Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray Review

Connectivity

The device is 3G capable, like most other devices in the market. Other connectivity features include Wi-Fi with hotspot capability, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR, microUSB 2.0 and the basic GPRS/EDGE connectivity. The device is DLNA-enabled as well which allows it to wirelessly stream music and videos to other DLNA devices. However, neither NFC support nor USB on-the-go is present on the device and while we’re at it, we'll just mention that Bluetooth 3.0 would have been a good addition, as well.  

Power button and headphone jack on the top, two capacitive buttons and home button below the display

Misc. Features

Besides the stock Google maps, Gmail and navigation apps, a data monitor app is pre-installed, which is quite handy, if you’re on 3G and wish to know your current data usage. An Adobe Reader app is bundled, along with the Sony update center app and a LiveWare manager that shows the current connected ports in the device. Besides this, the basic alarm clock, calendar, calculator and sound recorder apps come pre-loaded. Surprisingly, the phone doesn’t come with any pre-loaded games. 

The timescape UI

Camera

The Ray has an eight megapixel rear camera with Sony’s Exmor R CMOS sensor with auto-focus and an LED flash. The smartphone doesn’t have any dedicated camera button and you might have that odd moment of frustration when the camera doesn’t recognize your touch and doesn’t click. A single click adjusts the focus, following which the camera snaps a picture. But, for those times when you’re on a picture clicking spree, the responsiveness is a little slow, due to the touch-to-focus-and-click mode. The front VGA camera is decent and performs well during video chatting sessions or whilst clicking self-portrait pictures. 

Pictures appear bright on the Bravia Mobile engine

Video shooting is up to 720p and it does perform quite well. There’s very little jitter and shooting videos is quite smooth. Auto capturing mode for image shots does all the dirty work for you, whereas the normal capturing mode for both photo, as well as video shooting has image stabilization options, metering, white balance and focus mode options. The flash is quite powerful and images in low-light conditions are captured pretty well. 

Battery Life 

The Xperia Ray comes with a 1500 mAh Lithium-ion battery. In our battery test, the battery exhausted itself after three hours of video, two hours of music playback, two hours of streaming and one and a half hour of calls, which brings it to a total of 8 hours 30 minutes. Normal usage lasts around one and a half day on a single charge and at optimum brightness, which is quite good.

A 3.3-inch screen smartphone at Rs. 20,000?

Verdict

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray is priced at Rs. 20,000. With that price, it competes with the likes of the Google Nexus S and the LG Optimus Black and the HTC Desire S. The eight megapixel camera is brilliant, but the smaller 3.3-inch screen size may not appeal to everyone and as mentioned earlier, the smaller keyboard will take some time to get used to. Also, 1080p recording isn’t present and the internal memory is a mere 1GB, out of which only 300 MB is available to users. Yes, the smartphone performs pretty well with whatever features it has and has the Bravia Mobile engine, too, but choosing this phone over the other ones currently in the market will be more due to personal taste and choice than for the features it possesses.