Sony Ericsson Xperia Active Review, Specs, Price & Features

Some people are just really careless with phones, they tend to scratch it, drop it, bang it, etc. (by mistake of course) and for people like those, a fancy smartphone that performs well and looks good don’t last very long with them. For people like these Motorola manufactured the Motorola Defy and Sony manufactured the Sony Xperia Active! Out of these two devices, the Sony Xperia Active is the latest one to be released and that is the one which we will be dedicating an entire post to!

Internal Hardware Specs:
You might think that the Sony Xperia Active was built keeping in mind only the design and the ruggedness of the device and here is where you would be wrong! With a 1 GHz MSM8255 Snapdragon processor paired along with a 512 MB RAM, you can expect pretty good performance with the device. You can connect your phone to the Internet either via 2G, 3G or WiFi and it also consist of GPS with A-GPS, wisepilot navigation.

You can compare it with the Motorola Defy Plus and the Xperia Active would not be a shadow, but in fact the Sony Xperia Active seemed like a better performer than the Defy plus! The responsiveness of the touch was great and so was the speed at which the apps loaded. The Sony Xperia Active provides you with a 1 GB of internal memory out of which, only (sadly) 320 MB is available to you! You can however extend that up to 32 GB with a microSD card and you will most probably be awarded with a free 2 GB card on purchase.
Camera:
The Sony Xperia Active features a pretty good 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. We all know that Sony cameras are pretty good and the Xperia Active does indeed live up to that expectations! The Active comes along with camera features like Geo-tagging, smile detector, touch focus, image stabilization and a variety of others that would help you improve your camera experience! The sad part about this story is the fact that the phone does not come with a front facing camera, considering its price!

With the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active you can capture 720p videos at 30 frames per second and even though the video quality is not the best we have seen as of now, we do think that it is pretty decent when you compare it with the Motorola Defy plus!
Design & its Features:
The first thing that you notice when you hold, nay, when you see the Sony Xperia Active is its extremely masculine and solid body that made it look like it could have survived the Pearl Harbour incident! This tiny 3 inch LCD screen is surrounded by a pretty neat design and is twice the thickness of the Samsung Galaxy S2. Fear not as the thickness does not seem to be bothering thanks to the small form factor of the phone.
Throw it, drop it, dip it in water, play with it. No matte what, the phone was designed to protect itself from water and dust and after witnessing various tests, i got to say that we were hell impressed! The rubbery finish of the phone provides with a good grip and the clean design might appeal to a lot of people. Overall, the design is pretty good and i would say much better than the Samsung Galaxy S5690 Xcover and comparable to the Motorola Defy.

Operating System & Performance:
The Sony Xperia Active comes packed with the Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread and the phone is obviously not speculated for the Ice Cream Sandwich as it does not have specs like what the Samsung Galaxy S2 features! First of all, let us not compare the Xperia Active with phones that feature larger screen and better hardware, but with similar phones like the Motorola Defy and the Samsung Galaxy S5690 Xcover.
Compared to the above mentioned phones, the Xperia Active does indeed perform good! Signs of lag were not that prominent as the ones we see in the Defy and comparatively the Xperia Active impresses with smooth navigation, fast app loading and can handle a pretty good amount of load considering the 1 GHz Snapdragon processor.

Battery:
This is one area where the Xperia Active lacks. The Sony Xperia Active comes with a 1200 mAh Li-ion battery while the Motorola Defy Plus comes with a 1700 mAh Li-ion battery! We doubt that the Sony Xperia Active will last a whole day after heavy usage, but it will last about a day if you use it wisely by turning off WiFi and location services when not needed and not letting unwanted apps run in the background. The battery life is average, but for a phone like this which would be a good phone to take trekking and adventures of the like, we would have expected a longer battery life.
Conclusion:
The Sony Ericcson Xperia Active is a pretty great addition to the rugged Android smartphone. It is an android smartphone that promises ruggedness, great performance, impressive features, good battery life, pretty great camera and other features! If you are a person who is prone to screwing your phone up, then look no further as you have found your match. If you are looking for a phone that acts as a good phone, a capable mp3 player and stands the test of nature, then the Sony Xperia Active would fit in well. Take this phone to your gym, while riding your bike, while juggling with your football or dribbling with your basketball! No matter what, the Xperia Active will remain safe in your pocket.

Source: http://www.techzek.com/sony-ericsson-xperia-active-review-specs-price-features/