Xperia S introduction

[Markus1]

So - new phone, new community and sub-community. I'll kick this off with some easy facts.

• 4.3 inch Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA® Engine with HD resolution screen (1280 x 720), as well as front (720p) and back (1080p) cameras for HD recording.
• 1.5GHz dual-core processor for fast browsing and content download, which can be stored on the internal 32GB flash storage.
• 12MP back camera with Sony Exmor R™ for mobile along with Fastest Capture to take shots in just 1.5 seconds directly from standby mode.  Front-facing camera with 1.3 MP.
• NFC (Near Field Communications) enabled to access growing range of NFC applications and services as well as Xperia SmartTags.
• With HD sharing through DLNA, HDMI and using BRAVIA Sync for controlling your Xperia S with your TV remote control when connected to the TV, Xperia™  S delivers a full HD experience on TV.
• PlayStation™ Certified, that guarantees a high quality smartphone gaming experience and access to the PlayStation® Store.

More info:
http://blogs.sonyericsson.com/products/2012/01/10/presenting-the-new-xperia-s/

[Uliwooly]

I know, its too slow, too limited, only a handful of decent apps

[WinterStars]

First of all, I meant no offence to anybody but to just share my view on what was being said in the past 6 to 7 posts, People have choices, nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything.

If you want speed get a Windows phone, or iPhony, the SW is pure native code where all the SW layers from the BSP right up to the UI is native. So speed and memory footprint are very good. We all know the Apple A5@800MHz smokes a Snapdragon MSM8660 at 1.5 GHz in CPU benchmarks not counting the SGX543MP2!!!!

If you take an android phone you have both Native code and non Native code, with the VM in between. Dalvik VM instances are created for each app because of the behaviour of the Android Kernel to treat each app as a different user and isolate them, Unix like. Which means memory footprint is going to be much bigger, plus with the VM coming in between the app and the lower layers to decode the Java ByeCode there is obviously a lot of performance hit. Therefore Android is slower than WP or iOS for the same HW. To remedy this shortcomings Android phones need beefier HW.

This is why you can see a single 1 GHz windows phone with 512 MB RAM smoking a dual core android Phone in synthetic benchmarks.

Android Development has always been about introducing feature releases twice a year and bug fixes many times over half that period. Since the pace of the development is very fast there is hardly time to make room for minute optimizations, last time SE tried optimizing and optimizing the Donut SW they got screwed for than a more than year with the X10i, surely people haven't forgotten that. People were shouting Eclair! Froyo!Gingerbread! now... ICS!! So clearly there will always be a tradeoff between optimizations and feature release .... You want optimization ... well then you will be stuck with an old SW which has been iterated to death. If features are what you are looking for then current android approach is the way to go.

    So the point is, if you choose Android that is, If you want to have those shiny new features every six months be prepared to live with minor bugs. If you want your phone to be able to take an update 18 months down the lane it should have more than average current specs to make it future proof. So any spec bump is always welcomed.

    Just check the feature list across Donut->Eclair->Froyo->GingerBread->HoneyComb->Ice Cream Sandwich against the time line to get to know the pace of android and compare that with iOS or WP7 or Symbian or Bada or Blackberry or Java. The you can see the real pace of Android and that does not include counting minor UI changes as features like in iOS.

    Because the Linux kernel manages processor affinity quite well any increase in core count always helps. Most computations are only in bursts not continuous like some simulations. With the ability to downclock, most ARM implementations can quickly go to power save. Thus core count always help. Just like someone mentioned about Sandybridge-E on top, same is the case for mobile HW. You pay 1000 USD for top of the line x86-64 processor. Similarly latest top of the line SoCs also cost a lot whereas the one just beneath it hardly cost half of that. However since ARM IPs are non OoO processors , their raw speed does not mean much when compared to OoO processors like most x86 processors. Therefore to make up for the in Order execution ARM processors need raw GHz unlike Out of Order processors. Cortex A15 and above will change that however, when core count might stabilize.

    By the way, XDA is for modders which means they are experimenting with some SW which is not meant or yet released for a particular Mobile. So nobody goes to XDA for fixing an officially released SW.

    In short, Increasing clock speed (for non A15 cores) , increasing core count (maybe A15 could change that), increasing RAM are what we need to look for on the HW side for an Android phone for a seamless user experience because of the nature of the Android platform. On the SW side, we have to live with a few bugs unfortunately in order to have those shiny new ICS and the upcoming Jelly Bean (??) BTW in case someone doesn't know there could be two major Android releases in 2012. just like two in 2011 (ICS+HC), 2010(GB+Froyo), 2009 (Eclair+Donut+Cupcake). The drawbacks do come with the perks of having much more features in much lesser time ...

Read about the Exynos 5250 (not 5450) here (korean)

http://www.newswire.co.kr/newsRead.php?no=587527

See my post below also ...

[Uliwooly]

I agree up to certain extend, lets think about the X10 and 1.6 -> 2.1 even after they took so LONG to release 2.1 they were so many bugs, they released another update and still many bugs, so that's not quite true, at least not with Sony Ericsson; it might be with other companies, then 2.3.3 was released filled with bugs, even more than 2.1.

maybe if Sony doesn't spend so much time w/ the UIX, maybe if they have two teams, 1) that will work w/ the full Sony UIX and another that will work with vanilla android, that way Sony can release updates faster and with less bugs, since a lot of times are related to their customization(s).

If users want a perfect harmony between Android and HW they need to get which ever "NEXUS" phone available, since google works directly with such company to make sure a great user experience. yes they do have bugs, like any other OS, but since Nexus phones doesn't have this "over"-customizations they can release updates pretty fast as needed. It wouldn't hurt if Sony release a version w/o the UIX and see the customer response

Great post and info  

[Markus1]

Took some time to read but it was well spent. Thanks for posting. Great reading!

[#6]

Hi WInterSars, thanks for the info, your comment was very educating, and thanks to the moderators that give us the opportunity to exchange ideas, opinions and information through this forum.

- 'People have choices, nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything."

Although that is true in some markets, our/my frustration is not based on the choice between the good the bad and the ugly. Our frustration begins from the moment we spent our hard earned money on a product that was labeled as a "flagship" from a company that relies on past reputation of quality and uses slogans like "make believe" and other ridiculous claims, that eventually will drive anyone nuts. The reason we are still Ericsson users is that once upon a time we/I was a happy customer and I want to be one again. Yes I am that romantic.

- "Android Development has always been about introducing feature releases twice a year and bug fixes many times over half that period.....People were shouting Eclair! Froyo!Gingerbread! now... ICS!!..."

Sorry for the "cherry picking" but I want to explain somehting here as a consumer. I dont think someone "screaming" for an update after he paid $400 for a defective and crippled product with reassurances of "we are looking into it" and so on, should be portrait as  immature and needy. Google shows off the abilities of their OS, SE adopts it and sells it for an arm and a leg and then we are stuck with a product that can barely make a phone call? or not be able to listen to an mp3? and we are screaming for an update? and that is a weird unforseen thing? Is that what you mean here?

- "So the point is, if you choose Android that is, If you want to have those shiny new features every six months be prepared to live with minor bugs. If you want your phone to be able to take an update 18 months down the lane it should have more than average current specs to make it future proof."

You seem way too knowledgeable to believe something like this. No android phone, that I know of gets updates every 6 months (please enlighten me especially if you know a SE one). Even if so... "minor bugs" like corrupting SD cards with 16GB of data? is that what yo mean? There is no such a thing as a "Future proof" phone in SE, especially if you stuck with a carrier and you dont want to void warranty, so I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here.

- "Donut->Eclair->Froyo->GingerBread->HoneyComb->Ice Cream Sandwich against the time line to get to know the pace of android and compare that with iOS or WP7 or Symbian or Bada or Blackberry or Java. The you can see the real pace of Android and that does not include counting minor UI changes as features like in iOS."

I am only familiar with Donut, Eclair, GB, Symbian and Blackberies so I cant speak for the other ones. All my experience with Android comes from my X10 and messing around with some of my friends mobiles just for comparison. Donut S@cked, Eclair was really bad in every aspect and GB is a disaster. One step forward and 10 back is not a "pace" to be proud of so again I dont know what s your point here. iOS got better each and every time and the bugs were fixed in weeks BEFORE they got the the next step. Symbian Anna the same, although it has more bugs than iOS it is nothing like GB on X10 and minor releases are out every now and then to everyone. And the other thing is that usually those non Android companies do not pretend the bugs are some delusional fantacy from a science fiction nightmare. They acknowledge, they research they fix and the release or recall their mistakes. When was the last time that happened something like that in the past couple of years at SE? Blackberries are a different animal alltogether. It is a serious  company that is business oriented that continually evolve for the best. That doesnt mean they are not behind in features.

- "By the way, XDA is for modders which means they are experimenting with some SW which is not meant or yet released for a particular Mobile. So nobody goes to XDA for fixing an officially released SW".

That is not true, may be we are talking about a different XDA developers portal.

Anyways I dragged it way too long, I just wanted to point out some things so we wont get lost in to what we need from a mobile device and a company. I believe a company is obligated to deliver a product as advertised (at least), and is unethical and immoral to abandon/deceive a consumer and sometimes blame him/her for the defective product that she/he just bought. And finally I dont think is the worse thing in our time and age to ask from a company to deliver a $400 phone that can make a phone call...is it?

Have a beautiful day!

[WinterStars]

http://www.getgoods.de/mobilfunk/sony/478851/sony-xperia-s-white?utm_source=geizhals.at&utm_medium=c...

It is listed as 500 euros here ... that is a lot ... for the kind of specs that it offers

[Uliwooly]

Indeed it's really expensive, for a phone that is slightly better than the Samsung Galaxy SII

[WinterStars]

How can xperia ion cost 570 USD and xperia s cost 500 euros??

http://www.xperiablog.net/2012/01/22/unlocked-xperia-ion-goes-up-for-pre-order-in-us-for-570/

xperia s should be cheaper with no sd card option.

[Uliwooly]

the Xperia S has a smaller screen, it lacks SD card compatibility and the difference is $70 odd

[WinterStars]

Is it just me or the guy in the video seems to be struggling with the capacitive buttons.

Nice anti stain tech though. But having to press the power button all the time unlike the home button on current SE devices for screen wake up is gonna take some unpleasant getting used to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRAujzqxz20&feature=player_embedded

anti stain + anti scratch = win

but SE has no meaningful anti scratch tech