Jan 28, 2012 - 
Android 
3 Comments
Android 3 Comments Sony Ericsson Arc S Sim Free Smart Phone – Midnight Blue
Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc S – Smartphone – 3G – WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM – touch – Android – midnight blue
List Price: £349.99
Price: £296.00
Best Android Phone So Far,
I have owned around 8 or so Android phones so far – HTC, Samsung and Motorola.
This one is the best Android or perhaps smartphone I have ever owned due to the following reasons. I will list pros and cons -
Pros
It is shaped in a way that is very comfortable to hold while on the phone, even on long calls.
Its also very light, not in a cheap way as the quality is of a decent standard. Its light to hold on calls and also in pocket.
The call quality is perfect. Not too much bass, not too much tone. No background hiss. Better than a good house phone. People always hear me clearly, never ask me to repeat anything. The loudspeaker is also good quality, no harsh tinny sound (on calls or watching video etc) People can hear me clearly when I use loudspeaker on the desk.
Performance is very good. Battery is decent enough for a large screen smartphone. Charge at end of everyday on heavy use. I dont notice any lag in using the software. I really like how you can change the colour profile so everything is that colour. I have mine deep red so the dialpad, texts, homescreen etc are all dark red. Looks very nice.
Screen looks very nice. True saturation. Resolution is sharp and clear.
Very good camera. Also videos look excellent outside.
Cons –
I get an error message saying there is not enough memory to install any more apps. Im not sure why this is as all my apps are on the memory card.
Thats the only con for me. I use it mainly as a phone and make many work calls throughout the day; For that, it works perfectly. The software performs great and games, videos etc are smooth. Its just a very well made device.
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|A Quality Phone For A Reasonable Price,
After doing some research, I purchased this phone from Amazon and I wasn’t disappointed. This is an excellent, full-featured phone for the price and the first review quite frankly says it all.
I did have a slight problem when trying to download the mobile network settings for Vodafone during the initial setup process. Instead of automatically downloading the settings from Sony Ericsson, it would just hang for eternity on the download screen. After further investigation, it was found that there was a slight bug with the built-in software and an upgrade was available (New Build Number: 4.0.2.A.0.42) to overcome this issue.
When you buy the phone, you can avoid this problem during the initial setup (if you experience it) by simply skipping downloading your mobile network settings for your network. Once you’ve completed the initial setup, just go into the menu screen and select Settings -> Sony Ericsson -> Internet Settings and follow the instructions to automatically download your mobile network settings. When you get a bit of time, make sure you update your phone’s software to the latest version so that this bug is eliminated.
Apart from the above, I would highly recommend this phone, especially given its impressive features, build quality plus the 2-year warranty. The only negative I would give is it could of done with more RAM than the 512MB that’s installed plus with the majority of apps having a tendency of using only the onboard storage instead of the SD Card, the phone should of had more than 1GB of onboard storage installed. Mind you, I suppose Sony Ericsson couldn’t have fitted any more into this phone, given how slim it is
If you’re looking for a reasonably priced, quality and feature-packed SIM Free (any network) Smartphone, then the Sony Ericsson Experia Arc S is the one to choose.
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|Really nice phone if you like big screens.,
Just picked one of these up to replace my previous phone and so far VERY impressed. It comes with Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread), but Sony Ericsson have stated that it will be getting an update to Android 4.0 in the near future, so it’s future-proof in the short-term.
What I like:
* The Display, really nice colours and the Bravia Engine really does enhance the richness of colours nicely.
* The speed, it’s got a 1.4Ghz CPU in it, so when it needs to, it can really fly. Everything feels smooth as silk, no lag or anything.
* The camera. REALLY good easily one of the best cameras in smartphones today, blows away anything Apple can offer up. The Panarama shooting works very well once you get the hang of it. It can do 3D pictures too (but I don’t have a 3D TV to test this out). There is a camera button on the side which makes it feel like a proper camera, and it has all the usual features of Sony cameras, face detection, smile detection etc etc.
* Battery life. For such a powerful phone, the battery life is actually much better than I had imagined. I’m getting WAY more out of it than my previous smartphone. Easily a day of hard use, and two of medium use.
* Design, this phone is a very slim sucker.
What’s not so good.
* Bundled apps. Some can be removed, others can’t. (Please Sony, sort this out, we don’t want alot of the crud). Fortunately you can root the phone and remove them. But users shouldn’t have to do this.
* Design, this phone is a very slim sucker, and it’s easy to mishandle and drop, especially when using the camera. You can get a rubber-feel back cover to make to more grippy and there is a hole for a wrist-strap (not included) if you have problems in this area.
Easily one of the top 5 smartphones of the moment (Nov 2011), however it doesn’t have the price-tag of it’s better known peer products (iphone4s, Galaxy S2, HTC Sensation), so is a bit of steal.
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