Xperia V

Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Secret War Journal[7 March 2013]
It has been a year since I changed to HTC Wildfire S (I just realised I did not post about this. I am so sorry about this.). Granted, it was a little premature to change a smartphone just a year after you changed phone (it can be really costly). In my defence, I needed to upgrade my mobile plan to include mobile data. I survived without mobile data for so long, so why the urgent need to acquire it? As it turns out, there is no wifi in my workplace (the horror! Hahas!) and I require the use of internet to utilise the application known as 'whatsapp'. My colleagues (and boss) uses whatsapp to disseminate information because of the useful chat function that legacy SMS seems to be lacking in. (Now you know how to kill whatsapp. Hahas!)

Since I was going to upgrade my mobile plan, I could get a new phone as well. However, since the original plan was to replace my phone next year, it was not within my budget to get a high-end phone. It did not make much sense to bring a high-end phone to my workplace anyways, until I am sure that there are no more thief cases in the compound (which is almost impossible to conclude, by the way). As a result, I chose a mid-range smartphone. In doing so, it is unlikely that I would be getting a high-end phone any time soon (judging by the amount of time required to allocate a sufficient amount of cash for it).

Specifications
Xperia V

General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 850 / 900 / 2100
4G Network LTE 800 / 850 / 1800 / 2100 / 2600
SIM Micro-SIM
Announced 2012, August
Status Available. Released 2012, December

Body Dimensions 129 x 65 x 10.7 mm (5.08 x 2.56 x 0.42 in)
Weight 120 g (4.23 oz)
- IP57 certified - dust and water resistant
- Water proof up to 1 meter and 30 minutes

Display Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 720 x 1280 pixels, 4.3 inches (~342 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch Yes, up to 10 fingers
Protection Scratch-resistant glass
- Sony Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2
- Timescape UI

Sound Alert types Vibration; MP3 ringtones
Loudspeaker Yes
3.5mm jack Yes

Memory Card slot microSD, up to 32 GB
Internal 8 GB, 1 GB RAM

Data GPRS Yes
EDGE Up to 237 kbps
Speed HSPA+ (DL 42 Mbps/ UL 5.8 Mbps); LTE Cat3, (DL 100 Mbps/ UL 50 Mbps)
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
Bluetooth Yes, v4.0 with A2DP
NFC Yes
USB Yes, microUSB v2.0 (MHL)

Camera Primary 13 MP, 4128x3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, 3D sweep panorama, image stabilization
Video Yes, 1080p@30fps, video stabilization
Secondary Yes, VGA

Features OS Android OS, v4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), upgradable to v4.1.2 (Jelly Bean)
Chipset Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon
CPU Dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait
GPU Adreno 225
Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
Messaging SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, IM, Push Email
Browser HTML5
Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support and GLONASS
Java Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
Colors Black, White, Pink
- TV-out (via MHL A/V link)
- SNS integration
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player
- MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV player
- Document viewer
- Photo viewer/editor
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input

Battery Li-Ion 1750 mAh battery
Stand-by Up to 300 h (2G) / Up to 400 h (3G)
Talk time Up to 7 h (2G) / Up to 7 h (3G)
Music play Up to 18 h

Misc SAR US
0.86 W/kg (head)     0.73 W/kg (body)    
SAR EU
0.95 W/kg (head)    

Tests Display
Contrast ratio: 1.792:1 (sunlight)
Loudspeaker
Voice 65dB / Noise 61dB / Ring 66dB
Audio quality
Noise -81.6dB / Crosstalk -81.9dB

Disclaimer. We can not guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct.

First Impression
It was a last minute decision to change the back cover colour from white to black and despite what others may say about it, I did not regret it. The white back gave too great a contrast to the black front, making it look a bit too attention-seeking.
The overall design is sleek. I like how Sony refrained from making the phone looking too rigid. The round corners helped prevent the phone from appearing too squarish.

Performance-wise, the dual-core processor works like a charm on the Xperia V. Tasks are completed promptly and there is minimal waiting time for applications to load. The touchscreen is sufficiently sensitive, I do not have difficulty using the touchscreen.

The phone is also very light, weighing just 120g, sometimes it is hard to remember that you are actually holding something. In addition to that, the size of the phone is akin to a card, the phone is not very thick, measuring 10.7 mm. To me, it gives the phone a very stylish look.

However, the phone is a let-down in battery life. Using the phone, I can almost see the battery level decreasing by the minute. It might be the energy consumption from the usage of LTE network is too high. I would update you guys at a later date if that is the case.

Looking towards the future, I am quite worried about the dust covers for the USB ports and audio jacks. It is the rubber flap design which potentially suffers from wear-and-tear from excessive use. Eventually, it may break or tear off, damaging the overall design of the phone (and possibly it's waterproof feature)
--
In a glance
  • Sleek Design
  • Fast processor
  • Responsive screen
  • Lightweight
  • Thin
  • Poor Battlery Life
  • Waterproof
  • Dustproof

Full Review [17 April 2013]
It has been a month since I got this phone. While some things such as the specifications never change, a longer period of usage should reveal the phone's true nature.

Firstly, I am happy to note that the weak battery life initially observed was due to the fact that the battery stats file was not calibrated yet. (That is a lesson to all who owns an android phone, if you just updated the OS, flashed a new ROM or reset your phone, your battery stats file would need to be re-calibrated.) In addition to that, I realised Xperia's backlight consumes an enormous amount of battery. Reducing the screen's brightness to around 7% greatly improved the battery life. Now, the phone can survive normal usage (Mobile Data LTE, casual internet surfing, messaging) without requiring re-charging for a day. That is a pretty decent for a modern day smartphone.

However, I do wish to highlight that the drawback from using a screen at low brightness setting would be the glare from the sunlight. Unfortunately, Xperia V does not seem to come with a anti-glare screen. Thus, it suffers from glares from the sunlight when a low brightness setting is used, resulting in a drop in visibility of the screen. This can be rectified with a higher brightness in the display setting, at the cost of battery performance, of course. That said, if you have portable chargers handy at all times, feel free to set at a higher brightness setting to take full advantage of Xperia V's vibrant screen.

Secondly, while the Walkman application is good, it seems to drain a fair bit of my battery. This is interesting because, in general, you would associate listening to music as an activity that would not drink up a large portion of the phone's battery. Even though when compared to more CPU-intensive applications, it does not drain that much battery, it uses up battery significantly faster than its counterparts in other phones.

There is one more strange issue with Walkman that I am not yet sure why. With the screen off, it would play a number of songs before stopping. At first thought, you would think that the phone is lagging but once you turn the screen on, it plays the next song. This is kind of strange in that, it does not play songs continuously in the playlist (note that it stops playing the playlist in the middle, not at the last song). It does damage the overall music experience but I must admit it is useful when you listen to songs and sleep.
(Another note: Even though it stops playing, I noticed that it will play the next song after a long pause if you leave the screen off. This is really strange.)
(This is fixed with the recent patch 9.1.A.1.1.40. Hooray! :)