Sony Ericsson Xperia active specifications and review

The XPERIA Active is Sony Ericsson's first water- and dust-resistant smartphone
Sony Xperia review:

If you live an active lifestyle and need a phone to match, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Active will definitely interest you: it's the company's first dust proof and water resistant Android smartphone.

In addition to being dust proof and water resistant, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Active has one other lifestyle feature up its sleeve — it claims to feature wet finger tracking, meaning the phone "works perfectly" when either the screen or a user's fingers are wet. Motorola's Defy, the only other water resistant Android smartphone on sale in Australia, does not boast this feature. Keep in mind that the XPERIA Active is water resistant, and not waterproof. According to Sony Ericsson, the phone can be kept under one metre of water for up to 30 minutes: enough to ensure it won't be pronounced dead after a quick swim in the backyard pool, but not enough to take it into the ocean with you.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Active Android phone comes pre-loaded with a range of sports and fitness apps that target active consumers. These include a built-in GPS, barometer and compass, an iMapMyFitness app, along with heart rate and pulse monitors. The latter features can be enabled by using ANT+ wireless networking — a technology included in the XPRIA Active that allows accessories like heart rate monitors and other fitness products to connect with the phone.

Sony Ericsson also seems generous with bundled accessories — it includes an extra exchangeable soft touch back cover, a detachable ear hook for the portable hands-free headset, a wrist strap, and an arm case for use during a workout. The XPERIA Active also comes with a 2GB microSD card and a micro USB cable for data transfer and charging.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Active is very similar in specifications to the recently announced XPERIA Mini. It has the same 3in "Reality display" combined with what Sony Ericsson calls its BRAVIA Mobile Engine. It promises image noise reduction, along with sharpness, colour and contrast enhancements when viewing images and video. The XPERIA Active also runs the latest Google Android platform for smartphones (Gingerbread 2.3) and comes with a Sony Ericsson custom UI overlay that takes advantage of the smaller screen size compared to most phones on the market. Users can place up to 16 apps in the corners of the XPERIA Active's home screen and can add widgets to individual home screens like regular Android smartphones.

The XPERIA Active is also one of the first Sony Ericsson smartphones that will ship with 'Facebook inside XPERIA', software that integrates Facebook into commonly used areas of the phone including the picture gallery, music player, phonebook and calendar. The Facebook inside XPERIA feature will soon be available across other Sony Ericsson XPERIA handsets through a future software update.

Sony Ericsson is yet to announce Australian pricing or availability for the XPERIA Active, but it will be available globally in "selected markets" from Q3 2011.

Sony Ericsson Xperia active - Full phone specifications

2G Network     GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network     HSDPA 900 / 2100
                          HSDPA 1900 / 2100 / 800
Announced       2011, June
  
Dimensions     92 x 55 x 16.5 mm
Weight             110.8
Type                  LED-backlit LCD, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size                  320 x 480 pixels, 3.0 inches (~192 ppi pixel density)
                         - Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
                         - Bravia Mobile engine
                         - Multi-touch input method
                         - Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
                         - Touch sensitive controls
                         - Scratch-resistant display
                         - Timescape UI
Sound              Alert types     Vibration, MP3 ringtones
Loudspeaker  Yes
3.5mm jack    Yes
Phonebook     Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records   Practically unlimited
Internal          1 GB (320 MB user available), 512 MB RAM
Card slot        microSD, up to 32GB, 2GB included
GPRS             Up to 86 kbps
EDGE            Up to 237 kbps
3G                  HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.8 Mbps
WLAN          Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
Bluetooth      Yes, v2.1 with A2DP, EDR
Infrared port     No
USB                  Yes, v2.0 microUSB
Camera             Primary 5 MP, 2592х1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features           Touch-focus, geo-tagging, face detection, image stabilization
Video                Yes, 720p, video light
Secondary        Yes
Features           OS     Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread)
CPU                 Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon 1 GHz processor
Messaging       SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push email, IM
Browser          HTML
Radio              Stereo FM radio with RDS
Games            Yes
Colors            Orange/Black, White/Black
GPS                Yes, with A-GPS support
Java                Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
                       - Dust and water resistant
                       - Flashlight
                       - Digital compass
                       - SNS integration
                       - MP4/H.263/H.264 player
                       - MP3/eAAC+/WAV player
                       - TrackID music recognition
                       - Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
                       - YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk
                       - Document viewer
                       - Voice memo
                       - Adobe flash 10.1 support
                       - Predictive text input
Battery          Standard battery, Li-Ion 1200 mAh
Stand-by       Up to 351 h (2G) / Up to 335 h (3G)
Talk time      Up to 4 h 53 min (2G) / Up to 5 h 31 min (3G)
Music play   Up to 25 h