Meet Sony Xperia U, the successor of Xperia Ray and the little brother of Xperia S. Revealed in the 2012 Mobile World Congress, Xperia U trails a comparable pattern in terms of design with the other phones in the NXT series. And in general, it looked like the miniature version of the Xperia S.
The phone emanates in an all-black casing with a matte finish in the back. Other notable design factors include a silver ring around the camera and the transparent mesh grid which emits mood lights – white, blue, green, red, purple or yellow, depending on the theme and song you play. The bottom portion is also interchangeable with different colors. (I personally like the combination of black and yellow)
Xperia U delivers a 3.5-inch reality display powered by the Mobile BRAVIA Engine. A scratch resistant TFT screen with a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels. Touch responsiveness was also very good on Android 2.3.7. It’s a very handy smartphone weighing 110g but it won’t likely win any award for thinness. In fact, at 12mm, it is considered rather corpulent by today’s standards.
Inside, it pumps a dual-core processor clocked at 1GHz and comes with 512MB RAM. Despite running Gingerbread, the phone glides through numerous home screens, apps and games. A full version of PopCap Games’ Plants vs Zombies is included, along with Sony music recognition app TrackID, 3D Camera, and Timescape.
The 5MP camera with LED flash on the Sony Xperia U is capable of shooting 720p HD videos and is supported by the standard Timescape user interface that enables for functions like 3D Sweep Panorama and various scene modes. What’s good about this model is that the rapid sleep-to-snap mode which is a feature of the Xperia S, is also available here, despite the handset’s affordable nature.
The Xperia U features NFC, which Sony has paired with its SmartTag technology. It essentially allows users to set profiles by just scanning a tag.
Sony has been consistently providing superb loudspeakers across the Xperia lineup and with Xperia U, you also get Sony’s xLOUD technology for boosting the audio’s volume without distorting it.
All in all, the Xperia U is one of the best-performing low-cost Android smartphones around. And it has its own way of excelling itself, compact and comfortable to hold are two of its major assets. It is a great stylish handset for a reasonable price.
Here’s our Hands-On video
Sony Xperia U Specs:
- Android 2.3.7 with custom Sony overlay
- 3.5-inch 480×854 pixel LCD display
- 1Ghz dual-core NovaThor SoC with Mali-4ooMP GPU
- 512MB RAM / 4GB internal storage / 1.9GB app storage
- 5MP camera w/ flash, VGA front-facing camera
- 720p video capture
- WiFi (b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1, A-GPS
- HSDPA 14.4Mbps / HSUPA 5.76Mbps
- 3G: 850/1900/2100Mhz, 2G: 850/900/1800/1900Mhz
- 112 x 54 x 12 mm
- 110g – 110g
- Price US$299
Updated Price as of July 5, 2012 – $268 / Php10,989
