Sony is really struggling at the moment. 15 years ago it was the world's most successful electronics company with brands like Walkman and Playstation making them tog dog – but over the last 10 years the Japanese firm has been losing money hand over fist. Only this week it's being reported that the company will cut 10,000 jobs and reduce its TV production.
At the tail end of last year the top brass at Sony decided to refocus its attention on its mobile space by buying out Ericsson and rebranding their entire mobile division Sony Mobile. Has the corporate restructuring made a difference? Well, we've got our hands on their latest flagship handset: the Xperia S to find out.
Screen
The Xperia comes with an impressively large screen measuring 4.3-inches. For us, this is the de facto size for smartphone screen. It's big enough to make the iPhone 4S look too small and small enough to access all the on-screen buttons only using your thumb when holding it in one hand. While the screen technology might be a bit old-hat - it's one of the only LCD screens we’ve come across that can even come close to OLED screen technology. It produces vibrant, bright colours, and fairly deep blacks - it's not revolutionary, but more than good enough for a flagship handset from a manufacturer that's looking to cut costs.
Camera
Sony may have skimped on the screen technology a little, but this has meant that they have upped the anty with regards to the camera. Now, megapixels aren't the most important thing when it comes to cameras, but it is an important base to create a compelling camera functionality. The Xperia S comes with 12-megapixels and is capable of capturing 1080p videos.
On the whole the quality is great, when viewing video and pictures form the handset they look stunning, but when you export them to TV's and other devices some of that shimmering quality is lost. The handset performs admirably in low-light conditions and with a dedicated camera button it's ready to snap in a very short amount time. While the light sensor might not be on the level of the iPhone 4S' there's very little lag and overall it performs better than the Samsung Galaxy S2, but probably not as good as the iPhone 4S or HTC One X.
Build quality
The penny pinching from the Sony accountants rears its head again when it comes to build quality. It's good, but not amazing - the phone doesn't convey the feeling a truly premium product. It feels solid rather than inspiring - the only real unique design is the see-through strip at the bottom, but for us it just looks a bit tacky. It's good to see Sony following HTC's lead and make the phone an all-in-one handset without a removal battery - we'd just wish that they'd spent a bit more money on the casing and chassis. The handset comes with 32GB of storage, but you won’t be able to upgrade it as there is no Micro-SD slot – something that seems to be a trend with 2012 Android handsets.
Features
One interesting inclusion Sony has decided on was to give the Xperia S NFC technology - now, we've been talking about NFC for years and still it hasn't really taken off. Eventually it will turn a phone into a travel pass or debit card - but we’re still skeptical that it's feature that is even worth bothering with at this moment in time.
Music, movies and games
Sony's Xperia S comes with a wealth of on-demand services including Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited. Music Unlimited is the same service you might find on your PS3 and is a subscription-based Spotify clone. Video Unlimited is Sony's version of Netflix, but instead of a monthly subscription they've opted for an iTunes-style buy/rent service.
Neither services are likely to worry the competition, but their inclusion is welcomed – even though there are better services at cheaper prices available through the Android App store. The Xperia S also comes with Playstation Certification, but overall it feels a bit unfinished and we hardly expect consumers to be rushing out to the shops to pick up the handset just so they can play a dated version of Crash Bandicoot. There’s promise here, but not much delivery as yet.
Performance
Performance-wise the Xperia is a bit of a mixed bag. It’s disappointed to see the handset ship with the rather dated Android Gingerbread – but the promise of ICS in “Q1” should mean the Xperia S will continue to improve over the course of 2012. We’re glad to report the Gingerbread runs like a dream on the Xperia S and their own stripped down user interface is one of the simpler ones we’ve come across over the last 12 months.
Battery is better than most handsets, but this is probably due to the fact its using a dual-core processor rather than a ravenous quad-core processor.
Verdict
Overall, you can’t help but think that the penny pinching going on a Sony has meant that the Xperia S could have been better than it actually is. It’s a good step in the right direction, but with such a crowded marketplace it’s hard to see why consumers will flock to the Xperia S over a top-of-the-range HTC, Samsung or Nokia. We’d still choose the iPhone over it most days, but the gap between Apple’s phones and cheaper Android alternatives, such as this, is being eroded bit by bit every month.