Sony Xperia Sola

Sony Xperia Sola Specifications

General

• Touch Screen
  Yes, Capacitive Touch Screen
• Operating Frequency / Network Type
  GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 / HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz
• Announced
  2012, March
• Status
  Available
• SIM Network Type
  GSM

Dimensions

• Display Size
  3.7 inches
• Dimensions - HxWxD
  116 x 59 x 9.9 mm
• Display Type
  480 x 854 pixels,LED-backlit LCD, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
• Weight
  107 g
• Sensors
  Accelerometer, Proximity, Compass

Memory

• Internal Memory
  Yes, Internal Memory : 8 GB (5GB user accessible), 512 MB RAM
• Expandable Memory Slot
  Yes, Up to 32 GB
• Memory Card Type
  Yes, Micro SD Card

Camera

• Primary Camera
  5.0 Mega Pixels
• Primary Camera
  5.0 Mega Pixels
• Secondary Camera
  No
• Camera Resolution
  2592 x 1944 Pixels
• Video Recording
  Yes, 720p@30fps, Continuous Auto Focus, Video Light, Recording supports : 3GPP, MP4
• Zoom
  Yes, 16x Digital Zoom
• Other Camera Features
  Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, 3D sweep panorama, image stabilization, Image playback, supported formats: BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WBMP

Multimedia

• Loudspeaker
  Yes
• Video Player
  Yes, Video Formats : MP4, H.263, H.264, WMV, Video Playback Time : Up to 6 hours
• FM
  Yes, Stereo FM Radio with RDS
• Music player
  Yes, Music Formats : MP3, 3GPP, MP4, SMF, WAV, OTA, OGG Vorbis with Stereo Speakers, Sound Recording (Formats : 3GPP, MP4, AMR), 3D Surround Sound, Active Noise Cancellation with Dedicated Mic and 3.5mm Audio Jack, Music Playback Time : Up to 40 hours

Features

• Chipset
  NovaThor U8500
• CPU
  Yes, CPU : Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9, Chipset : NovaThor U8500, GPU : Mali-400
• Colors
  Black, White, Red
• OS
  Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread), planned upgrade to v4.0
• Java
  Yes, via Java MIDP emulator

Connectivity & Internet

• Wifi
  Yes
• Browser
  Yes, HTML5, Adobe Flash
• WLAN with
  Yes, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth
  Yes, v2.1 with A2DP, EDR
• 3G
  Yes, HSDPA, 14.4 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
• USB
  Yes, Micro USB v2.0
• GPRS
  Yes, Up to 100 kbps
• 3.5 mm Jack
  Yes
• GPS
  Yes, with A-GPS support

Battery

• Talktime
  Up to 6 hours (2G) / Up to 5 hours (3G)
• Capacity
  Li-ion 1320 mAH
• Standby
  Up to 470 hours (2G) / Up to 475 hours (3G)

Messaging

• SMS
  Yes
• MMS
  Yes
• E-MAIL
  Yes, Supports IMAP, POP3, SMTP, Microsoft Exchange, Push Email

Additional Features

• Received Calls
  Yes
• Phone Book
  Yes
• Missed Calls
  Yes
• Dialed Calls
  Yes

Sony Xperia Sola Review

Sony mobiles is never behind in proving its consumers with brand new and fresh smartphones. This time around the most talked about handset from Sony’s stable is Sony Xperia Sola, previously known as Sony Xperia MT27i Pepper. This device is a perfect smartphone for any gizmo freak. The company has tried its level best to make Xperia Sola a perfect and flawless Android smartphone, so that it could compete with the big and popular Android devices currently present in the market.

Talking about the main features of Sony Xperia Sola, the device is loaded with ample of them. Starting with the looks and design of the device, the smartphone has got a stunning and awesome 3.7 inches of capacitive touch screen display with a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels. The screen is not only minor scratch resistant, but also looks very impressive. The five megapixels of rear camera is totally cool and is available with many facilities such as LED flash, autofocus, touch focus, 3D sweep panorama, face and smile detection and geo tagging. However, the firm has missed out on the secondary camera here, which can result in as a minus point of the device. But the rear 5 megapixels of camera could easily capture 720p videos at the rate of 30 frames per second with video light and continuous autofocus.

Under the hood, Sony Xperia Sola is powered by dual core processor running at the massive speed of 1 GHz and Android 2.3 gingerbread is present as operating system, which would upgrade to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as soon as the update would be released. The 1 GHz of dual core processor is accompanied by NovaThor U8500 chipset and proximity and accelerometer sensors. To enhance the workability of the device, the phone features 512 MB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory space out of which 5 GB is user available. Here users could store ample of data into the phone such as music and video files, images, notes etc. Xperia Sola also features micro SD card slot, which would help the user to expand the memory further.

On the connectivity front, Sony Xperia Sola will allow the user to connect to internet via Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA and GPRS and EDGE connectivity. The web browsing experience on this smartphone further gets enhanced with the presence of HTML5 Adobe Flash browser. Bluetooth Version 2.1 with A2DP, NFC and micro USB port v.2.0 are available for high speed data transmission to the corresponding devices. In all, Sony Xperia Sola is a great Android smartphone, but with no secondary camera, it might cost Sony mobiles a bit of revenue.

Overall Review

Sony Xperia Sola gives enough reasons to b applauded, as it is an exquisite device with some real novel inclusions. Sony has put in a lot of effort to make this otherwise mid-range and affordable handset, truly a worthy one. The most magnificent is the touchscreen of Sony Xperia Sola. It has 3.7 inch touch display that comes with floating touch technology. For those unfamiliar with this, must understand that this is the latest technology that Sony has introduced in Xperia Sola to amuse the buyers. This magical technological intervention has made this device capable of taking inputs over the screen without touching it. The navigation just has to be done by hovering the fingers over the screen and it right away opens the desired applications and files. The finger hovering over the screen isn't the only hoax that this phone has, in fact, Sola holds up its sleeve because the screen is also capable of detecting touches through non-conductive fabric. One can work with Sony Xperia Sola wearing hand gloves also. This smartphone device support NFC SmartTags too. This amazing piece of unique technology comes with a size of 116 mm x 59 mm x 9.9 mm and is very light and easy to carry with a weight of 107 grams. The soft finish of the back makes it stick to the palm and the hand-fit is surprisingly comfortable and this compact and lightweight handset can be easily controlled with a single hand. Although technically not a part of the NXT series, Sony Xperia Sola shares some of the design choices of its other Xperia siblings. It offers a few notable features to make up for its lack of Ice Cream Sandwich and these include a super-crisp reality display with Floating Touch and a powerful dual-core processor, which promises to run Gingerbread platform perfectly smooth. It also has NFC, and the retail package comes with a couple of NFC tags to play around with. Below the capacitive screen, there are three capacitive keys for Back, Home and Menu, which become backlit, based upon what the ambient sensor detects. The left side has the power/lock key located near the top whereas the right part of the device holds the USB port for charging and transferring files, followed by the volume rocker and camera shutter key right next to one another. On the other hand, the 3.5 mm audio jack is the only thing on the top, while on the bottom there is just a primary mic pinhole and a lanyard eyelet. The back is the home for the 5 MP camera along with LED flash and a secondary mic for stereo recording and the speaker grill is situated at the bottom. There is a charge/event indicator which glows in red or green depending on charge status and blinks whenever there is something that requires the users attention. On the whole, Sony Xperia Sola is a different kind of gadget which doesn’t seem to resemble the most other Android smartphones in the market. It packs in its own punch and is genuinely innovative piece of gadget that will make its own set of devotees across the globe.

]]>