Sony Ericsson Xperia Active Review

Media

The upper corner icons make a comeback in the in-built media player and they provide access to the current playlist and the tracks in the library. The music player is slightly modified from the Xperia Ray we reviewed earlier, with the infinite button and the other icons located on the top. Everything else remains pretty much the same. The album art occupies a big chunk of the screen with the playback options located underneath. Ten preset equalizers are available, but there’s no way to have custom equalizer settings. The xLOUD speaker enhancement is included as well.

The music player interface

We didn’t get company headphones with our review unit, so we tried playback with our Koss test headphones. The music is quite loud and the enhancements and equalizers do have a substantial effect on the frequency response of the sound that is sampled. Bass has the right amount of thump and the mid-tones are handled well. Playback via loudspeakers is loud enough to fill up a small room. Sony doesn’t generally disappoint with music and the Active follows that trend. 

The supported audio codecs include MP3, eAAC+ and WAV whilst video support is limited to MP4, H.263 and H.264. With the range of software available in the Android market, that limitation can somewhat be overcome.

The headphone jack is at the bottom of the phone

It’s capable of recording at 720p at 30fps, so naturally 720p playback is supported. Video playback on a screen that size might not provide users with the best mobile experience, but the Bravia Mobile engine adds to the feel as the screen appears bright and vivid. To finish off the media part, the phone comes with FM radio, which gets good reception even while traveling, but we’ll remind you that we used test headphones, as the metal jack works as the antenna. So, the experience could differ if you use headphones that come bundled with the phone. TrackID has been included in previous Xperia phones as well, and it’s basically an application like Shazam, it tells you what song you’re currently listening to. 

Connectivity

The Xperia Active is a quad-band GSM phone and in-call voice quality is quite clear and audible. The loudspeaker also works satisfactorily loud during calls. Next up, there’s Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR, Wi-Fi b/g/n with DLNA and hotspot capabilities and 3G downloading at 7.2 Mbps and uploading at 5.8 Mbps. 

Connectivity options

We’ll remind you, it’s also a fitness phone and if you’re using it to the fullest, you’ll use GPS more often than not. Connectivity via GPS is quick, and though their pre-installed app Wisepilot is somewhat limited in terms of countries, it is quite snappy and fast. Browsing through websites is easy as sites load quick on a good Internet connection and the 1GHz processor ensures that navigation (zooming, panning, opening new tabs) isn’t laggy or stuttering. Also, it has got flash support and embedded videos work quite well. The LiveWare Manager application helps you instantly launch applications based on the devices you connect to your phone, so for example, the phone will start the music app when you plug in the headphones, and accessories are supported over Bluetooth as well.