Review: Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro

Back in May, we reviewed the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc which was the pinnacle of mobile technology at that time. At least, it was in the highest echelon of Google's Android kingdom. It was smart, sleek and fast. Now, four months later, we have the Xperia Mini Pro which is neither the smartest, nor the sleekest, nor the fastest. But this is not a bad thing, and we'll explain why in this review.

Packaging and Content

Most top tier smartphone companies offer rock solid packaging nowadays and the same holds true for Sony Ericsson. The package is very neatly designed with the phone safely cradled in the package and all standard content hidden beneath. In keeping with the current conventions of the smartphone industry, the Xperia Mini Pro comes with a USB charger which also doubles as the USB cable, and a pair of earphones. Interestingly, Sony Ericsson also provides a scratch guard, which is a first.  While it's always nice to have a scratch guard, more often than not it ruins the touch feedback on a capacitive display. On the whole, we were pretty satisfied with the content though, instead of the scratch guard, we would have preferred a case which would have served the device better.
Hardware and Styling

Sony Ericsson has always been a hardware and design powerhouse. Before Apple's second coming, it was Sony's hardware that ruled the roost in terms of sex appeal. The company may not have that aura anymore but there is no doubt that they have a strong legacy of quality hardware. In fact, Sony Ericsson's problems have never been on the hardware front. The company has released a myriad devices in all shapes and sizes but most of them have suffered from poor software, be it Symbian, Windows Mobile, or even Android. Consider, for instance, the Xperia X8 which was living in an Android cupcake world while everyone else enjoyed the goodness of Gingerbread.
But, in terms  of hardware, Sony Ericsson has been the market leader and the same holds true for the new Xperia line up. While the Xperia Mini Pro is a mid-range Android device, it does not have any of the disappointments we have become accustomed to while using mid range smartphones. The Xperia Mini Pro is a high quality product. It features a slide-out landscape keyboard, which at times reminds one of the Nokia N97 mini. The slide-out mechanism is super silky and the keys offer a supple tactile feedback. On the whole, typing is a breeze on the Xperia Mini Pro, which is an area where most Android devices lag behind.  Having said this, we have also come across users who say the slider becomes a tad loose after extended use. We tried to replicate the problem but in our experience everything was smooth sailing.
The slide-out keyboard means it is not the most anorexic device in the market. It's no way near as slim as the Samsung Galaxy S2 and is actually almost double the thickness at 18mm. It may be a tad chunky to hold but on the whole the Xperia Mini Pro is quite a compact device thanks to its 3-inch Bravia LCD display, which has a resolution of 320x480 pixels.
Sony Ericsson has put a lot of thought into designing the Xperia Mini Pro. The rear of the device has a very nice rubberized matte finish, which provides an impressive grip, in the process eliminating accidental slips thanks to sweat. In the rear we also get a 5 megapixel camera along with an LED flash.
The sides of the Xperia Mini Pro are lined with a faux chrome finish, which looks impressive over the black. We are not too sure how it looks over the white variant.
On the right hand side we get the standard volume rocker and also a dedicated camera shutter button. Sony Ericsson has been regularly providing camera shutter buttons on their Android phones unlike companies like Samsung or HTC. The missing shutter button is a constant irritant in Android devices and we hope soon other Android smartphone manufacturers will follow suit.
The top of the device houses the 3.5 mm audio port, the USB charging port which also has plastic flip-out cover and the main power button.
Overall, in our opinion, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro boasts of sterling build quality, which is even better than the one found on the current Android top dog - The Samsung Galaxy S2.
Interface

The Xperia Mini Pro comes loaded with Android 2.3 Gingerbread from the offset, but Sony Ericsson as usual adds their on customizations on top of stock Android. With the Xperia Mini Pro, the company uses their corner interface system, which was first seen in the Xperia X10 Mini.
The corner interface has a simple philosophy - it eliminates all standard icons on the bottom end of the home-screen and relocates these to the corners. This way we get the illusion of more screen real estate. Sony Ericsson has also managed to upgrade the interface as now it supports dragging and dropping of apps from the app drawer.
This interface does take some getting used to, but it works pretty well on a device with a small interface such as the Xperia Mini Pro.
Apart from this, Sony Ericsson arms the Xperia Mini Pro with its standard set of embellishments such as flipping gallery widget, a custom music player widget and a sideways scrolling app drawer. For some reason, Sony Ericsson limits the home-screens to a maximum five rather than the standard seven.
Sony Ericsson has even customized the leap view, which appears when we pinch on the home-screen. All the homescreens appear in the leap view with a neat bouncing animation, but this probably draws a teensy bit of extra processing power, which is rather unnecessary.
Unfortunately, Sony Ericsson has not included a quick dial option in the dialer so finding contacts can be relatively slow, but that can be overcome easily via the full QWERTY keyboard.
On the whole, Sony Ericsson has not tinkered around a lot with stock Android interface which makes the device a delight to use.
Multimedia

It is pretty clear from the start that the Xperia Mini Pro is not the most advanced smartphone on the planet. It's no multimedia monolith like the Samsung Galaxy S2. However, the device is no slouch either. In fact, we would go as far to say that it is the best media device in the sub 20k bracket if a large display is not a must.
Frankly, we found absolutely nothing to crib about. It has a nice MP3 player, a nice camera and even a nice display, which is only restricted by its size.
Sony Ericsson has customized the stock Android MP3 player, something it's in the habit of doing. Obviously, the company brings its audio know-how to the table with the Walkman having been the biggest audio brand before the birth of the iPod.
While there are no cover-flow like interface garnishes, we do get a very nice graphic equalizer and navigation enhancements courtesy the corner UI seen before on the homescreen.
Another functionality we like a lot is the infinite button, which has been seen before on Walkman phones. It allowed us to find song lyrics on Google, YouTube videos, artist information on Wikipedia and even YouTube Karaoke videos.
We even get a Facebook 'Like' button. Twitter integration is missing but, nonetheless, the MP3 player is very feature rich.
Features aside, it even sounds good via the supplied earphones and on the loudspeaker. Of course, not in terms of audiophile standards but in layman terms. The supplied earphones too are of decent quality, which is now becoming the norm with most top-tier manufacturers.
The camera on the Xperia Mini Pro is more than adequate. While it does not boast of the stellar image quality of the iPhone 4 camera, it surely is better than most 5-megapixel snappers on the market. The pictures were pretty clear sans the unwholesome graining we see in most camera phones. The pictures generated fairly low noise. What we did not like was the fact that the colors were over saturated as if someone had treated the picture with Adobe Lightroom. This is a constant annoyance with Sony Ericsson camera phones as they attempt to add an extra layer of flourish in the images, which just looks unnatural.
As far as HD recording went the Xperia Mini Pro could shoot at 720p like the Xperia Arc but it came without the Exmor-R technology, which is supposed to enhance low light image quality. Luckily, we did not miss the technology too much as the low light recordings and still photographs came out pretty good. Frankly, the Exmor-R sounded more like a marketing gimmick rather than an enhancement on the Xperia Arc and this theory was proven on the Xperia Mini Pro as it produced a fairly comparable set of images with a lower resolution sensor and minus the Exmor-R branding.
With its rather small 3-inch display the Xperia Mini Pro might not be the most ideal portable media player, but if one can get past the screen size it does a pretty decent job of things as it managed to handle most common codecs such as .Avi,. Xvid and Mpeg-4. Unfortunately, it failed the .MKV test but then again more expensive devices have also failed this test.
On the whole, the rather low resolution of 320x460 was more than adequate for the 3-inch display, which was also armed with the Bravia Engine moniker. The blacks were deep and the viewing angles were quite impressive, on the whole the petite display was quite impressive.
PC Sync and Market

The one area almost each and every operating system falls short is PC Sync. Symbian suffers from it, iOS suffers from it, BlackBerry suffers from it and so does the erstwhile Windows Mobile platform. The problem arises because no one really has the time to synchronize their device each and everyday to keep all data updated. This is where Google's cloud computing strategy really shines. There is no proprietary PC sync software to speak off.  The moment we sign in to our Google Account everything gets synced, it's as simple as that. All this happens via Google Contacts, which stores all our contacts in the cloud. But the real beauty about Android is that it gives us the option to store our contacts directly on Google Contacts rather than our device, meaning we do not need to keep our content updated.
As far apps go, Android, at least for smartphones, is in a very strong position. There are 300,000 odd apps to choose from and, while most of them might not be as good as their iOS counterparts, they are nevertheless very good. But the best part is that Android offers more free applications than any other platform.
Essential Apps

Sony Ericsson has loaded the Xperia Mini Pro with a plethora of apps, which frankly borders on bloat-ware. Nonetheless we were able to find a few apps, which were moderately useful.
As usual, we get Sony Ericsson's Social Aggregator called Timescape. It's not the best one in the market though it does score 100/100 on the cool quotient with its totally whacked out flip scrolling widget, even though it reminds us of HP's ill fated webOS. It combines all our Facebook and Twitter feeds in one interface, but the information is not well organized and it looks a tad mucked up. For instance, if there is a Facebook status update we get to see the user's profile picture in the background and all the information above that, which is neither clear nor well organized. We definitely prefer HTC's implementation on their Friends Stream social aggregator. We would rather do without Timescape and install the standard Facebook and Twitter apps, which are of very high quality.
The Track ID app is very similar to apps like Shazam and Soundhound, but with very limited functionality. One can only detect song names and artist information, which is pretty disappointing as even the free versions of Shazam and Soundhound do more by offering YouTube links and lyrics.
We also get an app called Friend's Music and Videos, which basically shows all the videos posted, by our friends on Facebook. Nothing special out here apart from the fact one can view all the YouTube video seen by our friends in one singular window.
Next up is Mcafee Virus Scan; But Sony Ericsson fails to provide a full version of the app. An Anti-Virus is handy but less so if it only works for 15 days.
Like all Android smartphones, The Xperia Mini Pro comes with a dedicated Office Suite but, again, we only get a trial version of the software. Why? We have no answer. We wrote about this issue in our Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc review too, but looks like Sony Ericsson wasn't reading.
Performance

Performance is one area, which makes or breaks Android devices and, thankfully for the Xperia Mini Pro, it passes with flying colours.
In fact, performance-wise it is so good that at times it eclipsed the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S and the Xperia Arc.
Powered by a 1 GHz QUALCOMM Snapdragon, the Xperia Mini Pro was a delight to use. Flipping between home-screens was seamless, and the same held true for multitasking. Besides the 1 GHz single core processor, Sony Ericsson also provided 512 MB of RAM, which was ample for regular usage. The experience was so nice that we could hardly make any discernable difference between our trusty Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Xperia Mini Pro. Admittedly, most Android apps cannot utilize dual-core processor architectures, and the fact was emphasized by the sterling performance of the Xperia Mini Pro.
We ran our standard set of benchmarks and not surprisingly the Xperial Mini Pro fared pretty well in comparison to its elder sibling the Xperia Arc, which also featues similar internals.
On the Quadrant test the Xperia Mini Pro scored a stunning 1455, a whole 100 points ahead of the Xperia Arc.
Again on the Browsermark test the Xperia Mini Pro came up trumps with a score of 40592 while the Xperia Arc lagged behind with a score of 37033.
Surprised? Wait, we have more.
The Xperia Mini Pro even managed to calculate the BenchmarkPi faster than the Xperia Arc. It calculated the Pi in 982 milliseconds while the Arc calculated Pi 1016 milliseconds. A marginal difference perhaps, but not when you consider how much cheaper than the Arc the Mini Pro is. So much for Sony Ericsson's so called flagship!
Finally on the Linpack Pro test the Xperia Arc managed to pull up its socks. It scored an impressive 37.943 MFLOPs in 2.21 seconds while the Xperial Mini Pro lagged behind with a score of 29.446 MFLOPs in 2.85 seconds.
As far as battery life went, the Xperia Mini pro performed very well. For a change we used an Android smartphone, which got through the day on a single charge. Obviously, our regular usage included Wi-Fi, a couple of calls, a bit of music and 3G usage when we were on the move. So it even passed this test. This probably happened due to the relatively low-resolution 3-inch display, which makes it less susceptible to battery life issues than larger displays.
As far as call quality went the Xperia Mini Pro was right up there with the likes of the Nokia's and BlackBerries and was way ahead of the woefully poor calling capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy series of smartphones and Apple's leviathan, the iPhone.
Verdict

If you are looking for an Android smartphone in the range of 15k then without any hesitation we would recommend the Xperia Mini Pro. It boasts of the silky smooth performance we expect of the top-end smartphones and it combines this slickness with the finesse of a full QWERTY keyboard, crisp display and good battery life.
We actually can only think of only one reason not buy it, which is its rather small display, that's about it.
Henceforth, we bequeath upon the Xperia Mini Pro the title of "Paisa-wasool Android"!
Price- Rs 15,768
Pros
Stunning Performance
Affordable Price
Stellar feature set
Slick QWERTY Keyboard
Cons
Small display
Bloat-ware
Office suite not free
A tad bulky
Ratings
Performance: 5
Price: 4
Ease of Setup: 5
Ergonomics: 4.5
Wow Factor: 4

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Review: Sony SLT Alpha 33

The Sony SLT (Single Lens Translucent) Alpha 33 is a new DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) offered from Sony. This camera like the Sony Alpha 55 operates on the translucent mirror technology which enables very fast shooting. Its 7fps (frames per second) high speed continuous shooting mode is great and helps to capture scenes with ease. The Alpha 33 is quite small when compared to other DSLR's in the same price range. The question really is can the Sony Alpha 33 stand tall in a market dominated by Nikon and Canon?

Design & Built:
The Sony Alpha 33 feels strong and well built. The body is made of hard plastic,except for the rubberised hand grip and thumb rest. The Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) is also surrounded by a rubbery border.

On top right of the device we find the shutter button. It rests within the on/off toggle. It also houses the Finder/LCD Button and the D (Dynamic)-Range button. In the middle is the in-built flash which can be either manually brought up or pops up when required. On the top left is the Mode Dial which is quite rare in Sony cameras, as it is normally placed on the top right.

The rear of the device houses the 3-inch LCD screen. On top of it is the Electronic Viewfinder which has a rubberized finish to protect it. On the left side just below the Mode dial is the Menu Button. On the right is the Auto-Exposure Lock (AEL) button which also does the work of Zooming In. Next to the AEL is the AV button which also acts as a Zoom Out button. Next to the LCD screen is the FN (Function) button, Navigation dial, Erase button and the Playback Button for viewing the images.
The front of the device houses the Control Dial, Lens release button and the Auto-Focus (AF) Manual-Focus (MF) toggle. The left panel has the HDMI, USB, Mic and Remote ports. The battery and Memory card slots are located at the base of the camera.
 
Usability:
To start with, the Sony SLT Alpha 33 features a 14.2 Megapixel High Definition Exmor CMOS sensor. The ISO ranges from 100 to 12,800 which is great for shooting pictures in low light conditions.
The camera also has the Sony's SteadyShot Inside image stabilisation system which automatically stabilises images in any light condition.

The Sony SLT Alpha 33 features an Electronic Viewfinder which very interestingly shows the water level mark that facilitates shooting straight images without a tripod. This camera works on the translucent mirror technology which has a fixed mirror in place of the shutter and this speeds up the image processing.

The 3 inch LCD can be flipped out as per shooting requirements. Videos can be recorded at full 1080p High Definition.

The camera has the option of shooting in Manual or Auto Mode. The Manual Mode gives the freedom of experimenting with the aperture and shutter speed and also the White Balance, Colour Temperature and Flash. It has 8 scene modes: Portrait, Macro (for close-ups of small objects in sharp focus), Night View (captures images at night without the flash), Sunset, Landscape, Sport Action and Night Portrait.
It also includes Sweep Panorama (common feature in almost all Sony Cameras) that can be also changed to 3D Sweep. There is also modes like Auto + (enables automatic scene detection, continuous shooting, shadow adjustment and image saving), Aperture Priority, Program Auto, Shutter Priority, and something very interesting called Cont. Priority AE which captures images continuously at 7fps.

Another very interesting mode is the Hand-Held Twilight. This enables shooting in the dark without the use of a tripod. This mode has image stabilisation which automatically happens even when not using the tripod. The image quality is good as it does not get pixelated even when shot in low-light or when it is zoomed to its max.

The function button allows selection of more modes such as Drive Mode, Flash Mode, Autofocus Mode, AF (Area of Focus) Mode, Face Detection and Smile Shutter.
Verdict:
The Sony SLT Alpha 33 is definitely smaller compared to the rest of the DLSR cameras which makes it very portable. Its hard and tough exterior makes it very good travel companion. But the body feels a little plasticky. The Hand-Held Twilight Mode and the Night View mode make it excellent for night shooting especially for concerts and night clubs. There is quite a time lag when switching from the Electronic Viewfinder to the LCD and this can be a bummer. At a price tag of Rs 33,990, this is definitely a considerable option if you are looking for an entry level DSLR

Price: Rs 33,990

Pros:
Strong Built
Water Level Mark in the Viewfinder
Good Low-Light Shooting
Cons:
Plastic Body
Protruding Electronic Viewfinder

In the Box:
Battery Charger
Rechargable Battery
Shoulder Strap
Body Cap
USB Cable
CD-ROM
HDMI cable
User Manual
Warrany card

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Sony Xperia U review

Post a separation from Ericsson, Sony seems to be eyeing the smartphone market with a new vigour and enthusiasm. Sony has recently launched three mid-range Android devices in the Indian market - Sony Xperia P, Sony Xperia Sola and Sony Xperia U. Price at Rs. 17,399, Sony Xperia U may be the cheapest of the three handsets but when compared to other similarly priced smartphones, will it be able to make a mark or fizzle out? We will find in this review.

Hardware/ Design
In terms of the design, Sony Xperia U looks quite similar to Sony Xperia P and Sony Xperia S but draws more resemblance to the latter. It sports a 3.5-inch screen with 854x480p resolution. Just below the screen are the three standard Android touch buttons for back, home and menu.

What stands out in terms of the design of Sony Xperia U is that there is the illuminated transparent strip at the bottom. This strip can light up in various colours such white, blue, green, red, purple or yellow, depending on the theme that you choose. The colours in this strip also change automatically when you are browsing pictures or listening to music in accordance with the mood. Additionally, Sony Xperia U also comes with interchangeable bottom caps that can be set in black, pink, or yellow colours.

The smartphone looks sturdy despite being made up of plastic. It also features rubberised finish on the back. Coming to the specifics, the Micro-USB cum charging port is on the right panel, while the left panel houses the power button, which also doubles as the screen lock/unlock button, the volume rocker and the two-stage camera button. The 3.5mm audio jack is placed at the top panel while the back panel houses the 5MP camera.

The colourful bottom caps do add a dash of freshness in the overall design of the handset but they aren't much of an eye-catcher.

Display
Sony Xperia U sports a 3.5-inch Reality Display with Mobile Bravia Engine, which is quite bright, even outdoors. It also provides good viewing angles. Display has a resolution of 480x854 pixels and offers a decent pixel density of 280ppi. Another plus for the screen is that it is scratch-resistant.

The only disappointment is the width of the display and we would have preferred a slightly wider one to avoid the cramped keyboard in portrait mode or the hardly visible text on webpages in zoomed-out view.

Camera
The smartphone comes packed with a 5MP auto-focus camera with LED flash. Pictures taken in broad daylight were quite sharp but the shots were grainy and washed out in low light.

The camera comes with a dedicated camera button, which is placed on the right panel. However, taking photographs with the help of this button needs some getting used to as it comes with a two-stage shutter button. Also zooming in and out on pictures via the volume rocker was a bit jerky.

In nutshell, this is not one of the best 5 MP camera that we have seen on a smartphone.

There is also a VGA front camera that works decently and will help in video chats.

Sony Xperia U is capable of recording 720p videos with 30fps, and the quality of videos captured is substandard, leaving a lot to be desired.

Software/ Interface
Sony has not been able to roll out Ice Cream Sandwich on any of its 2012 models as of now and the same is also true for Sony Xperia U. It runs on Android 2.3 and is expected to get an update in the coming months.

Sony has also added its own UI atop Gingerbread in the smartphone, which is quite light and is easy to use.

In terms of the pre-installed apps, Sony had some interesting additions such as Timescape, TrackID, Wisepilot, Liveware Manager, PlayNow, Neo Reader and Office Suite.

Timescape app stacks up email messages, Twitter and Facebook updates in one place and is certainly an interesting addition to the smartphone. TrackID is just like Shazam or SoundHound, an app that identifies the track being played.

Sony also has its own app store - PlayNow on board, which houses some interesting games, music and apps.

Performance/ Battery Life
With 1GHz dual-core NovaThor U8500 chipset powering this smartphone, Xperia U, is very snappy and responsive. Even while multi-tasking the handset does not cringe.

The browsing experience on this handset was good. The pages did open up quickly and the good display (small width aside) of this smartphone further enhanced the browsing experience.

The biggest drawback of Sony Xperia U is that does not have an expandable memory slot. This handset comes with an internal memory of 8GB, of which only 4GB is user accessible. Though, Sony is promising 50GB of cloud space with this handset but that is not really compensation for not having a microSD slot.

Like most phones from Sony, the audio quality for both voice calls and audio playback was quite good. Too bad you can't stock up your music collection on the Xperia U, thanks to the absence of the microSD slot

Sony Xperia U comes with a 1320 mAh battery and it gives a great battery performance. A moderate user can easily get a day/ day and half with a single charge.

Verdict
To wrap things off, Sony Xperia U is an interesting handset especially at Rs. 17, 399. If you can live with 8GB of memory with no expansion, this is a good Android smartphone to look out for. However, the competition around is quite tough and you might want to consider HTC One V for ICS goodness before you actually zero in on Xperia U.

For more pictures of the Sony Xperia U, please see our gallery.

Pros

Good displaySnappy and responsive

Cons

Limited storageNot one of the best 5 MP cameras

Price: Rs. 17,399

Ratings (out of 5)

Design: 3

Display: 3.5

Camera: 2.5

Performance: 3.5

Software: 3.5

Ecosystem: 4

Battery Life: 4

Value for Money: 3.5

Overall: 3.5

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Far Cry 3 review

The travel brochure that enticed Jason Brody and his friends to book their spring break-style trip to the Rook Islands probably left out the pillaging pirates, aggressive bull sharks and lunging leopards.

The picturesque setting of "Far Cry 3" (Ubisoft, for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, $59.99; PC, $49.99) turns out to be far from hospitable to the naive tourist, who can barely stand the sight of blood when he finds himself caged up in a village ruled by a sadistic drug lord.

Jason's transition into a seasoned survivor anchors "Far Cry 3," an outstanding open-world first-person shooter that intersperses character arc, plot and suspense throughout a variety of action-packed firefights, stealth sequences and side missions.

The game begins with Jason being led out of captivity by his military-trained brother, a linear sequence that helps introduce Jason and acclimate players to the control scheme. The islands quickly open up after the arrival of Dennis Rogers, an ally to the indigenous Rakyat tribe who guides Jason on his quest to reunite with his girlfriend and fellow tourists. Dennis sees a burgeoning warrior in Jason and entices him to help free the islands from ruthless criminals.

Each section holds a radio tower handicapped by a signal scrambler, and climbing a tower and disconnecting the device opens a small part of a ridiculously expansive map that's on par with Bethesda Softworks' recent "Fallout" or "Elder Scrolls" installments. Freeing a tower also helps open an area to trade, which makes weapon dealers so happy that they'll start showering you with free guns.

Ridding an enemy outpost of bad guys provides a new location to buy and upgrade weapons with scopes and silencers, as well as a fast travel point to speed trips between friendly villages. But with so many ATVs, trucks and jeeps spread throughout the islands- not to mention hang gliders, jet skis and boats - why not take the scenic route?

Once Jason grabs control of an enemy outpost, he can also browse the bulletin boards for side missions that offer rewards for hunting down rare creatures or wanted criminals. Tracking down a white belly tapir is exciting, but hunting is also a key survival mechanism. Slaying and skinning everything from wild boars to alligators allows Jason to craft holsters to haul more weapons, larger wallets to carry more cash and expanded rucksacks to carry more loot.

The various plants on the islands are another key to survival, as they provide ingredients that boost health and endorphins or enhance perception. And leveling up allows Jason to unlock new skills such as takedowns involving grenades and knives, increased health or adrenaline, and the ability to take less damage from falls and fires.

As in most first-person shooters, killing a bad guy leaves a body to loot, and the controls on this move inflict the game's only significant annoyance. On numerous occasions I found myself mistakenly swapping out a favorite gun for the enemy's weapon when all I wanted to do is grab a little cash.

"Far Cry 3" also has a formidable multiplayer element, with several familiar game modes and a creative addition called Firestorm, in which a team must set fire to the opponents' supply nodes and then escape the spreading flames while capturing a radio transmitter.

So far I've spent several dozen hours exploring the Rook Islands and haven't experienced a moment of boredom. Whatever games find their way under the tree this year, I'll probably still be playing this over the holiday break. Four stars out of four.

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Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 review

Point-and-shoot cameras are at an interesting place. Many believe that point-and-shoot cameras will soon be replaced by smartphones that have very capable cameras, and the likes of iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920 and others are proof of this trend. However, one advantage that point-and-shoots continue to have over smartphones is optical zoom, and having a huge optical zoom can indeed be of great use.

Sony likes to call the Cybershot DSC-WX300 the smallest point-and-shoot camera with a 20x optical zoom, and on it's own the camera indeed looks tiny. Let's take it for a test and see what it holds.

In the Box

Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 cameraManualWarranty cardPower cableUSB chargerUSB cable for chargingHand strapBatteryHDMI cable4GB memory card

Build/ Design
The Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 is a small little camera when you hold it in your hand, but the moment you put it next to another point-and-shoot you realise it is not as small as it initially seems. Having said that, you have to admire the work of the Sony design and engineering team for managing to put a large 20x optical zoom into such a small body.

The camera fits nicely in the hand and the rounded edges make it easy to hold. The controls are easy to reach and comfortable for one-handed use. The back of the camera is taken over by a huge 3-inch LCD that is nice and bright both indoors and outdoors. The LCD is not a touchscreen but shows all the information you need. It is also a bit of a fingerprint magnet, as one cannot avoid touching the screen at times and needs to be cleaned frequently.

There is no rubber padding for the grip and at times I did feel that the camera was slipping out of my hands, but thanks to the hand strap around my wrist I knew I would not drop it.

The memory card and the battery other go under the camera, adjacent to the HDMI port. There is a multi-function Micro-USB port on the right hand side for charging as well as transferring data.

The WX300 has a built-in flash at the front of the camera, stereo microphones on the top of the camera and uses a USB based charger that relieves you of carrying a spare charger too. It's good to see that Sony includes an HDMI cable with the camera.

If you are interested in using the camera with a tripod, it's worth pointing out that with the lens fully out, the camera falls over when kept on a flat surface. Thus, if you are looking to shoot at full zoom, you are advised to carry a full-sized tripod and something like a GorillaPod won't do.

The camera is available in four colours and we tested the Black one.

Features / Performance
Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 does not feature any manual controls like most other point-and-shoot cameras. It comes with eight preset modes that you can choose from, selectable via a rotating dial. The dial lets you choose between a Scene mode, a Background defocus mode (ideal for clicking portraits), an Intelligent Auto mode (indicated on the dial in green), a Superior Auto Plus mode, Program Auto mode, rama mode, Movie shooting mode and a 3D mode.

The Scene selection mode features further sub-modes based on the type of picture you are trying to click including Soft Skin, Gourmet (for food shots), Night Scene, Landscape, Snow, Fireworks and more. The Intelligent Auto mode is the one you would use on this camera to take most of your pictures. If you use the Intelligent Auto+ mode, the camera takes multiple shots and overlays them giving you a picture that's a bit more saturated but appears nicer to the naked eye, especially if you are shooting in a dimly lit room. However, for me this was a complete no-no, as most pictures ended up loosing details.

The Panorama mode on the WX300 is very well implemented and it takes a panorama beautifully, unlike it's predecessors where the camera kept constantly reminding you to go slow or go fast. With the WX300 one just sweeps through and gets the work done, and was so much fun that I ended up shooting quite a few panoramas.

Next to the mode dial on the top of the camera is an aptly sized shutter button with a toggle zoom control. The button is placed well and right next to it is the power button that is recessed so you don't hit it accidentally when clicking a picture, or when someone else is taking a group shot for you.

The camera has no manual controls, be it for focus or for shutter/ ISO so if you are an advanced user you may find this restricting. I did not miss these controls during the time I spent with the camera.

The WX300 comes with built-in Wi-Fi, which means you can set it up a secure Wi-Fi hotspot so your smartphone and tablet can connect to it. You can then use the display on your phone or tablet as a viewfinder and trigger a shot. This is especially useful in case you are taking a self-portrait or a shot at a difficult level. Unfortunately, the app is available only for Android phones and tablets, and not iOS. You can also transfer pictures from the camera to your computer, mobile or tablet over Wi-Fi.

Focus System
The auto focus on the Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 works quite well, though it has its limitations. For example, if you are shooting an object or a person at full zoom, it seems to be a bit slow and takes its time, but in almost all other conditions its quite responsive. The tracking focus function works both in still mode as well movie mode.

One drawback in the camera is a lack of macro mode, so if you like shooting flowers or other objects up close, you will be disappointed.

Image Quality
The WX300 uses Sony's Exmor R back-illuminated 18.2-megapixel CMOS sensor. This gives it great agility when it comes to taking pictures both indoors and outdoors. Add the fact that the camera is small enough to carry in your pockets all the time, and it manages to become your great field companion.

The camera performed pretty well when it came to taking self-portraits and pictures of other people at night and focussed pretty well. The flash on the camera does not need to be popped, just enable or disable it from the menu before taking the shot. The flash on the WX300 is quite strong and some of the scenes end up with too much light and loosing their appeal. But in most cases the flash does a good job overall. However, thanks to the good sensor inside the WX300, you may not need the flash on many occasions.

The low-light images appear sharp and crisp. As I mentioned earlier, there are no manual controls on the camera, so I was slightly worried that the night scene pictures may come out grainy, but I was pleasantly surprised to find them sharp enough.

The powerful 20x optical zoom on the Sony Cybershot WX300 in action. The image above is clicked at full zoom with the inset of the traffic cop taken at 20x optical zoom from the same spot.

The full-zoom pictures also came out nice (see sample shots above and in the gallery). The body's built-in image stabilisation is pretty accurate for a camera this small.

The WX300 also has a 10 frames-per-second mode, and it manages to capture an action scene pretty well. Though Sony claims that the resultant images are full-resolution, I felt that some details were lost in the high-speed mode.

To put the camera through a tough test, I took a night-shot of a backlit taxi sign. Though the picture came out very sharp and crisp, I noticed a shift in colours. While, this can always be corrected during post-processing by changing the temperature of the image, I was slightly surprised that this happened in a camera that produced otherwise accurate colours.

Video
The video mode is pretty well-executed and the camera is capable of taking full-HD videos. The WX300 has a very sensitive set of microphones, which is generally a good thing as it picks up even minute sounds, but if you are in a very noisy environment, it can work against you.

The videos taken with the camera are sharp and full of details, and, as you would expect, it is also possible to capture stills while recording video. The tracking focus and zoom capabilities work well to give you a blur-free video.

Battery Life
The Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 has a small battery and the entire package (battery + camera) weighs just 166 grams. Looking at the size, I was worried if the camera would be able to last an entire day, but that fear was unfounded as I could shoot an impressive 300 shots, including a few panoramas and a video, on a single charge. As mentioned, you can charge the camera over USB, which means should it run out of juice, your mobile charge can perhaps double up as a charger for the WX300.

Verdict
Overall, the Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 is quite impressive with good image quality and a 20x optical zoom that lets you click some interesting pictures. The lack of manual controls bothered me personally, but the target audience of the camera won't mind it as much. The lack of iPhone app to go with the Wi-Fi features of the camera might limit the camera's appeal as well.

Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300 hands-on and sample shots

Price: Rs. 19,990

Pros

Powerful and sharp zoomGood quality images and videoBuilt-in Wi-Fi

Cons

Slightly slow autofocus at full zoomMissing macro detection in auto modeNo rubber grip for thumb restNo iPhone app

Ratings (Out of 5)

Build/ Ergonomics: 3.5Features / Performance: 4Image Quality: 4Video: 4Battery Life: 4Value for Money: 4Overall: 4

Gagandeep Singh Sapra is a technology entrepreneur, and is popularly known as The Big Geek (@TheBigGeek).

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Sony Xperia Tablet Z review

The Xperia Tablet Z is Sony's attempt at making a comeback in the tablet segment after its previous attempts with Xperia Tablet S and Tablet P. The tablet is based on the company's recent flagship phone the Xperia Z in terms of design as well as software and is without doubt one of the sleekest devices available in the market. Is it the best tablet that money can buy at this point in time? We try to find out.

Build/ Design
At 6.9mm, Xperia Tablet Z is the thinnest tablet around - iPad fourth generation is 9.4mm thick, in case you are wondering. Sony engineers have done a commendable job, packing in all the power into such a sleek device. It weighs 495 grams and for a 10-inch tablet the weight to dimensions ratio of the device makes it easy to carry.  The tablet follows the same OmniBalance design that we've seen in the Xperia Z and sports a rectangular shape with subtly rounded corners. The front of the tablet is dominated by its 10.1-inch TFT display surrounded by a Black bezel. There's minimal Sony branding above the display at the left hand side, while the 2.2-megapixel front facing camera is placed at the middle.

Just like Sony's Xperia Z smartphone, the tablet is water and dust resistant and all ports on the device are covered with plastic flaps for protection.

Looking at the edges, on the left side you'll see a round aluminium power/ screen-lock button. The button protrudes out and some might draw parallels with the crown of a watch. We also saw this in the Xperia Z, though it's much smaller this time. Just below the button, you'll find a volume rocker key that is made of plastic. Despite being thin, the volume rocker offers good tactile feedback. Contacts for docking the tablet are also present on the left side. If you look carefully, you'll also notice a flap that hides the 3.5mm headphone jack, above the power button.

There are no ports or buttons on the right hand side. However, the tablet features four small speaker outlets, two of which are located at the bottom edge, while the other two are located on the left and right edge.

Coming to the bottom edge, besides the two speaker outlets, a Micro-USB connector port hides behind one flap, while the micro-SIM and microSD card slots are covered by another flap at the other end of the edge. The micro-SIM slot features the same tray that we saw in the Xperia Z smartphone. The plastic SIM card tray has to be pulled with the help of a fingernail by the user.

There are no controls at the top but you'll notice an Infrared blaster on closer inspection.

As with other devices featuring protective flaps, you'll need to take care when you open them or plug cables, as it's not very difficult to break them.

The back is made of plastic and sports a matte finish. The quality of plastics used here is better than what we've seen in products from rival brands. But our only gripe with it is that it's a smudge magnet. You'll see some silver Xperia branding at the centre and the 8-megapixel rear camera lens at the top right corner, flush with the tablet.

Overall, we feel that the Xperia Tablet Z has been designed really well and is a looker for sure, especially considering the fact that it's designed to be water and dust proof. However, the rectangular shape and sharp corners might not appeal to everyone when it comes to everyday use.

Display
The Sony Xperia Tablet Z features a 10.1-inch TFT screen that has a resolution of 1920x1200 pixels and pixel density of 225 pixels per inch. While it might not match up to the pixel packed displays of the iPad and the Nexus 10 tablet on paper, the HD screen renders text and images well, and colour reproduction is accurate. Text looks extremely crisp, while app icons and images look sharp. Images and videos look great thanks to the addition of Sony's BRAVIA Engine 2 technology.

The tablet offers good viewing angles and under sun visibility was also satisfactory, during our use of the tablet. However, it's not the brightest display that we've seen.

Software/ User Interface
The Sony Xperia Tablet Z runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with Sony's own custom user interface layer on top.

The lock screen has been borrowed from the Xperia Z smartphone complete with the unlocking gesture resembling the motion of your finger through a set of window blinds. The lock screen also offers shortcuts to directly unlock and initiate the Walkman (for playing music) and the Camera app. You can also unlock the screen by double tapping it. If you set a password or PIN the tablet offers you an option to immediately lock the screen when you press the lock button or to wait for some time. This is handy when you want to keep a short screen lock time but also want to have uninterrupted access.
The tablet's UI features three Android capacitive buttons, namely, Back, Home and Task switcher, that are placed at the bottom left corner similar to old Honeycomb/ Ice Cream Sandwich tablets.

Unlike the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10, the tablet's onscreen controls and status indicators for network signals and battery, are at the bottom left instead of the centre, and the notification panel and quick access settings (for Wi-Fi, Screen rotation, brightness, notifications, Airplane mode and shortcut to settings) are located at the bottom right. The same bar also features two shortcut keys, one for access to small apps and another to launch the Universal Remote app. Unfortunately, there's no toggle for Bluetooth or mobile data and the tablet doesn't include a toggles widget.

At the top, there's a bar that features shortcuts for Google Now and Google voice search in addition to four other customisable shortcut slots, similar to the Quick launch shortcut bar that exists in Microsoft's Windows operating system (the desktop one). At the right hand side on the same bar, you'll find a button for the App launcher and another one to modify the home screen, change the theme and wallpaper or add apps and widgets.

The Xperia Tablet Z offers themes that change the colour scheme of the phone along with the home screen and lock screen wallpaper. You can choose to add up to seven home screens or even reduce the number to one. These can be populated with app shortcuts and widgets.

Sony bundles its Walkman music player app, and a gallery app that it calls 'Album'. In addition to displaying pictures on the phone, the app also allows users to connect to online services like Facebook and Picasa and view their online pictures. It also includes a built-in photo editor. The tablet also features Sony's own software keyboard that works well.

For web browsing, the Sony Xperia Tablet Z bundles the Chrome browser. Since Chrome doesn't support Adobe Flash player, the phone is not capable of playing Flash videos even if the Flash plugin is side-loaded.

Sony has also includes additional apps including a Back up & restore app, a Notes app, TrackID (a Shazam like music recognition app), Socialife (brings social network feeds), PlayNow, Smart Connect (which lets users set an event when an accessory is connected to the phone), Xperia Link (to share Internet connectivity with Sony devices), Wisepilot (for navigation) and a lite version of OfficeSuite that allows users to view Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Our review unit also featured links for installing Video Unlimited and Music Unlimited services and PlayStation Mobile. All these content services are not available in India and we're not sure if these shortcuts are included in the retail units.

Sony has tried to include some India-focussed content on the tablet with apps like Sony Liv and Sony Music. Indian users can download free songs from Sony Music's international as well as local catalogue for 6 months and Sony Liv gives lifetime access to free streaming of popular TV programmes from Sony's India channels.  Our review unit did not feature these apps so we did not get a chance to give them a spin. However, Sony has confirmed that these apps come pre-loaded on retail units available in the market.

Although the tablet doesn't offer voice-calling functionality, it does come with a Messaging app for sending and receiving text messages. We found this useful as certain networks require you to send a text message for activating or renewing data plans or for checking data usage.

Another useful app is the Remote Control app that allows you to use the tablet as a remote control for almost all your devices including your TV, Cable/ Satellite box, iPod dock or even a projector. Besides the pre-programmed options, you can even make the app compatible with your device by simply allowing it to learn the functionality from your device's remote. We tried programming the app to our set top box and it worked in a jiffy.

As we mentioned earlier, the tablet also offers Sony's small apps, which can run on top of other running apps, similar to LG's QSwipe apps and Samsung's pop-up play. Sony ships seven of these small apps, namely Calculator, Timer, Notes, Remote, Voice Recorder, Clip Manager and Browser, plus more small apps can be installed via the Play Store. We wish Sony had included a Video player small app as well.

Camera
The Sony Xperia Tablet Z features an 8-megapixel rear shooter. The camera app is feature rich, having Superior auto, Normal, Video, Burst, Picture Effects, Sweep Panorama and different Scene selection modes.

The Superior auto mode doesn't let you customise granular settings barring that of the Resolution and Timer. The normal mode allows you to tinker with settings like Exposure value, White balance, ISO, and others. The camera also includes image and video stabilisation modes so that pictures and movies do not get affected even if your hands are not steady. The camera interface is similar to that of the Xperia Z smartphone but it misses out on a few things including an HDR video recording mode.

 
The tablet's camera takes decent pictures outdoors in daylight but indoor pictures turned out to be a bit grainy. Colour reproduction was pretty accurate and colours did not look oversaturated. Taking pictures in the dark  however, isn't a great experience as the tablet does not come with a flash.

The images taken through the camera did not miss on details though we had issues with focusing at certain times, which was a little delayed.

The Xperia Tablet Z can capture 1080p video at a frame rate of 30fps. You can also take still shots of 1-megapixel resolution while recording video. In our tests, the tablet took decent videos and the stabilisation mode worked as promised.

The tablet also features a 2-megapixel front facing camera that is also capable of recording 1080p videos. We were able to click decent quality pictures, indoors. The videos shot using the front camera also turned out to be good.
Overall, we feel that though a large tablet like the Xperia Tablet Z is not really meant for taking photographs, Sony has done enough with the camera to take care of your needs in case of a 'shutter-bug emergency'.

Performance/ Battery Life
The Sony Xperia Tablet Z is powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor with 2GB RAM, and an Adreno 320 chip for processing graphics. There is 16GB of internal storage, which is expandable by another 32GB via a microSD card.

With Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the overall experience of navigation through the interface was impressive, thanks largely to Project Butter and all the power under the hood. However, at times, we did experience minor lags while swiping across home screens, and launching apps. We did not encounter any issues while playing games, scrolling web pages or switching between apps.

We were able to play full-HD clips, and all formats including .MOV and .AVI were natively supported by the tablet. The four speaker outlets on the tablet deliver good quality sound at high volume levels but the loudness could have been better. The tablet also supports ClearAudio+, which gives the sound more clarity while playing music and offers Equaliser presets for personalising sound output. The tablet also offers FM radio functionality.

The tablet comes with a giant 6000mAh battery, and we were not very satisfied with the backup that it delivered. We were able to get around 5 hours of HD video playback, with the display on full brightness levels which puts the Xperia Z tablet somewhere in the middle when compared to other Android tablets. Did Sony go too far squeezing the tablet impacting the battery life? Perhaps.
The standby time with multiple email accounts configured and push notifications on was decent though. With intermediate usage during the day including some casual gaming, web browsing and playing videos, the tablet was able to easily last a full day. It's worth pointing out that we had turned off Wi-Fi and auto-brightness, and the phone was hooked to a 3G network with the screen brightness at the highest level.

Altering these settings might help in running the phone for a longer duration, depending on your usage pattern. Sony also offers a STAMINA mode, which as per the company can improve the standby time by automatically shutting down battery-draining apps whenever the screen is off and starting them up again when the screen is back on. All our testing was done with the STAMINA mode turned off, which is the default.

The Sony Xperia Tablet Z comes with NFC, which can be used to beam files to other NFC enabled Android devices via Android Beam, and receive information from NFC tags.

Verdict
At a price of Rs. 46,990 the Sony Xperia Tablet Z is an expensive offering from the Japanese electronics giant. The tablet packs in a large number of features, a unique design and high-end specifications, but recommending it over the latest generation iPad (3G+WiFi) that costs a similar amount, is a bit difficult. The Apple iPad still offers access to a more evolved ecosystem when it comes to tablet optimised apps and content. Though you'll get access to Google's Movies and Books stores with the Xperia Tablet Z, the iTunes Store is a step ahead as it also offers a large collection of music titles at attractive price points. Tablet-optimised Android apps are also far and few when compared to the iPad.

If you're looking for a tablet that offers business features, then you could also consider the HP ElitePad 900, that costs less than the Xperia Tablet Z and runs Windows 8, a full-fledged desktop operating system. 

Sony Xperia Tablet Z: In pictures

Price: Rs. 46,990

Pros
Brilliant HD screenGood build qualitySleekDust and Water proof
Cons
Steeply pricedBattery backup could've been better
Ratings (Out of 5)
Design: 4Display: 4Performance: 3.5Software: 3.5Battery Life: 3Value for Money: 2.5Camera: 3Overall: 3.5

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Sony Ericsson txt pro review

The under Rs 10,000 phone category can be a bit dicey to decipher in today's market. For Rs 10,000, you can get an Android phone giving you a smartphone experience. But this experience is usually underwhelming and flawed in many ways. The sub Rs. 10,000 feature phones however seem to be basic enough to function as a mobile phone and usually pack in a few extras. Today we have amongst us the Sony Ericsson txt pro, which is a feature phone that costs Rs. 7,500. Can it satisfy your basic needs? Read on to find out.
Packaging and content:
The packaging of the box is tiny and in a word can be described as cute. Inside the box you get the phone, hands free, manuals and a micro USB cable that doubles as a charger.
Hardware and styling:
One look at the device and you will be forgiven for thinking it is a toy. It is really small and has a 3-inch screen. The entire device is no bigger than the palm of your hand. It is, however, thick and feels extremely well built. Despite the good build the device is really light, weighing 100gms.
The review unit we received was black in colour but the device is available in pink and white as well. The body of the device has a matte finish which is great as it avoids the device from becoming a fingerprint magnet. The touch screen however registers fingerprints very evidently.
The reason the device is a little thick is because it has a slide out QWERTY keypad. The slider on the device is quite sturdy. It also has a distinct click every time you slide it open or shut. The backlit keys rest on a matte-finished silver surface. The keys may appear to be small at first and they are but you eventually get used to typing on them. The rear of the device has a plastic back that can be ripped open to reveal the battery slot.
The rear also houses the 3.2MP fixed focus camera. There is just one physical button under the screen i.e. the home button. The right panel houses the volume rocker and a dedicated camera button. The top of the device has the on/off/lock button along with the 3.5mm headphones jack. The micro USB port rests here as well. This port can be used to transfer data to the device as well as charge the phone. All-in-all, the hardware and styling of the device can be a true eye candy amongst your friends.
Interface:
Sony Ericsson phones have always had a mixed reception in terms of their feature phones. Some such as the Walkman series or the Cybershot series have been credited with being great media and camera phones. The others have been sited to be a bit lackluster or sluggish. With the dawn of the smartphone era, feature phones need to add that extra punch at low costs to get noticed.
The Sony Ericsson txt pro has a four-cornered home screen. The four corners of the screen are represented with 4 icons. These icons are - the keypad, phone book, messaging and browser. It also has an option to quick access five of your most frequently used contacts.
The menu can be accessed by one slide of the finger but this is tedious as the touch screen isn't the most responsive and there is a noticeable lag in the animations. Overall, the interface of the device is a bit of a letdown.
Multimedia:
The txt pro wasn't designed to be a multimedia phone but it does a pretty decent job of representing your media. The music player is standard, giving you the option to play tracks by artist, albums or all songs. It also has an equalizer option. Having said that, the player is fairly decent. The down side is that the earphones provided with the device are a bit disappointing. The audio reproduced is loud and clear but it lacks bass and the overall punch.
You can play MP4 videos on the 3-inch screen but the screen resolution of 240 x 400 it isn't that much fun and after a point it hurts the eyes. The device comes with Wi-Fi, which is great. The phone is targeted at the social networking addicts and in this field the phone performs well. The QWERTY keypad is quick to type on once you get used to it and the phone has an on-board Facebook, Twitter and G-Talk app. All the apps function fairly well when connected to either Wi-Fi or EDGE. The device isn't 3G enabled which is a big downer.

The Opera Mini browser comes preinstalled and for the most part functions like Opera does on any other feature phone. Just don't expect to load heavy websites with ease on your mobile network and flash heavy sites seem buggy. For a smoother experience it is advisable that you stick to Wi-Fi.
The device also has a Yahoo mail and Gmail App preloaded. These apps work well but don't expect to use them to their full potential with relation to attachments. The device also has a fixed focus 3.2MP camera without a flash. If the lighting conditions are good then the images produced by the camera are rich and look good. The lack of a flash means that in low lit or dark conditions you will not get good results. The video recording quality too isn't anything to boast about. Basic home videos shot on the device may look good on the device itself but transfer them to your computer and the result is catastrophic.
Performance:
Being a phone you need to be able to make calls and send and receive messages on the device. Since this is not a smartphone it wasn't easy transferring the contacts to the device. We had to create a .vcf file on our phone and transfer the files to the txt pro.
The call quality of the phone is a mixed experience. In solitude, the conversations were smooth and the voice was clear at both ends. If there was noise at our end, the microphone of the device picked it up with ease hampering the conversation. The earpiece however is very clear irrespective of the situation.
Again the feature phone experience may not appeal to all but finding and calling contacts is as simple as clicking the corner of the home screen. Being a texting phone, the QWERTY keypad is excellent to type on. The keys are well spaced considering the size of the device and a little hard to type on. This is a good thing as it gives you a feedback every time you press a key. If you decide to use the touch screen's T9 dictionary instead of the keyboard, then it's a bad idea. The touch screen keyboard is a pain to use. We even slid out the keypad to search for contacts. That's how bad the touch screen T9 keyboard is.
The lack of a file manager is missed on the device. Sure it has internal memory of 100MB expandable to 32GB via Micro SD card but what will you use the space for without a file manager to transfer your data? The battery life of the device is really good. We were able to drain it in 3 days with average use.
Verdict:
By and large, it's hard to recommend this phone even if you are an addict who needs to be connected to social networking websites all the time. The lack of an OS, bad touch experience and interface outweigh the strong build and fantastic QWERTY keypad. You do have the option of getting an entry level Android experience for the same price.
Price: Rs. 7400
Pros:
Strong build
Great QWERTY keyboard
Good form factor
Cons:
Capacitive touch screen feels buggy
No 3G
Overall OS is disappointing
Ratings:
Performance: 3
Price: 3
Ease of setup: 3
Ergonomics: 5
Wow factor: 4
Overall: 3

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4 Intel Haswell-powered laptops that deliver on long battery

Just in time for the back-to-school season, new laptops with extended battery life are hitting store shelves.

What these laptops have in common are microprocessors that belong to a new family of Intel chips called Haswell. The chips consume less power than previous generations and promise a 50 percent boost in battery life for watching video. The improvements extend to word processing, Web surfing and other computing tasks as well.

Put another way, you can unplug your laptop in the morning and go a full day without a charge, with some breaks for meals, exercise and errands. The 13-inch (33-centimeter) MacBook Air, for instance, promises up to 12 hours of battery life. Three Windows machines I tried promise seven to nine hours. For students, that's a full day of cutting classes - and more. For business travelers, that's a cross-country flight including delays.

The catch
Slim, lightweight laptops with Haswell chips cost more than $1,000. Cheaper laptops will be heavier or come with older chips.

I reviewed Apple's MacBook Air and Dell, Sony and Acer computers running Microsoft's Windows 8. Samsung and other PC makers are just coming out with Haswell laptops, so you should expect even more choices by the holidays. The four I tested use solid-state flash drives, which keep laptops light but don't have as much capacity as traditional storage. They also lack Ethernet ports for wired Internet connections and slots for DVDs. Expect to use Wi-Fi a lot, though USB ports are available to connect devices. Base models come with 128 gigabytes of storage. You can spend a few hundred dollars more for additional storage and faster processors.

Here are the four Haswell laptops I tried, starting with the cheapest:

1. MacBook Air from Apple starts at $1,099 for 13-inch model
With a screen measuring 13.3 inches (33 centimeters) diagonally, the larger model weighs 2.96 pounds (1.34 kilograms) and costs $1,099. An even lighter, 11.6-inch (29.5-centimeter) version is available for $999, but promised battery life is just nine hours. Spend the extra $100 for three additional hours and a larger screen if you can afford it.

It's odd that the Air is the cheapest of the four I reviewed, as Apple's computers are traditionally pricier than their Windows counterparts. But in this case, the Windows laptops I tested all come with touch screens, something Apple has avoided in laptops on the premise that people don't want to lift their hands off the keyboard to use touch controls. The base model of the Air also has a slightly slower processor - at 1.3 gigahertz, compared with 1.6 gigahertz for the three Windows laptops.

Although promised battery life on the 13-inch review unit was 12 hours, I was able to get more than 14 hours once by turning off the Wi-Fi connection. I typically got nine to 11 hours for general Web surfing. Apple promises up to 10 hours for playing video downloaded from its iTunes store. I ran that test four times and got nine to 10 hours of playing the same episode of "Revenge" over and over. As with other laptops, performance drops significantly when streaming video over Wi-Fi, down to six to seven hours of Hulu.

Beyond having a long battery life, the Air is a solid machine that is easy to hold and carry. Although its aluminum exterior is easy to scratch and dent, I feel comfortable banging it around in my backpack because it has few moving parts that might be susceptible to damage. I even ran four miles home with it once.

Only the 13-inch model has a slot for SD memory cards.

Apart from its limited storage compared with laptops with regular hard drives, the MacBook Air will work fine as a primary computer. However, if you need an even more powerful laptop, see if Apple will update its MacBook Pros with Haswell this fall.

2. XPS 12 from Dell starts at $1,200
The XPS 12 is part of a category called ultrabooks - slim and light laptops, much like MacBook Airs, except they run Windows. The XPS 12 is also a convertible. The screen spins like a pig roasting on a spit. In one position, you get a laptop. Spin it 180 degrees, close the lid, and you have yourself a tablet. Magic.

Unfortunately, the XPS 12 is on the heavy side. The base model is 3.35 pounds. On paper, it's less than a half-pound heavier than the Air. But in practice, it feels heavy - especially as a tablet, at more than double the 1.44 pounds for the full-size iPad. The XPS 12 is alone in lacking an SD card slot, and its 12.5-inch screen is the smallest. But it is also the only one to have physical volume buttons on the side, and it's more affordable than the other two Windows laptops I reviewed.

Promised battery life is about 8.75 hours. I got nearly 8.5 hours for word processing, spreadsheets and other tasks that didn't need Wi-Fi. With wireless turned on, I got 7.5 to eight hours of use. Like the other two Windows machines, I got five to six hours of iTunes video. That's about half of what I got on the Air, but Apple has the advantage in being able to optimize its hardware for the software it also designs. I got about 5.5 to six hours of streaming video on Hulu, which is just about an hour less than what I got on the Air.

I did have some trouble with the battery losing its charge quickly when not in use, but a software update seems to have fixed that. That said, the XPS 12 took up to four hours to get a full charge, compared with two hours or less for the others.

What I like most about the XPS 12 is the fact that it automatically disables the on-screen keyboard when in laptop mode. On the Acer and the Sony laptops, the touch keyboard gets in the way when you already have a fully functioning keyboard attached. Tablet computers need that keyboard, so it comes back automatically when you flip the screen into a tablet. It's a smart strategy that I wish all other Windows 8 computers would adopt.

3. Vaio Pro 13 from Sony starts at $1,250
The Pro is an ultrabook that's light. Very, very light.

The 13.3-inch (33.8-centimeter) laptop weighs just 2.34 pounds (1.06 kilograms), only 60 percent more than an iPad. Sony uses carbon fiber to keep it light. It feels to me like cheap plastic that's about to break because it bends. But Sony assures me that it's more durable than aluminum. And Sony says the fact that it bends isn't a sign of weakness but a characteristic that lets it absorb shock. The base model starts at $1,250, though you can save $100 with an 11.6-inch (29.5-centimeter) Vaio Pro 11 instead.

I was ready to hate the Pro 13 because the cursor keeps jumping around when I type, making it difficult to complete sentences. But I tried three machines without problems at a Sony store in New York. Turns out I had to download a piece of software to give me settings for touchpad sensitivity. I had two weeks of frustrations until then, though Sony tells me most consumers won't need the separate download.

Once that got fixed, the laptop worked fine. The laptop hinge serves as a kickstand when open to prop up the keyboard, making it slightly easier to type.

I consistently got more than the seven hours of battery life promised for general Web surfing and word processing. I reached 8.5 hours once with Wi-Fi turned off. Battery life drops below six hours, though, for iTunes video download and Hulu streaming. If you do a lot of that, you can add a spare battery for $150, doubling the battery life. The system is still less than 3 pounds with the spare battery attached. The other units I tried won't let you replace batteries or insert a spare at all.

4. Aspire S7 from Acer starts at $1,450
The Aspire has what I want in a laptop, except for the price.

The laptop's aluminum body is covered on one side with glossy white glass. It reminds me of a refrigerator, but I came to appreciate the durability it brings once I started lugging it around. It's also fairly light, at 2.87 pounds (1.3 kilograms).

You can flip its screen all the way back so that both the keyboard and the screen are level with the surface, just like a tablet on a tabletop. I can't think of any scenarios in which I would need that, though Acer says it's good for presentations. Just press Function-O on the keyboard and the image on the screen rotates 90 degrees at a time, allowing you to show something to others sitting at your table.

Acer's website promises eight hours of battery life. I exceeded nine hours with Wi-Fi off and got seven to 8.5 hours of general Web surfing. But I got less than six hours of iTunes video and Hulu streaming.

Two complaints about the design: The power button is near the hole for the charger, so I accidentally turned the machine off by mistake several times. Acer also places the "page up" and "page down" keys next to the arrows to move the cursor. So instead of moving the cursor one line up, I've often moved it a whole page up or down and lost my train of thought.

I also had the cursor jump around when I first used it. A replacement unit Acer sent me to review worked without a hitch. I eventually noticed the first machine had the touchpad-sensitivity settings missing, even after resetting the unit to factory conditions and downloading new software for the touchpad.

My advice is to check return policies in case you run into trouble. The MacBook Air worked well out of the box, but the three Windows machine all required software adjustments. If you want a touch screen, you'll need to go with Windows 8.

Whatever you choose, these are all great machines that will give you several hours of use on a single charge - as long as you can afford them.

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Sony Xperia neo L review

Sony's latest addition to the Xperia stable comes in the form of the neo L. A successor to the Neo V and inheriting much of its looks, the neo L is competing in the same category as the HTC One V and the LG Optimus 7. But do the modest specs of this smartphone guarantee a worthwhile user experience? We find out.

Hardware/ Design
As mentioned earlier, the neo L looks very similar to the Neo and Neo V in terms of design. But this time round, the device has a 4-inch display that also makes it heavier at 131.5gms. The phone is bulky in its build but is solid. The device comes in black and white colour options.

The smartphone has a glossy finish, which makes the phone a rather slippery customer. The screen is a fingerprint magnet as well. There's a silver strip that runs along the edges of the phone separating the front and the back.

The device features 4 physical buttons, that feel a bit too squeezed and difficult to operate. One wonders if capacitive touch buttons would have been a better choice.

The power/wake button is placed on the right along with the volume rocker. The placement of both these buttons isn't convenient though. If you're holding the device in one hand, you find stretching your thumb quite a bit before you get to them, especially if you have small hands.

The 3.5mm headphones jack finds room on the top while the Micro-USB port for charging and data transfer is located on the left. The back of the device houses a 5MP shooter with LED flash, adjacent to the grilled speakers.

Beneath the skin, the Xperia neo L features a 1500mAh battery, a SIM card slot and a microSD card slot.

Overall, the neo L does have an attractive design but certain improvements would have been welcome.

Display
The Xperia neo L comes with a 4-inch LED-backlit capacitive touch display. Images look crisp at 480x854 pixels. The viewing angles are good. But at maximum brightness levels, the phone disappoints. It's hard to view screen elements in broad daylight.

Images on the HTC One V look better, thanks to the ImageSense technology. Even under low lighting conditions images look good. The Optimus L7, on the other hand, features an IPS-LCD NOVA display and also has better viewing angles displaying images that are vivid and bright. But again, images under the sun look dim even with 100% brightness levels.

Camera
The Xperia neo L comes with a 5MP rear camera. Outdoor shots are decent. Images appear sharp with good colour and contrast and are an improvement over the Neo V. There are some flaws. There is no option to zoom and the auto focus just doesn't work. So if you're trying to take wide shots, it seems like an impossible task. The absence of a touch-to-focus is also felt.

The Neo V had better auto focus capabailities. The phone also lacks a dedicated camera button.

Other camera settings are pretty basic including scene mode, exposure levels, white balance and flash. Users can share pictures instantly to various social media like Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, Google+ and more.

720p video recording is possible at 30fps and videos recorded are saved as MP4 files by default. Users can also choose to shoot in SD mode. The video recorder features continuous auto-focus, though it may take some seconds to refocus while re-framing.

There's a front camera for video calling.

Coming to the camera software, the device has the stock Android interface. But Sony's custom camera offers better options like Touch Focus for instance. But the user won't complain much as it offers all the basic camera features.

Software/ Interface
The smartphone ships with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) on-board, that makes it a first of its kind from Sony.

Sony's familiar Timescape UI manages all your communications ranging from Facebook and Twitter to Contacts and Calls under one roof. Timescape focusses more on the social networking integration. Certain ICS tweaks are visible instatntly. The lock screen earlier featured an unlock slider and one for silent mode. Th latter has been replaced by a camera slider.

Another noticeable change is that the notifications menu is no onger accessible from the lockscreen. This does come by as a bit surprising since it is a prominent ICS feature. An addition is the ability to control music playback from the lockscreen, that displays the music player widget.

Apps can now be arranged in various ways such as Alphabetical, Most Used, Own Order and Recently Installed.

Since the capacitive touch buttons are replaced by the physical ones, aplications current running can be closed by long-pressing the home button. A new feature is Overview, that provides the pinch-to-zoom functionality. All active widgets float on the screen for easy viewing and selection. The mediascape widget is no longer available, but the standard gallery is back, in addition to the Xperia gallery.

The music player on the device missed the ICS update. It still houses the old music player that featured before the NXT series. The main menu offers browsing in four tabs for the available sorting options: Artists, Albums, Tracks and Playlists. There is no dedicated video player on the device. However, users can download video player apps from Google Play. Other custom skins like Samsung's TouchWiz UI provide greater functionality by adding buttons to the notification bar that allow Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and rotation capabilities to quickly be turned on or off. It also has the ability to silence the phone.

The device features a 1GHz Qualcomm processor and 512MB RAM. The user interface is slick and works pretty smooth most of the time. But we'd suggest the use of a Task Manager as the device isn't the best at multitasking.

Compared to other Xperia devices, the neo L does score some extra points for a big 4-inch screen. Watching videos, keeping widgets or app shortcuts on the screen is an advantage.

Apart from the usual stock of Google apps, the smartphone comes pre-installed with apps like OfficeSuite, McAfee Security and NeoReader that helps you read bar codes.

Casual gamers will be excited to see the EA Games app that offers free games like Plants vs Zombies, Dead Space and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 in trial mode. But the key highlight is Need For Speed Shift (Google Play lists NFS Shift for Rs. 273!) as a full free game to play.

Performance/ Battery Life
The smartphone is a decent performer for the kind of specs it offers. The battery life of the device is pretty good lasting an entire day on an average use.

What's interesting to note here is that while other dual-core processor phones from Sony like the Xperia sola and Xperia P have a 1320mAh and 1305mAh battery respectively, the single-core Xperia neo L comes with a 1500mAh battery. Not that we're complaining, but it's strange.

Being a Sony, it is needless to say that the audio quality is great both on the speakers and the bundled headphones. Even at full volume levels, the sound doesn't crack. Users can always visit the Settings menu to enhance the audio quality via sony's xLOUD technology and tweak equlaiser settings for desired audio output. Some users may be disappointed to find that the phone does not have an FM receiver, unlike the Neo V.

High quality YouTube videos look beautiful with clear picture quality and barely any pixelation. Though the phone supports multiple audio (MP3, WAV, eAAC+) formats, but we had some trouble playing MP4 files on our unit and the video playback wasn't smooth.

Speaking of connectivity, the handset performs well over both 3G and Wi-Fi networks. The browsing experience is highly satisfactory. But there are ocassional lags while scrolling and zooming full blown sites. Users can install Chrome for Android to further enhance and simplify their browsing experience. Games such as Dear Hunter Reloaded and Temple Run were smooth without any lags.

Call quality on the Xperia neo L is decent with good reception practically everwhere. Messaging also felt quite comfortable on the device, courtesy the big 4-inch screen. The on-screen full QWERTY keyboard is laid out neatly with the keys spaced out well. Landscape is bigger and more comfortable but typing even the portrait mode felt very easy. The keyboard has support for multiple international languages as well.

Users can also make use of the Gesture input in case they want to type faster. It works on the same concept as Swype. Those not used to this feature, will struggle initially but eventually get used to it. The feature is accessible in the Settings menu (wrench icon next to Enter button) within the keyboard itself.

The device also comes with DLNA support. We connected it to a television over Wi-fi and played a couple of videos and browsed through images remotely. It functioned just fine.

Verdict
After having spent some quality time with the neo L, we'd say that the smartphone is a decent performer. The phone is not all just about beauty, but brains as well. It is fast, smooth, ships with ICS on board and has a battery life that surely won't disappoint.

But the phone does have its share of flaws. The camera is one feature that is a big let down. The HTC One V has a much better camera. We would've also loved to see Sony add the PlayStation certification on it. Had the phone been bumped up just a bit specs wise, it would've been a great buy.

Like we mentioned earlier, the neo L is stacked up against the HTC One V and the LG Optimus L7. Both these handsets are recent launches, come with similar specifications and are priced cheaper than the neo L. They also have greater 4GB internal memory, FM Radio and far better camera capabilities.

Sony Xperia neo L in pictures

Pros
ICS out of the box
Battery life

Cons
No tap focus in camera
Bulky
Plasticky and cheap feel

Price: Rs. 19,499

Ratings (Out of 5)
Design: 3.5
Display: 3.0
Performance: 3.5
Software: 3.5
Battery Life: 3.5
Value for Money: 3
Camera: 3
Overall: 3

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Sony Xperia SP review

While Sony was able to generate some major buzz when it came to the forefront with its new flagship the Xperia Z, its mid-range line-up still needed a refresh. Although the Xperia P was a decent option from the company's Xperia NXT series, it didn't offer a large screen and had a low-capacity battery.

The Xperia SP was announced shortly after the Xperia Z as a mid-range alternative for people who didn't require a top of the line power-horse of a phone but wanted some novelty.

We find out if the new Xperia SP is a capable smartphone that offers a balance between form, features and performance.

Build/ Design
The Sony Xperia SP is built on the lines of its more powerful cousin, the Xperia Z, and looks like a rectangular slab from the front except for a translucent bar at the bottom, that glows up in different colours at certain actions/ events. Overall, it's a little boxy with corners that are subtly rounded. Another issue with the phone is its weight and thickness. At 155 grams the phone is anything but easy to lug around.

Perhaps one of the reasons for the phone's weight is a thick aluminium frame that surrounds the phone's body. We'll admit the phone does feel solid because of this.
The phone comes in Black and White coloured variants and we had a White coloured one for our review unit.

The front mainly features the 4.6-inch display, with proximity and light sensors above it along with a VGA camera lens. There's a microphone below the screen and the white bezel continues till it reaches a translucent bar that houses an LED light that lights up with different colours when you're playing music or browsing a gallery or receive a message or call.

On the right side you'll see a round aluminum power/screen-lock button towards and a volume rocker, also made of metal. The power button protrudes out and some might draw parallels with the crown of a watch, and we had seen it first in the Xperia Z. It's much smaller this time, though. The phone also adds a dedicated camera button towards the lower part at the same side. You'll also see screws on both the sides of the phone.

A Micro-USB port sits on the left side, while the 3.5mm headset jack is located on the top of the phone. The phone's back, unlike the Xperia Z, is rounded and there's a white removable plastic cover that hides the SIM card and microSD card slots. Even though the phone has a removable back cover, the battery is non-removable.
The 8-megapixel camera lens is towards the upper part of the back, with a small speaker outlet next to it and an LED flash and microphone below it. There's subtle Xperia branding in the middle.

Display
The Xperia SP features a 4.6-inch screen with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels and the panel is made of tempered glass. The phone's screen is 0.3-inch less than that of the Xperia Z's screen and is not full-HD, which is expected since it's a mid-range phone. Sony also includes its BRAVIA Engine 2 to enhance images and videos.

While the phone renders images and text sharply, we observed that it appears to be washed out. The phone does offer settings for white balance and hue for the display, but we feel that blacks could have better.

We also had minor gripes with the viewing angles offered by the phone's display. Under sun legibility was good when we used the phone with brightness set to the highest level, though the screen is reflective to some extent.

Software/ User Interface
The Sony Xperia SP ships with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. It's not the most recent version, but that's consistent with many other new Android phones in the market. Sony has included its own UI skin on top of the software but it's not as deep as HTC's Sense UI, Samsung's TouchWiz or LG's Optimus UI, and is rather more close to the stock build. Sony says that the unified UI will bring the same user experience to tablets and phones, and include its media apps.

Just like the Xperia Z, the unlocking gesture of the lock screen resembles the motion of your finger through a set of window blinds and we've not seen this on any other phones till date. The lock screen also offers shortcuts to directly unlock and initiate the Walkman (for playing music) and the Camera app. However, unlike the LG Optimus G, you cannot customise the unlocking animation or change the app shortcuts. The phone offers on-screen buttons for navigation just like stock Android.
Sony includes its own Xperia keyboard with the phone that is different from the stock Android keyboard. We're not fans of this keyboard, and wish Sony could have included the option to switch to the stock keyboard.

The Xperia SP also offers themes that change the colour scheme of the phone along with the home screen and lock screen wallpaper. You can choose to add up to seven home screens or even reduce the number to one. These can be populated with app shortcuts and widgets.

The notification tray adds toggles for sound, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, mobile data and a shortcut to the settings menu. Sony also adds some of its own widgets for social networking service updates, power toggles and more.
Sony bundles its Walkman music player app, in addition to a gallery app that it calls 'Album'. In edition to displaying pictures on the phone, the app also allows users to connect to online services like Facebook and Picasa and view their online pictures. The app also includes a built-in photo editor.

For web browsing, the Sony Xperia SP bundles the Chrome browser, and removes the stock Android browser. Since Chrome doesn't support Adobe Flash player, the phone is not capable of playing Flash videos even if the Flash plugin is side-loaded.

The phone also includes additional apps including a Back up & restore app, McAfee Security, NeoReader for reading QR codes, a Notes app, TrackID (a Shazam like music recognition app), PlayNow, Smart Connect (which lets users set an event when an accessory is connected to the phone), Xperia Link (to share Internet connectivity with Sony devices), and Wisepilot (for navigation). There's also a Socialife app that lets you view updates from different social networks under one feed and Sony Select, Sony's own app store.

The Task Switcher button gives access to previously running and current apps, displaying a list on the right side. As with the stock app switcher, you can dismiss an app by sliding it. The switcher also brings access to Sony's small apps, which can run on top of other running apps, similar to LG's QSwipe apps and Samsung's pop-up play. Sony ships four of these small apps, namely Calculator, Timer, Notes and Voice Recorder but more small apps can be installed via the Play Store. We wish Sony had included a Video player and a web browser small app as well.

In addition to all of these, the phone brings standard Jelly Bean functionality. Overall, Sony has tried to keep the phone close to stock Android.

Camera
The Sony Xperia SP sports an 8-megapixel Exmor RS rear camera with auto focus and LED flash. The camera leaves out Burst mode, which is present in the Xperia Z.

The phone's camera app is feature rich and includes modes such as Superior auto, Normal, Video, Burst, Picture Effects, Sweep Panorama and different Scene selection.

The Superior auto mode doesn't let you customise granular settings barring that of Flash, Resolution, and Timer with the default resolution set to 3104x2328. The normal mode allows you to tinker with settings like Exposure value, White balance, ISO, and others. The camera also includes image and video stabilisation.

The pictures taken during daylight were good but we found the colours to be oversaturated. Photos taken indoors with sufficient amount of light, also looked decent barring the colour reproduction, which was a bit haywire. However, they were a bit grainy when light was not adequate. We observed that the Superior auto mode takes time to click since it automatically detects the photo mode, so there's a bit of a lag.
The camera disappoints while clicking low-light shots, which had a lot of noise.

The Xperia SP can capture 1080p video but leaves out the HDR mode for video recording, which is seen in the Xperia Z.

The hardware camera key can be set to launch the camera app in video or still mode, or launch and capture pictures or videos.

In our tests, the phone took good videos and the stabilisation mode worked as promised. You can also take still shots of 1-megapixel resolution while recording video.
The Xperia SP features a VGA front-facing camera. The front camera is strictly functional and can be used for casual video chats.

Performance/ Battery Life
The Xperia SP is powered by a 1.7GHz Qualcomm MSM8960Pro dual-core processor with 1GB RAM onboard, and an Adreno 320 chip for processing graphics. There is 8GB of internal storage, which is expandable by another 32GB via a microSD card. However, only 5.37GB of the 8GB is available to the user.

With Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the overall experience of navigation through the interface was impressive, thanks largely to Project Butter. We did not experience any lag while launching apps, playing games, scrolling web pages or switching between apps.

We were able to play full-HD clips, and all formats including MOV and AVI were natively supported by the phone. The speaker on the phone delivers good quality sound at high volume levels but the loudness could have been better. The phone also supports ClearAudio+ that gives the sound more clarity while playing music. The phone also offers FM radio.

The call quality was good and the phone was able to latch on to the network in weak signal areas.

The Xperia SP comes with a giant 2370mAh battery, which is one of the highest capacity battery among its class and in our usage, it lasted us a day and a half. We charged the phone in the morning (at around 9am), and with medium to heavy usage, including about 2 hours of phone calls, two e-mail accounts with push notifications, playing some music (both on the phone and via internet radio), Twitter notifications and WhatsApp chats, we didn't need to charge the phone till noon, the next day. It's worth pointing out that we had turned off Wi-Fi and auto-brightness, and the phone was hooked to a 3G network with the screen brightness at the highest level throughout.

Altering these settings might help in running the phone for a longer duration, depending on your usage pattern.

 Sony also offers a STAMINA mode, which as per the company can improve the standby time by automatically shutting down battery-draining apps whenever the screen is off and starting them up again when the screen is back on.
The phone comes with NFC, which can be used to beam files to other NFC enabled Android phones via Android Beam, and receive information from NFC tags. The phone also supports LTE (4G) connectivity, but the Indian LTE band of 2300MHz (Band 40) is not supported.

Verdict
The Sony Xperia SP is a good mid-range Android smartphone, especially if you want a phone that offers a good battery backup. Even performance wise, it does pretty well when it comes to doing day-to-day tasks and even playing medium to high end games, thanks to its Adreno 320 GPU.

However, at an asking price of around Rs.25,000, we feel that the phone has been priced a bit on the higher side as we were disappointed with its screen and the camera's low-light performance.

If you're in the market for a mid-range Android phone you could also look at the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus, LG Optimus L9 and the Samsung Grand (if you don't mind a phablet).

If you can pump up your budget by a few thousand rupees, you could also consider buying the Samsung Galaxy S III or the HTC One X+, which are now available at considerable discounts compared to their original launch prices.

Sony Xperia SP: In pictures

Price: Rs. 24,990

Pros
Rich in featuresGood build qualityDecent performanceGreat battery backup
Cons
Screen appears washed out, offers below-average viewing anglesLow light photos appear grainyBulky
Ratings (Out of 5)
Design: 3.5
Display: 3
Performance: 4
Software: 3.5
Battery Life: 4.5
Value for Money: 3.5
Camera: 3
Overall: 3.5

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