Sony Xperia S preview: Game on

Introduction

In staging their grand return, Sony Mobile could've done a lot worse than the Xperia S. The fresh divorcees are back on the market, their new Xperia flagship kindly supplying the bang. And while the HD screen and dual-core processor are not exactly breaking news, there's an extensive set of features to make a geek's heart flutter.

Sony Xperia S official photos

The Sony Xperia S aims for camera excellence with 12MP still photography and 1080p video recording. It has an HD screen and a microHDMI port, not to mention a dedicated TV Launcher that lets you control the phone with your TV remote.

The Xperia S is a high-performance phone too - while quad-core phones will soon hit the shelves, the dual-core 1.5GHz processor and Adreno 220 GPU show good results in early benchmarks.

We'll do a first round of benchmarks later, but let's have a closer look at the specs of the Sony Xperia S first.

Sony Xperia S at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 MHz, 14.4 Mbps HSDPA, 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone
• Dimensions: 128 x 64 x 10.6 mm, 144 g
• Display: 4.3" 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen, 720 x 1280 pixels
• CPU: Qualcomm MSM8260 chipset, dual-core 1.5 GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 220 GPU
• OS: Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), planned 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update
• Memory: 32GB of storage, 1GB of RAM
• Camera: 12 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash, face detection and touch focus; 1080p video recording at 30fps; 1.3MP front-facing camera with 720p video recording, sweep multi-angle shots for lenticular print effect
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA; Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, microHDMI port
• Misc: Sony Timescape UI, TV launcher, built-in accelerometer, proximity sensor, Sony Mobile Bravia engine, multi-touch input, scratch-resistant surface, microSIM only

Not quite like the Sony Ericsson Xperia arcs, is it? The Xperia S is better in almost every respect, save for thickness. Still, considering how thick those old 12MP shooters were (especially around the camera), 10.6mm sounds great.

The screen on the Xperia S deserves praise too. The 4.3" BRAVIA LCD of 720p resolution is up there with the best screens on the market. At 342ppi, it's definitely one of the sharpest.

Sony Xperia S live pictures

There's a lot to test on the Sony Xperia S, but we'll only have time to cover only some of the aspects in this preview. Let's not waste any more time and jump straight to the hardware.