Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc - Major Sex Appeal

Mobile handsets are getting better looking all the time, thank goodness. With handsets like Nokia N8, Dell Venue and the newly launched HTC Incredible, the competition for good looking devices is heating up and the Xperia Arc just took mobile sex appeal to a whole new level. It’s one of the first Gingerbread (out of the box) handsets to hit the shelves and here’s a closer look.

Form Factor
With the Arc, Sony Ericsson seems to have gone in the totally opposite direction of their Human Curvature design. While the Human Curvature form had a convex shape at the rear of their handsets this next-gen Xperia X10 has a concave rear panel. The black (when off) 4.2-inch scratch resistant (mineral glass) display with an all black bezel, chrome rim and slim 8.7mm frame gives this handset a slick look like nothing we’ve seen so far in the mobile kingdom. It’s certainly a large handset but still quite comfortable to hold and quite lightweight at 117g.

Sharp features

What I took just a minor dislike to was the slightly sharp buttons below the display. While most of the Android handsets out there have moved on to touch sensitive keys Sony’s still playing a bit old school. The LED backlit display sports a 480 x 854 pixel resolution that’s high enough to make colours seriously stand out and with the added assistance of Sony's Mobile BRAVIA Engine. They look vibrant and and densely packed, making it extremely clear and easy on the eyes. Like the iPhone's Retina Display, Sony calls this their Sony Reality Display.

On the right side of this slim handset are volume/zoom keys, just under a micro USB port for charging and PC connectivity and a small but raised camera shutter release button at the bottom. A 3.5mm handsfree socket (in-ear phones type handsfree, quite comfortable) is located at the top left hand side. The Arc also features an HDMI port of the micro variety (cables included). The handset did not come with a hot swap slot for the microSD which could be an issue for some, however 320MB of internal storage and the option of transferring most heavy app files to the bundled 8GB memory card will make sure you don’t have congestion or speed issues.

Features and Performance
Interface
With Sony Ericsson’s custom UI, on top of Android’s Gingerbread (v2.3) OS, running on a 1GHz Scorpion processor with an Adreno 205 GPU, I was expecting issues with speed to be but a distant thought. That was true for almost all aspects of the Arc’s functionality but when it came to accessing mundane functions like the message menu, contacts or even changing the orientation of the display, there seemed to be a visible 1-2 second delay. I also found that the gallery took about 2-3 seconds just to render an 8MP picture I had taken from the built-in camera. Everything else was super smooth.

UI was just a wee bit sluggish

The new additions to the keypad - word selection and a large icon to indicate where your cursor is - proved to be quite handy. Sony Ericsson has also included their TimeScape UI option and widget for simultaneously updating both your Twitter and FB accounts. TimeScape also allows you to view all your messages, people’s updates on FB/Twitter and new calls/messages from this one vertical scrolling interface. Personally, it tends to get way too cluttered if you stick to the entire interface, but luckily you can opt to use any of these settings individually as widgets.

Multitouch zooming was as smooth as the iPhone’s and I don’t say that very often. It seems like, unfortunately, only HTC has managed to offer Android users a steadfast social networking integration option for your contacts. Linking and joining contacts to their corresponding Google, Twitter and FB accounts, although a one-time thing, is nevertheless a much less time or brain consuming effort on Sense UI as compared to Sony’s, Samsung’s or LG’s.

Media
The native audio player with its few EQ presets managed to dish out audio quite well. Tones, although slightly jarring on full volume, were still decently well balanced. Using a better set of earphones though, you’ll enjoy much better clarity as compared to that derived from the bundled handsfree. The Infinite button (alpha) allows you connect to YouTube to watch related videos. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much more - it's not MediaScape. Some third party players like Mixzing auto download album art and have a more sophisticated EQ setting which is great for audiophiles. The built-in FM radio managed to find 5 out of 9 available channels very quickly and reception quality was good. TrackID works quite well to locate and get you details about music from the radio or external sources. You can then choose to download the track, if available, or share it via Twitter, email or messages.

Music player is loud and clear

Another let down was that the Arc didn’t pre-support DivX or XviD codecs, so I was forced to seek third party support from the Android Market place. This isn’t a big issue since free players are available but one expects pre-loaded content at this price. It supports H.264 and H.263 MP4, WMV and of course 3GP.

There were no pre-installed games but there are plenty of freebies in the Market including Angry Birds Rio. Owners of the Xperia Arc will also be able to download three Gameloft titles for free, and have access to a Game Center. The Arc is equipped to handle 3D gaming as well as motion gaming.