Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc preview: First look

Introduction

Sony Ericsson is back at it and they are pushing pedal to the metal with their latest unusually curved and unusually streamlined sports car – the XPERIA Arc. Once one of the top three phone manufacturers, Sony Ericsson has been through some hard times but the company underwent a painful restructuring and it found a way to make its handsets desirable again by focusing on the high-end segment and staking on Android OS. The XPERIA X10 did a lot to repair the company public image and it’s now up to the Arc to improve it even further.

 
 
 

Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc official photos

In theory it should be easier now – we already know Sony Ericsson is capable of producing top-notch hardware. Even if they aren’t doing spectacularly in terms of pushing updates, their recent smartphones have all been good value for money so the Arc won’t have its origin held against it.
Yet competition on the high-end has never been more intense so a significant performance boost would be required from the Arc even if it was only to retain the same position as the X10 last year. Fortunately it might just manage to deliver, or at least as far as it specs sheet suggests:

Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 MHz, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 5.76Mbps HSUPA
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone
• Dimensions: 125 x 63 x 8.7-10 mm, 117 g
• Display: 4.2" 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen, 854 x 480 pixels
• CPU: Qualcomm MSM8255 1 GHz Snapdragon platform
• OS: Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
• Memory: 287MB storage, 512MB RAM, microSD card slot, 8GB card included in the retail box
• Camera: 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash, face detection and touch focus; 720p video recording at 30fps
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, microHDMI port
• Misc: Sony Ericsson Timescape UI, built-in accelerometer, proximity sensor, Sony Mobile Bravia engine, multi-touch input, scratch-resistant surface

The lack of multi-touch input and the less RAM than most competitors were the sticks that were most frequently used for beating the X10. The XPERIA Arc not only fixes those, but expands the screen size and introduces the new Bravia engine for even better image quality.

 

 

 

 

Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc live shots

The waistline has also been slimmed down and the new interestingly curved design adds another touch of class to the Arc. Now add the microHDMI port and the same capable camera as on the X10 and you get the idea that the Arc is a powerful beast indeed.
So, with high hopes and eagerness we are stepping into the hardware part of this preview. Join us after the break.

Design and construction

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 certainly wasn’t coyote ugly, but placed next to the Arc it’s definitely looking outdated. The slimmer body and glossier plastics make the new handset a real looker and the gradient used for the back plate coloring is a nice touch.

 
 
 
 

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc is quite the looker

Now there are some downsides to this design too – the glossy plastic is rather easy to cover with fingerprints and there is no metal used for the body. Yet we’d call the overall result pretty pleasing.

The display is a step forward

The front is almost entirely taken by the 4.2” 16M color LCD screen of FWVGA resolution (854 x 480 pixels). It uses capacitive technology for its touchscreen so as you could imagine there were no issues with its sensitivity. As we already mentioned this time multi-touch input is enabled too so as far as touch control is concerned, there’s nothing to worry about.
Dubbed Reality display, the most interesting thing about the the Arc’s screen, is its Sony Bravia Mobile Engine, which is expected to improve the image quality by increasing contrast and sharpness. We were pleased to find out that it’s actually doing a good job, rather than just being another fancy term to place on a press release. You have to keep in mind that this only works with photos and videos, but after all it’s where it matters most.
In fact when looked at it from the best angle the XPERIA Arc display is certainly among the best screens on the market. It’s got more vibrant reds and greens than the iPhone 4 Retina display and in case you aren’t into much saturation you will probably prefer it over the Samsung SuperAMOLED screens too (though we still find Nokia’s ClearBlack screens to be the champion in color reproduction).

 

 

The Bravia Enging Mobile is doing a pretty decent job on the 4.2” FWVGA display

Of course, an LCD unit is unable to match the natural contrast of an AMOLED screen, but given that limitation Sony Ericsson have done an excellent job of things. The difference here is by far not as pronounced as it used to be with the X10 screen and most other LCD units out there. We’d get the Arc Bravia-enabled screen over a Samsung’s Super Clear LCD, for example.
However the Reality screen does have a problem with its viewing angles. The advantage it holds against competition when looked from the best possible angle quickly disappears as you go wider. The writings of the screen might remain visible but contrast degrades very quickly and colors get vastly distorted. It’s an unpleasant effect that you cannot see with the IPS matrix of the iPhone 4 or the two current best AMOLED technologies (ClearBlack and SuperAMOLED).

Viewing angles aren’t spectacular

To get a better idea of what we are talking about check out the following video comparing the XPERIA Arc display to the Galaxy S and iPhone 4 units. Notice how quickly the Arc screen contrast degrades as the viewing angle widens.

8 MP Camera

The XPERIA Arc camera usability might be damaged a bit by the lens location or the iffy camera key, but it still remains one of the device’s key selling points. An 8 megapixel autofocus snapper is surprisingly rare to see at the top end nowadays, despite the fact that Samsung INNOV8 has been available for more than 2 years now.
And, no the HTC Desire HD doesn’t count as its image quality doesn’t come quite close to that of the XPERIA Arc.
But first thing first, the user interface of the Arc camera has been slightly redesigned. You now have a bar with five shortcuts to popular features at the right, a bar with the latest captured images on the left and still camera/camcorder toggle at the bottom.
The five most comfortable shortcuts allow you to change the capturing mode, resolution, to pick a scene, turn on flash and enable/disable touch capture (i.e. take a shot by pressing the viewfinder).

 
 
 
 

The XPERIA Arc camera interface

Upon pressing the menu key you get some extra customizable options like focus mode, white balance, geo tagging and image stabilization. As is to be expected from a device in this class the XPERIA Arc also packs face detection and smile shot.
The image quality is quite good although the unfavorable weather conditions around our parts still prevent us from passing a final verdict. We can confirm though that there’s plenty of fine detail in the XPERIA Arc shots and the color balance and saturation seems spot-on.

 
 

A couple of Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc camera samples

The noise levels aren’t bad, although the applied noise reduction might be a bit too harsh. Still, with a few more months remaining until the Arc is released, we expect the final units to be tuned to produce even better images. Now it won’t come anywhere near the Nokia N8, but it has an excellent chance of getting the silver medal in the smart cameraphone category.

HD video recording
 
The HD video recording is also a really popular feature recently and the XPERIA Arc is doing pretty well (at least specs-wise) with its 30fps. Videos are pretty smooth, although they seem a little low on contrast and fine detail. It’s nothing that a little tuning of the post-processing algorithm cannot fix, we hope.

 
 
 Switching to camcorder mode

First impressions

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc is a promising smartphone – it looks sleek, feels smooth and packs a very decent camera. And chances are that it will improve even further before it hits the shelves as there is plenty of time until then.
Yet the high-end smartphone market is becoming more and more overcrowded with each passing day. It’s where most prestige is earned and understandably every company wants to play a key role there.
You have the LG Optimus 2X that puts the dual-core Nvidia Tegra to the table and the Motorola Atrix that will even add 1GB of RAM. The Apple Phone 4 is always in the thereabouts when high-end smartphones are discussed and we are waiting for Samsung to bring in the Galaxy S successor next month at the MWC. That could either be a global version of the AT&T-bound Infuse 4G or (fingers crossed!) something even better. Not to mention the Google Nexus S, which is certain to get speedy Android updates.
So, hot and camera capable as it might be, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc will have a hard time in the market. It will have to pull off an equally impressive performance when we meet again for a full review in a few months if it’s to stay in the fight for the top spot.