Sony Xperia T review: T-rex

Back when the driving seat was shared with Ericsson, Sony was a little short of delivering a real winner in the high-end market, the company's top-range smartphones always a notch below the Galaxy S lineup and their HTC counterparts. Now on their own, Sony cannot shy away from the toughest of battles and the Sony Xperia T is ready to be thrown in the fire.

Sony Xperia T official photos

A true flagship, the Sony Xperia T comes properly powered by a Snapdragon S4 chipset, boasting a class-leading 13MP camera and a marvelously sounding 720p display. There's no quad-core on its resume, but the Xperia T is ready to take on the best Android offerings out there.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support
• 3G with 42.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 4.55" 16M-color capacitive LED-backlit LCD touchscreen of 720p resolution (720 x 1280 pixels) with Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine; Scratch-resistant glass
• Android OS v4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich
• Dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU, 1 GB RAM, Adreno 225 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260A chipset
• 13 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging, Multi Angle shot
• 1080p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound
• 1.3 MP front-facing camera, 720p video recording
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
• 16GB of built-in storage, microSD card slot
• microUSB port with MHL and USB-host support
• Stereo Bluetooth v3.1
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Voice dialing
• Deep Facebook integration
• PlayStation Certified, access to the PS Store
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• NFC connectivity

Main disadvantages

• Display has sub-par viewing angles for a flagship
• Slightly thicker than main rivals
• Relatively modest battery
• JellyBean update not available at launch
• Poor loudspeaker performance
• Video recording could be better

The Sony Xperia T hasn't got the raw muscle of some of its rivals, but there's enough to get you interested. And once you go and give it a try, the design and handling will hardly let you down. In a smartphone market as crowded as today's, handsets with this much character are hard to come by. Now, a grateful nod is well in order to old allies and the Xperia Arc.

Setting record benchmark scores is one thing, but having an excellent chipset in a body that's great to look at is to many a more than even tradeoff. The Sony Xperia T should not be afraid of facing its rivals in a raw processing power battle, though it's the beauty contests it enjoys the most.

The Sony Xperia T at ours

And then there's the software enhancements, to which Sony paid more than enough attention. The Android ICS on the Xperia T comes with a great-looking UI, which Sony claims is also one of the most functional around.

Let's get going then - the unboxing and hardware checkup are this short jump away.