Sony Ericsson Xperia arc Hands-on
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The name Arc comes from the slightly curved design. If you ask us, it really does not make almost any difference ergonomically - Sony Ericsson just need a good marketing name and something to distinguish it in the sea of phones. It is not like we do not like the design – it is very clean with excellent in-hand feel. What is really strange is the very low weight of only 4.13 oz (117g), given it has 4.2” display. The low weight is definitely great, but it also brings somewhat cheap feel when held.
Almost the whole front is dominated by the 4.2” display with 854x480 pixels resolution. This is actually one of the best looking displays we’ve seen. SE claims this is due to the Bravia software engine borrowed from Sony. No matter what the reason is, the fact is this is one gorgeous screen with very vibrant colors, but not the over-saturated ones we see in the AMOLED screens.
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Another notable feature which we tried to test was the Exmor R camera sensor. What this means is that the CMOS sensor is back-illuminated, helping it out to make better low light pictures. According to Sony Ericsson reps, the sensor’s light sensitivity is twice more compared to regular CMOS ones. We snapped a few shots and the results were very good, but before we can say for sure if this is just a marketing trick (like the Carl Zeiss lenses) or really helps out, we need to get our review units in and put it our thorough tests.
All the units here were early prototypes but still performed admirably well. Powered by the Qualcomm’s 1 GHz processor, the UI felt admirably fast.
The operating system is Android 2.3 with some unique features added by Sony Ericsson such as the ability to create folders on the home screens pages and add shortcuts to them.
Our initial impressions from the Sony Ericsson Arc are very positive. Expect our preview next week.
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9 Comments
1. Wardski (unregistered) posted on 06 Jan 2011, 20:24 2 0
Ummm....... Yeah.... Nah....
Sorry SE, you burnt me once, burnt me twice... Never gonna burn me again.
Its a shame really because this handset looks pretty good
2. messiah posted on 06 Jan 2011, 20:41 0 0
Agreed . The x10 was hailed by Sony offices to have "life long support for their flagship device, the x10". Yah right..... balls I say. Balls.
4. sonisoe posted on 06 Jan 2011, 22:32 0 0
se and nokia have always produce great designs especially for their hi-end, its just a shame that se hasnt been able to catch-up in the last few years even come up with buggy devices... xperia 10 was a lot to be desired - browsing experience bad, ui not intuitive/smooth... so am wondering if this would actually turn things around for them...
5. Seylan (unregistered) posted on 07 Jan 2011, 00:12 0 0
Plastic body is really dissapointing, considering that the first xperia X1 has an almost full metal body. I hope that it doesn't have the first-gen Snapdragon processors....
6. ap (unregistered) posted on 07 Jan 2011, 10:39 0 0
http://developer.sonyericsson.
com/wportal/devworld/article/n ewxperiaarc?cc=gb&lc=en
should mention that this device contains the 2nd gen snapdragon with Adreno 205 GPU
7. ryq (unregistered) posted on 07 Jan 2011, 10:44 0 0
SE like Motorola used to be on top. but both falter and nokia became number one. now, motorola is slowly coming back and SE with this phone seems to follow suit. and sad to say nokia is the one falling now.
8. hewad hacker (unregistered) posted on 07 Mar 2011, 04:24 0 0
xperia arc iz the most mobile i dont know on which day the arc will be released to i buy it its very pretty mobile i like it but n8 and iphone 4 is not perfect mobile its good but arc is most mobile or perfect mobile bye.
9. cookie (unregistered) posted on 02 Apr 2011, 16:06 0 0
i looked at both of the phones se the arc and the neo and their screens show bars like the ones on at&t phones look closley and see for your self
