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The problem with Android phones in India is that there are just so many choices. While that may sound like a good thing to all the Android fan boys, the truth is that it makes little business sense.

HTC is a good example of a company which has probably overdone the Android business. Almost a flagship company for the OS, HTC has come to a point where most of its models are fighting with each other. With a model rolling out almost every two months, it is hard keeping track of the models and which one trumps the other.

Sony Ericsson has been at the other end of the stick when it comes to introducing new phones; the slowest, in fact. Try remembering the last three handsets they launched. We bet that you will struggle to go beyond two.

But it seems the slower and more patient development process is paying off in the kind of phones they are coming up with. We recently got our hands on the attractive looking Xperia Arc. More popularly known as just the Arc, the phone is now topping the Android sales charts along with the Samsung Galaxy SII (and some HTC phone, we are sure.)

First off, we were mighty impressed with the looks on the Arc. True to its name, the Arc is all misty, silvery curves, but thin and light, targeted at the crowd for whom looks matter slightly more than function. We stand with this mantra; experience has told us that Indians buy phones more for the sight of them and less because of what they can do.
The Arc is a phone made against conventions. Case in point: the convex back that houses the camera at one end, and the speaker phone at the other end. This is against the usual norm of having a concave back because it fits the palm better. Though we were at discomfort with the idea of this, we somehow could not find anything wrong in holding the convex back in our hands.

On the outside, it has a brilliant 4.2-inch display, the biggest we have seen on a device from Sony Ericsson and perhaps one of the biggest among all Android phones too. Not an LED panel like so many other Android handsets have, the Arc’s LCD display is still above average in terms of the colors and contrast.

We did not really see the difference when compared to the OLED and AMOLED displays; perhaps the large screen size hides the LCD well. Or perhaps it is because of the Mobile Bravia Engine inside that optimizes the images to their sharpest and most eye pleasing. Whichever it is, the Arc definitely deserves to be called an entertainment device on the back of this screen.

Though the rest of the body is pretty standard in terms of jacks and ports, what we also like are the physical buttons rather than onscreen buttons for going to Home, Back or Menu. That’s another differentiator from the other Android phones out there.

The buttons are nicely placed, make nice clicks on pressing, and did not seem to hang at all, unlike their onscreen peers. There are a couple of hitches here though with no universal search key, and no back lighting for the buttons in the dark. There is a light between the buttons but it suits no purpose. Might well have been a door creaking a line of light.
For all the thinness and curves and looks, you would think that the Arc might be a little light on the heavies spec-wise internally. Well, that is not the case, we are happy to report. The Arc shares its innards with the other heavyweights of its class from the HTC and Motorola lines with a 1GHz processor powering the latest Gingerbread OS (Android 2.3) to run its apps and graphics.

And it does it with burning too much battery. One of the major problems with Android phones has been the battery consumption. It is too fast. We often meet Android fan boys who have no hesitation in saying that a low battery life is part and parcel of owning an Android set. We think it’s a lame excuse for a lack of innovative prowess and sheer laziness.

That is why we were pleased to see that the 1,500mAh battery inside the Arc lasted a full working day with regular use. Charged once in the morning, the Arc lasted into the night. For a phone with a screen that is much larger than the ones found on other phones, that is very good performance. In that sense, it can slide into the mobile businessman’s pocket.
Usability-wise, on the software front, Arc offers the finest Android has to offer and it is very good, compared to previous iterations. And it is also topped off by Sony Ericsson’s own skin on top that is comparable, but perhaps slightly less refined than HTC’s Sense.

The highlight of the interface is the Timescape function, a rotating of tiles that you scroll through to get to your recent messages and calls. It works well, though it tends to show third-party messages from separate senders altogether. A glitch only in the Indian scenario, but nothing you cannot live with.

The one big problem we faced was that the Android Market kept crashing when we were trying to download apps on cellular data. Once we moved to Wi-Fi, the Market worked fine. It’s an odd glitch and certainly not one to make the Arc endear itself to anybody. Only a factory reset actually saved it from being smashed against the wall. If you are a big user of all things Google, the Arc is perfect. The native Google apps run smoothly on it. There are more apps, including the Google+ app for the newly launched social network that you can check out and Google Goggles for image-based search.

The interface is just a little less than being called the slickest when it comes to how it orientates and moves. Landscape to portrait and back is a process that does have a slight lag. Scrolling through apps and windows is smooth, with only a very slight lag. Not the best in class, but not far off from it either. The browser is strictly okay, but that is true for all Android phones.

The best bit about the Arc is still its camera. This takes beautiful and sharp shots even under unfriendly conditions. We are told this is in part thanks to some photo processing that happens right after you click a picture using the onscreen menu. Video capture is okay too, and the playback smooth, but not the best in the class. And don’t fall for that HDMI port. No phone yet can claim to master the TV with its playback.

So, what do we think about the Arc? On a more critical note, we would say that the Arc could have been made better than the fine piece it already is.

The built, while classy, could do with a little more toughness, some software glitches need to be ironed out, perhaps a new processor would have been nice, the video capture should have been better, and a few tweaks would have been welcome to make it more different from the interface end.

©Entrepreneur August 2011

Tags:
AMOLED, Android, battery, camera, Ericcson, Google, HTC, LCD, LED, OLED, OS, phone, Sony, Xperia Arc