Sony Xperia U Hands-on Review

posted by Ray S. / Feb 26, 2012, 5:58 PM

At a glance, the Sony Xperia U looks more or less like its flagship sibling, the Xperia S, only smaller. It features the same Identity design, and the special coating meant to repel dirt and dust is a welcome addition.

As a whole, we can say that the Xperia U is pretty nice little handset – it's made of plastic, but Sony has come up with a pleasing design, featuring the characteristic transparent line near the touch-sensitive navigation buttons and a changeable bottom part. These bottoms will be available in a number of colors, so that you can choose the one that suits you best. By the way, the above-mentioned transparent line actually illuminates in various colors, depending on how you set it. It can also lights up when you're getting a call, and changes its color according to the picture that you're currently viewing.

What we see on the smartphone's front is a petite 3.5-inch display with a resolution of 480 by 854 pixels. It did look fine while we were testing the handset here at MWC, but for some more in-depth details, we'll all have to wait a bit until we get the chance to review the handset properly.

The unit of the Sony Xperia U that we tested ran Gingerbread, but we really hope that Sony is to out the ICS update as soon as possible. There's been a fair degree of visual customization via the UXP NXT user interface (rolls right off the tongue). First of all, we see a revamped lock screen, as well as new gallery and music player apps. There are more than a few visual tweaks noticeable in Timescape.

Obviously, if HTC manages to pull off its software updating scheme well, its lineup will be a dangerous opponent to keep an eye on. The budget-oriented Xperia U is expected sometime during Q2 of 2012.

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14 Comments

1. nnaatthhaannx2

Posts: 820; Member since: Oct 19, 2011

3.5 inch, decent resolution, seems good for the little ones. (first phone teens)

posted on Feb 26, 2012, 6:00 PM 4

3. Birds

Posts: 1172; Member since: Nov 21, 2011

Couldn't agree more...

posted on Feb 26, 2012, 6:02 PM 0

2. Birds

I have no idea why, but this phone made me extremely excited.

posted on Feb 26, 2012, 6:00 PM 2

4. andro.

Posts: 1999; Member since: Sep 16, 2011

This phone if kept around the 199 - 250 euro spot is gonna be a good hit

posted on Feb 26, 2012, 6:28 PM 1

5. InspectorGadget80 unregistered

Another sleek sexy phone from SONY. I'm still getting the iON

posted on Feb 26, 2012, 9:03 PM 2

6. robocopvn

Posts: 504; Member since: Mar 10, 2010

it's a shame when Sony still use S3 chip on their flagship . . . they're always slower than competitors

posted on Feb 26, 2012, 10:16 PM 0

12. mobileuser

Posts: 66; Member since: Dec 23, 2011

This is meant to be a lower tier budget phone, so having a dual core S3 for a low end phone is good enough. S4 or Quad core are meant to be for High end flagship with price over 500.00 dollars or more. Dont forget most of the low end budget phone still have single core processor with less than 1 GHz clock speed. Sony put in a dual core processor for their low end budget phone has already raised the standard of the low tier category, so we really cannot comment more on that.