[Mobile Cellphone Info] Sony Ericsson Xperia Active

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Sony Ericsson Xperia Active
Before Sony Ericsson became plain old Sony it released the Sony Ericsson Xperia
Active, now renamed on the web (but not rebranded on the handset) as the Sony
Xperla Active. lts a neat little handset aimed at those who like the great
outdoors, and it has some features well-tailored to that market.

The Active is a squat little phone. with a three-inch screen nestled in a rugged
body that has a bright orange trim running around the edge. The chassis is water
and dust resistant, and to that end the bottom-mounted headset and USB
connectors are protected by rubber covers. There is a double backplate to help
with water resistance too. You are provided with two versions ofthe outer
backplate, one black and the other white. Remove this and you reveal an inner,
second backplate that protects the SIM, battery, microSD card and the phone's
internal circuitry.

For all that, the Active isn't heavy, butthe overall look is rathertoo chunkyfor
our liking - its a generous 16mm thick. Theres a serious lanyard hole on the
bottom edge of the chassis that we dont like either, because it interferes with
the device's otherwise clean lines. The screen has been made responsive even
when tapped by sweaty fingers or under water. We tested this and it does seem to
work better than other touchscreens, though it is by no meansperfect. What's
more, the Active comes with an armband so it's all ready to be used on the run.
One thing we really like about the Active is its support for ANT+. This is a
wireless data standard used by alot of heart rate monitors, cycling sensors and
other sports equipment. Having it built in here means the Active can absorb
heart ratedata from lots of third-party equipment.

Add in the on-board software which includes a pedometerthat Sony has long
favoured called Walkllnate and an app called MapMayFlTNESS, which you can get
from the Android Market for other handsets. and you can see that in terms of
attracting exercise fans a lot of effort has been put in here. Sony has even
gone to the trouble ofproviding a pau sefplay and track skip function on the
headset, so you can use this while on a workout instead of havingto fiddle
around in your pocket for the phone itself mid-run.

This is all good stuff, but if you are attracted by these features you are,
unfortunately, going to have to make some compromises elsewhere. Overall the
Active is small, and its screen is a little cramped. Android does suffer a bit
as aconsequence. Three inches and 320 x 48O pixels are very much
middle-of-the-road specihcations these days, and data-rich activities like web
browsing dont sta nd up well. Still, the screen is sharp and bright, has good
viewing angles, and Sony does tryto make up for its cramped size for using the
on-screen keyboard by including Swype.

The camera is average rather than great, with a mediocre flash. But it does, at
least, shoot 720p video alongside its five-megapixel stills. More annoying,
perhaps, is that theres just 320MB of built-in storage, which isn't much. This
is redeemed slightly by the provision of a 2GB microSD card, but if you are
serious about using the Active to helpwith fitness you might want to swap this
for a higher-capacity card that can carry more music to help you keep motivated.

Battery lrfe is probablythe biggest annoyance. The 1.200mAh battery will
probably provide a days worth of life under normal circumstances. But using GPS
is a notoriously good way of draining smartphone batteries, and if you take the
Active with you on a long morning workout you might find it needs charging
during the day. Sony's neat skin for Android gives you access to up to 16 app
shortcuts via four comer icons on the home screen. This makes great use ofthe
limited screen space available, and means you can create small app shortcut
groups so that similar apps arekept together for quick access. There's also a
range of nice widgets which you can spread across the five home screens.


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