 Jun 2012

                                    Sorry to post again. I am not a Sony or SE fanboy (have never owned a SE or Sony smartphone) but I had been looking to buy this phone.

                                    This review does mention the compact nature of this phone and that is why I am looking at possibly getting this phone. The comparisons in the conclusion are all with larger phones. Basically there are no comparisons in the same size with similar functionality.

                                    For web browsing especially this phone has a great screen (full sub pixels + good battery life) and 540x960 pixels.
                                    The Galaxy S Advance and HTC One V are pretty much the same size. They have 35% less pixels and smaller 3.8" and 3.7" screens (the Samsung Galaxy S Advance would have about 50% the amount of rgb subpixels taking into account the pentile aspect).

                                    It's an industry where manufacturer's are convincing us to accept larger and larger phones because they can't or no longer want to try to get more tech into a small device. It's like the evolution of software where code is now less efficient because is does not need to be as 'tight' now that we have so much processing power. The problem with phones is that they are not really offering more power they are just fitting more power into larger devices and that isn't really progress.
                                    The Xperia P is a breath of fresh air. It is one of the few phones to buck that trend.

                                    It is sad that the battery got such a bad review. The screen technology to save battery looks like a good idea and in fact if the tests were run properly I am sure for application and UI activities where the screen is on the results would have been much better (beat the S2 in web browsing battery).
                                    Obviously for non-screen activities the new processor should have done better (like the quoted Sony talk times) and so there looks to be an issue there.

                                    All in all I think I may get this and buy the external battery (maybe 6000mAh) I had been meaning to buy for long trips. I had been meaning to get one anyway as my Defy+ is almost dead after a plane flight spent playing games.

                                      • D
                                      • AnonD-56187
                                      • t}y
                                      • 03 Jun 2012

                                      AnonD-36731, 03 Jun 2012It is not as bad as they make out. It is just the result o... moreYou really want people to like this phone, ehh? See, the point is that 1300 mah battery is really tiny in absolute terms. People whose accounts are getting synced all the time, or the ones who play games a lot will really struggle with 1300 mah - even if they put the brightness levels at 25%. And 1300 mah will last lesser than 1750 of some other model. There is absolutely no excuse for Sony to have put such a small battery. But if the plan is to get people to buy xperia s... well, i might end up being one consumer who will fall for that!

                                        • ?
                                        • Anonymous
                                        • XjH
                                        • 03 Jun 2012

                                        m using this phone frm d 27th happily satisfied no such complains with battery easly last for 12hr or more camera is awsome n d smile detection is cherry on the top frm myside 9/10 n ics update will make +.5