Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray Review

Sony Ericsson has created a niche for itself in the smartphone arena with their recent Android smartphones. The company recently launched their latest entrant in the popular Xperia range, called the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray. Currently, there is cut-throat competition amongst leading smartphone manufacturers and Android phones are being manufactured at a dime a dozen. But, does the new Xperia Ray pack enough to warrant a buy? Read on to find out.  

On video: Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray

Design and Build Quality 

The Xperia Ray has a 3.3-inch screen and weighs 100 grams and cannot be counted as a big phone by any means. It looks sleek with the matte finish on the sides and back and the embossed Xperia logo. The all-glass screen in the front with an arc at the top and the bottom add to the stylish look as well. The top consists of the power button, along with the headphone jack that slightly protrudes from the body. The right consists of the volume rocker, while the microUSB slot is located to the left. Two capacitive buttons along with the home button are situated under the 3.3-inch Bravia Mobile engine LED-backlit LCD display that has a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels. 

Volume rocker switch could have been a little bigger

The tactile feedback of the buttons is good, but as a personal preference, the volume rocker button could have been a little bigger. The camera and single LED flash on the back have a silver border to them that adds to the look. A particular thing to notice is that the SIM card slot and microSD card slot are housed under the battery, so there’s no hot-swap feature available for changing memory cards. 

Overall, the Xperia Ray is easy to hold in your hand. It isn’t on the heavier side at all and definitely gives a feeling of superior design and build. 

Features and Performance

Interface

The smartphone is powered by a 1GHz Scorpion processor with an Adreno 205 GPU, an MSM8255 Snapdragon chipset and runs on the Android 2.3.3 OS. Running on top is SE’s stock Timescape UI that displays Facebook, Twitter and other extensions as tiles that you can scroll through on your home screen. It looks good, just like on the earlier devices, but it's pretty average, as far as functionality is concerned. The screen response is quick and doesn't have any lag, whatsoever. 

Sleek and stylish body

Sony has also included a few themes and skins, but they've kept them to a minimum, which is good with all the bloatware that manufacturers have been putting these days on their devices. Xperia Hot Shots, the UEFA widget, Wisepilot and Touchnote are few of the new apps that come bundled with the device. Home screen widgets are standard with toggle switches for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Silent mode and Brightness along with the Timescape widget, Google search and weather icon. The interface is simple, but swift, while the navigation is effortless.  

Media

The Xperia Ray continues to live up to the merits of the music player that the previous versions had and it’s fair to say that it doesn’t disappoint. MP3, eAAC+ and WAV are supported out-of-the-box, as far as audio is concerned and video format support is for MP4, H.263 and H.264. Those looking for playback for other formats will require to download third party apps from the market. SRS WOW enhancements haven’t been included, but irrespective of that, the sound is loud and clear. The music player has a nice little feature, which changes the background colour lighting depending upon the album art, which adds up to the looks. There’s an instant 'like' button next to the song title that directly connects to your Facebook likes. The infinity button helps find music videos, or karaoke videos on YouTube, search artist information on Wikipedia and lyrics on Google. It works quite well and might come handy for those instant karaoke music sessions. 

The music player

The speakers are based on Sony’s xLOUD audio filter technology and the sound from them is crisp and clear. However, the bundled headphones aren’t the best and they have a lot of audio leakage. For a better music experience, we’d recommend you purchase another pair of headphones.