Sony Xperia U Review

Introduction:

The Sony Xperia U begs to be noticed with its removable bottom caps in different colors and boxy design, clearly aiming for the younger crowd, but its capable hardware and affordable price actually make it suitable for everybody.

We have a dual-core processor, the new NXT design line of Sony with the transparent strip in the bottom, a screen with good pixel density, and fast camera capable of HD video. On paper the only thing to hold the Xperia U back is its Android Gingerbread software, but do all these nice features work in sync in the latest Xperia phone for the mass market? Read on our review to find out...

In the box:

• Travel charger
• microUSB cable
• Spare bottom cap
• Warranty and information leaflets

Design:

Boxy like an old Volvo, the 12mm-thick Sony Xperia U is a shrunk copy of the Xperia S, complete with the curved back and the illuminated transparent strip at the bottom that lights up when you press the three capacitive “dots” above it. Here it can light up in different colors - white, blue, green, red, purple or yellow, depending on the theme and song you play, and this is pretty eye-catching. It also serves a double purpose by housing the antenna, thus allowing easy signal access for improved reception.



You can compare the Sony Xperia U with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.


The navigational dots here are more responsive than on the Xperia S for some reason, the lock/power key is placed right underneath your thumb, and the volume rocker below it is comfortably long and wide, very easy to press, with good feedback.

The curved back and sides made with soft touch plastic feel nice, and, since we are dealing with a fairly small 3.5” display, the phone is a breeze to hold and operate with one hand. One expected advantage of a thicker phone is that it is easier to grab it lying flat and go, instead of prying some anorexic slab off the table, as is the case with so many sub-10mm handsets these days.

In order to spice things up for the target market, Sony has made the bottom section of the phone removable and replaceable with a cap of different color to suit your mood, clothes, or just because you can. There is an extra cap provided in the box, and a variety of other colors if you don’t like the particular combo supplied.

Pulling the cap out to replace with another color requires just a firm grip and pull-down, but you won’t find any slots underneath, it’s just for appearance purposes. To insert a SIM card you’d have to push the back cover, and slide it upwards, easy-peasy. Thankfully the phone sports a regular SIM slot and a removable battery, so about the only vice in that department is the lack of microSD card slot for expansion of the 4GB internal memory.

Display:

No complaints about the 3.5” Reality LCD on the Sony Xperia U - it is sufficiently bright for outside visibility, with saturated colors and good viewing angles - better than on the Xperia S flagship actually, where contrast and brightness fade significantly from the sides. Here we only get a slightly yellowish cast when tilting on the right, and that’s about the only deviation.

Thanks to the smallish 3.5” size coupled with Sony’s typical 480x854 pixels of resolution we also have a very good pixel density of 280ppi, making text and small interface elements appear crisp and smooth. About the only gripe we have here is the lack of oleophobic coating on the display, so finger grease accumulates and gets smudged quickly and you have to wipe it pretty often.

Interface and Functionality:

We won’t spend much time reviewing the Timescape UI on the Xperia U, as it is the same Android Gingerbread overlay we find on the Xperia S, our review of which you can read here.

It is good-looking and functional with the Mediascape shortcut, and a plethora of widgets that cover things like social networking feeds and even app and media recommendations. Moreover, the Xperia U is expected to receive its Android Ice Cream Sandwich update.


Sony has included the usual preinstalled apps, some of which are useful, some you can chuck, and it has also provided its Music and Video Unlimited services for consuming media with a Sony account.

Typing on the virtual keyboard was surprisingly accurate, considering the phone’s size, since the keys look quite smallish. The on-screen keyboard is well-spaced, but the keys are not as big as on the iPhone, for example, so hitting the right one takes getting used to.



Processor and Memory:

Sony is using the 1GHz dual-core NovaThor U8500 chipset by ST-Ericsson with ARM Mali-400 GPU in the Xperia U, just like on the Xperia P. It was the first mobile chipset with SMP multithreaded processing, and ST-Ericsson is the only mobile chipset maker besides Qualcomm that integrates the radio as well - HSPA+ in our case with the Xperia U - for a complete solution.

No complaints, since we can get a quite capable multicore chipset in affordable handsets like the Xperia U. The phone’s interface moves well with this chipset and the 512MB RAM are enough of you don’t overwork the Xperia U with multitasking. 

The biggest gripe memorywise is the lack of microSD card slot. The Xperia U is quite the chubby phone, so why would Sony stick us with just the 4GB of internal memory is puzzling. On the other hand, it has the generous 2GB of memory for installing applications, their cache and data, but that still leaves us with only 4GB user-accessible storage for your music, vids and so on.

There are some slight delays when transitioning here and there, but nothing an upgrade to the lighter Android 4.0 shouldn’t fix. Here are the benchmarks:

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu	NenaMark 2
Sony Xperia U	2266	5419	28,3
LG Optimus L7	1886	2842	19,2
Samsung Galaxy S II	3113	6076	51

Internet and Connectivity:

The browser is powered well by the dual-core chipset, and rendering speeds, as well as panning and scrolling are swift. The phone renders the page in real time while zooming, which usually slows things a bit, but here the delay while pinching is negligible, even when there are Flash elements to stretch or compact.


Text reflow is also seamlessly fitting the article text within the screen width upon double tap. Since we have a very good pixel density, text appears crisp, making reading a bit easier, despite the fairly small display for today’s Android standards.

The NovaThor U8500 chipset incorporates a 14Mbps HSDPA radio, and the phone also sports Wi-Fi, A-GPS, Bluetooth and DLNA for streaming to your TV. Speaking of, the Media Remote app allows you to control a Sony Bravia TV via Wi-Fi.

Camera:

The 5MP camera with LED flash on the Sony Xperia U is managed by the standard Timescape UI interface that allows for functions like 3D Sweep Panorama and various scene modes, but it is with a twist now. The rapid sleep-to-snap mode that is present on the Xperia S, is also available here, despite the handset’s affordable nature.


Since we have a dedicated two-stage shutter key, you can set it to directly enter the camera app, focus and take a picture from a locked screen, and the whole process takes about two seconds. This is not the zero shutter lag function that comes with the Android ICS camera API, but Sony’s own contribution, so it will still take 2-3 seconds between shots, unlike the new HTC and Samsung handsets with Android 4.0.

The picture quality leaves something to be desired in the detail department, which is affected by too much noise in less than ideal lighting conditions. Colors are a bit oversaturated, which is fine, but the pics are also soft and well-lit areas often get overexposed. Indoors the situation is average, but noise is significantly ramped up when the lights go down, and the LED flash casts weird shadows on the objects at hand.


The Xperia U records HD 720p video with 30fps, and the flash can be used as a video light during capture when photons are scarce. The quality of the footage is substandard, with too high of a compression, artifacts and noise. Overall, the weak spot in the Xperia U is definitely the camera, which is a pity, since we’ve seen much better 5MP shooters from Sony in unpretentious phones from 2010 like the Xperia X10 mini, for example.

Sony Xperia U Sample Video:



Sony Xperia U Indoor Sample Video:



Multimedia:

Music playback is excellent on the Sony Xperia U, no less because the default pretty and minimalistic player interface lights the transparent strip in different colors depending on the song that plays, which is rather cool. Hey, that’s why it’s called Xperia “You” - to customize cap colors and marvel at blinking LEDs.


Sony has been consistently delivering top notch loudspeakers across the Xperia lineup, and the U is no exception - strong and clean sound, which on top of that is pretty deep for a smartphone.

The handset only plays MPEG-4 video files up to 720p out of the box, no DivX/Xvid support, so you’d have to hit the Play Store for that.

Performance:

Call quality is very good on the Xperia U - loud and clean voices in the earpiece, and on the other side they said we could be heard very well, with distinct sound and strong volume.

The 1320mAh battery is rated for 6 hours and 36 minutes of talk time, which is about average, and up to 6 hours of video playback. With moderate to heavy usage you should be able to last a full day, and even one more if you don’t grab the phone that often.

Conclusion:

Sony has cut a few corners to achieve the very affordable price of the Xperia U, like the lack of oleophobic coating and microSD slot, but these are still overshadowed by the cool design and the contemporary specs like a dual-core processor and screen with good pixel density.

Where it really dropped the ball, however, is the camera module - we’ve seen better 5MP shooters in Sony handsets dating back to 2010, especially in the video capture department. Yet something had to give, otherwise we’d have the perfect phone for the price, considering the very good call quality, strong and clear loudspeaker, and the removable battery with decent endurance.

Still, you’d be hard pressed to find more phone for the price. You either have to go back to Sony’s single-cores of last year, like the Xperia ray with its slimmer design and better camera, or open your wallet wider, and pony up for an HTC One V, which has a better camera and Android ICS.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is also a good choice one price level up - it has uninspiring design, but is fast and takes very good pictures. If we venture outside the Android universe, we might consider the Nokia Lumia 710 a better offer in terms of camera capabilities, albeit with a single-core processor.

Software version: 6.0.B.1.564

Sony Xperia U Review: