Sony Xperia acro S review: Daring droid

GSMArena team, 03 September 2012.
Pages: «12345678910»

Tags: Sony, Android, Touch UI

Display

The screen on the Sony Xperia acro S promises great things and it delivers - it's mesmerizingly sharp, with punchy colors and very good contrast. It's backed by the BRAVIA engine which, as we've seen before, does very well on screens with high pixel-density - and the Xperia acro S display is one of the most pixel-dense at 342ppi.

Sony Xperia acro S
The BRAVIA-powered display

The only downside (and it's not a minor one) is the sub-par viewing angles.

Display test 50% brightness 100% brightness
Black, cd/m2 White, cd/m2 Contrast ratio Black, cd/m2 White, cd/m2 Contrast ratio
Sony Xperia acro S - - - 0.61 625 1022
LG Optimus 4X HD 0.34 369 1077 0.68 750 1102
HTC One S 0 177 ∞ 0 386 ∞
LG Prada 3.0 0.19 184 993 0.81 835 1031
Sony Xperia S - - - 0.48 495 1038
LG Optimus Black 0.27 332 1228 0.65 749 1161
Apple iPhone 4S 0.14 205 1463 0.52 654 1261
Samsung Galaxy Nexus 0 112 ∞ 0 247 ∞

Sunlight legibility on the Xperia acro S screen is good, if unspectacular, as shown by the readings in our dedicated test.

Contrast ratio

  • Nokia 808 PureView
    4.698
  • Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III
    3.419
  • Samsung Omnia W
    3.301
  • Samsung Galaxy S
    3.155
  • Nokia N9
    3.069
  • Samsung Galaxy Note
    2.970
  • HTC One S
    2.901
  • Samsung Galaxy S II
    2.832
  • Huawei Ascend P1
    2.655
  • Nokia Lumia 900
    2.562
  • Apple iPhone 4S
    2.269
  • HTC One X
    2.158
  • Nokia N8
    2.144
  • Sony Xperia acro S
    2.119
  • Apple iPhone 4
    2.016
  • Sony Ericsson Xperia ray
    1.955
  • Sony Xperia U
    1.758
  • LG Optimus 4X HD
    1.691
  • HTC One V
    1.685
  • LG Optimus Vu
    1.680
  • Sony Xperia go
    1.577
  • LG Optimus 3D
    1.542
  • Nokia Asha 302
    1.537
  • BlackBerry Curve 9320
    1.488
  • Nokia Lumia 610
    1.432
  • Samsung Galaxy S Duos
    1.400
  • Gigabyte GSmart G1355
    1.361
  • HTC Desire C
    1.300
  • LG Optimus L7
    1.269
  • Meizu MX
    1.221
  • Samsung Galaxy Pocket
    1.180
  • Nokia Asha 305
    1.178
  • Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos
    1.148
  • Samsung Galaxy mini 2
    1.114

We also put the Xperia acro S screen under our microscope and unsurprisingly we found it to pack the finest pixels we have seen to date.


The display under a microscope

Handling

The curved back fits nicely in hand and the Sony Xperia acro S is generally easy to handle. As we already mentioned, it would have been perfect had it been a bit slimmer, but it's not too bad as it is.

You will immediately notice a difference if you use the acro S after, say, the 8.5mm Galaxy S II, which has a screen of the same diagonal (and slightly larger size due to aspect difference), but the Sony smartphone is not hard to operate by any means.

Sony Xperia acro S Sony Xperia acro S
The Xperia acro S in-hand

Up next is our tour of the software interface on the Sony Xperia acro S.

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