We just had a quick chance to play with the new Sony Xperia P, and... it's a slightly smaller riff on the Xperia S packed into an aluminum unibody case. The big draw is the "WhiteMagic" LCD display, which adds an additional stripe of white pixels to the traditional RGB layout. Sony says it's a dramatically better display and allows the phone to perform better in daylight — it certainly looks beautiful, with super sharp text, excellent contrast, and solid viewing angles. It's only qHD, sadly, but it's nice to see a midrange phone with a highish-end display.
Software-wise, you're looking at Android 2.3.7 with a ton of Sony customizations — Sony says it'll deliver an Android 4.0 update in the middle of Q2. Obviously that's disappointing, but there's still some interesting stuff going on: integration with all of Sony's content services, and a zero-lag camera that can go from "sleep to snap" in just a second. There's also the SmartDock with TV Launcher app, which mirrors the phone's display on a TV over HDMI. Output is at 1080p, and you can control the phone with your TV remote over HDMI-CEC. If you've got an older TV, the dock has two USB ports, so you can plug in a wireless keyboard and mouse and control the phone that way. It's all a little clunky and weird since the TV Launcher UI is just a bunch of shortcuts to regular Android apps that look silly on a TV, but it works.
All in all, it's a pretty nice phone, but the skin definitely seems a little fussy, and the lack of Ice Cream Sandwich is always a downer. We'll wait to see how Sony prices the Xperia P before we say much more; the company is insistent that it wants to hit every price point aggressively.
Comments
that phone is GORGEOUS!
By dtpacula on 02.26.12 1:40pm
No AOSP no interest. GNEX foreva.
By et on 02.26.12 1:55pm
i don’t understand, this has a lot of stuff from the android open source project.
By thommiller on 02.26.12 2:15pm
I think he means he wants stock Android.
By starxd on 02.26.12 4:11pm
It’s “forever”.
By thisismynextname on 02.26.12 4:08pm
How do you launch a phone in MWC 2012 on Android 2.3.7 and think it will succeed. I for one will not buy a new phone which is not on latest software
By gamepop on 02.26.12 1:42pm
though the hardware looks good
By gamepop on 02.26.12 1:42pm
a) Sony will release an upgrade to Android 4.0 in Q2.
b) There is nothing wrong with Android 2.3 – I have a phone running Gingerbread, and don’t feel it’s outdated. Quite the contrary, it’s a better experience than the stale OS our fruity friends from Cupertino offer on their phones.
By fpbecker on 02.26.12 2:29pm
a) that’s what they say…
b) I agree 2.3 is fine, but it’s very disappointing on a new phone, with such a good looking screen too (and I disagree about your iOS point; 2.3 is fine iOS 5 is much better)
By grahamstevens on 02.26.12 2:41pm
sorry – meant to say ….iOS 5 is a much better experience)
By grahamstevens on 02.26.12 2:41pm
a) that’s what they do. Sony leads the android pack when it comes to software updates.
b) No comments
By jeson on 02.26.12 4:19pm
You’re a troll. Go away.
By starxd on 02.26.12 4:14pm
But if Apple released an iPhone 6 with iOS 4, people wouldn’t feel the same way.
By cjschris on 02.27.12 12:52am
I feel like trusting sony with updates here.. you since they have just launched 3 phones one for each segment and decently specd .. so hardware wont be a problem.. not too many devices to deal with..take note samsung.. competition’s finally responding. .Huwaei, LG and now Sony.. waiting for HTC..
By Neophyt3 on 02.26.12 2:42pm
And their names/differentiating factor are a single letter, which is something that only works for luxury cars.
The only reason why Yaris/Corolla/Camry/Avalon etc works for cars is that they’re memorable names consistently used for predictable tiers of cars in Toyota’s lineup. The same goes for Honda, Kia, Nissan, etc.
It’s interesting to consider that, as I said, the alphanumeric naming convention is used for luxury cars almost exclusively (Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, etc). Why do phone manufacturers treat their devices like they’re luxury cars when they’re priced (and consumed) as necessary goods?
Even if Sony’s releasing good phones in the right tiers, they’re not gaining much mindshare with their naming convention. I’d consider myself fairly tech-nerdy and I’m not so interested in remembering the difference between all these lettered Xperias.
By soulinether on 02.26.12 3:37pm
Their laptops are branded in a similar fashion. Not saying it’s perfect, but it’s consistent with (some of) their other products at least.
By Zertz on 02.26.12 6:36pm
PS1, PS2, PS3…..
Just trollin’ lol I sort of agree.
By backporchprophet on 02.26.12 6:52pm
Looks like phone manufacturers have re-discovered lines of products, rather than just models. So first it’s a Sony, then it’s Xperia line, and finally it’s S/P/V.
Same move as Samsung (Galaxy), Nokia (Lumia), HTC (One), Motorola (Razr), etc.
Similarly to car manufacturers, who don’t release dozens of new cars a year, phone manufacturers will also concentrate on fewer new models, partly due to the global economic crisis, partly due to the fact that brand identity is becoming a selling point in an otherwise indistinct crowd of Android phone manufacturers. People will glance at a phone and immediately recognize that it’s an “Xperia” or a “Galaxy”, like they now immediately recognize an iPhone.
By arg0 on 02.26.12 7:22pm
The RAZR is a single phone, not a brand in the same sense that the Galaxy, Xperia, Lumia/Asha, One, and Optimus lines are.
By lolstebbo on 02.26.12 11:35pm
It’s not. It starter as a very thin metal flip phone (hence the name RAZR) but is now the name of several Motorola phones.
DROID RAZR
RAZR MAXX
By c2u on 02.27.12 1:18am
In the context of the Samsung Galaxy, HTC One, Sony Xperia, and LG Optimus, the Motorola RAZR is not a line of phones. The current Android-based RAZR is a single phone, with the RAZR MAXX being literally just an extended-battery version. Motorola’s own systems treat both as the same phone.
By lolstebbo on 02.27.12 1:36am
In that context it’s in fact worse since it is a mixture of 2 Motorola series of phones, the original RAZR and all its incarnations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_RAZR
And the DROID to give the DROID RAZR.
I consider then name RAZR the exact same as Xperia since there were old Xperias which did not run Android but WM. Just as the old RAZRs did not run Android while the new ones do.
By c2u on 02.27.12 5:13am
Phones are usually in development for some time. I’m sure they just didn’t have time to put out a bug-free 4.0 phone prior to MWC. If they live up to their promise of ICS, it’s still a much better upgrade cycle than their competitors.
By Cameronbic on 02.26.12 2:56pm
They could easily release an ICS phone today if they didn’t insist on junking it up with a skin that nobody wants. That goes for all the Android manufacturers. They should just use stock Android and it would solve all of these update issues.
By starxd on 02.26.12 4:17pm
Urf I can’t believe I logged in to argue on the internet but that non-stop barrage of ICS whining broke me.
Here is why it takes a long time to port ICS to new phones, and why most new phones coming out today still aren’t using it: http://developer.sonymobile.com/wp/2011/12/07/ice-cream-sandwich-from-source-code-release-to-software-upgrade/
You might be too lazy to read this genuinely interesting article so I’ll explain: it basically boils down to drivers. The upside of Android’s openness is that you have myriad of different phones to chose from. The downside of that is that you have a myriad of different components, that are not standardized enough, hence you need to develop a set of drivers that will fit each particular mix of of components and enable them to play nicely with Android. This takes time, especially if you want to create a framework that’ll enable easy updating across all of your device portfolio (if you’re Sony or Samsung for example). Right now ICS isn’t offering a whole lot more for Joe-Consumer, and manufacturers are used to Gingerbread.
Finally: why are manufacturers skinning the phones? Well Marketing plays a heavy role here: with Android it becomes very hard for different manufacturers to justify their phone’s uniqueness. Frankly though, stock Android isn’t all that great to begin with, and it’s interesting to see the design paths that are taken by the different brand. And Sony’s try is very far from being the worse.
So all in all, no. You can’t “easily” release an ICS phone today unless you release the Galaxy Nexus. But if you do that you already are Samsung and you already have released the Galaxy Nexus.
Just wait a month. By then most major manufacturers will have updated their devices to ICS and we’ll all be getting food drunk on ice cream.
By CounterfeitChampagne on 02.26.12 7:41pm