Sony Xperia T2 Ultra review: The bigger, the better

Phonebook

The Sony Xperia T2 Ultra phonebook is integrated with the dialer using a tabbed interface - the Contacts, Phone, Favorites and Groups tabs can be side-swiped. The contact list has a dedicated search filed plus it offers and an alphabetical scroll bar.

The phonebook • The quick contact shortcut • Favorites • Account sync

You can sync with multiple accounts, including Exchange and Facebook, and you can selectively show or hide contacts from some accounts (as well as filter specific groups in an account), or set the phonebook to display only contacts with phone numbers or only contacts that are online.

Contact options

Linking contacts is available, quick contact feature is here too.

Telephony

Receiving and making calls on the Xperia T2 Ultra was nothing short of pleasing. Unlike its bigger counterpart, this phone fits better in the hand, so long calls are more comfortable. It helps that it's lighter too.

The dialer support smart dialing.

Smart dialing is available

Sony Xperia T2 Ultra scored a Good mark in our loudspeaker tests, meaning you are unlikely to miss some calls and notifications if you are in a noisy environment.

Sony has preloaded a number of features that modify how the speaker sounds. We tested with all of them off, then with xLOUD on, but that made very little to no difference.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overal score
Sony Xperia Z	60.1	58.3	61.6	Below Average
Sony Xperia Z Ultra (xLOUD)	64.0	61.7	65.1	Below average
Sony Xperia Z1 (xLOUD)	65.5	62.0	65.8	Below average
Apple iPhone 5s	68.7	66.3	69.2	Average
Huawei Ascend Mate	67.0	66.6	75.0	Good
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo	68.4	4.4	75.8	Good
Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3	67.2	69.8	75.7	Good
Samsung Galaxy S4	70.6	66.2	77.3	Good
Sony Xperia T2 Ultra (xLOUD)	74.0	66.6	75.7	Good
Oppo Find 7a	71.3	72.5	75.7	Very Good
Oppo N1	73.7	67.7	78.7	Very Good
LG Optimus G	74.6	71.3	82.7	Excellent

Messaging and text input

Text messages and MMS use standard thread layout. Adding multimedia (photos, videos, sounds, etc.) will convert the message automatically into an MMS.

The messaging app • Adding multimedia turns it into an MMS

Naturally the Gmail client and the default Email apps are onboard. Gmail can sync only with (multiple) Google accounts, while the generic Email app can handle POP and IMAP and offers a Combined inbox.

Gmail and Email apps

As for text input, the Xperia T2 Ultra offers a customized on-screen full QWERTY keyboard, which is very enough.

You can choose a different layout (keypad, QWERTY, QWERTY with extra symbols), add/remove the coma and period button, the smiley and voice input buttons and also enable things like bilingual word suggestions if you have more than one language enabled. Different keyboard skins are available too.

Xperia T2 Ultra keyboard is comfortable in either layout • Settings

You can also try the so-called Gesture input if hitting those keys individually doesn't give you the desired typing speed. It's similar to Swype, and even if you've never used a Swype-like input before you'll quickly get used to it.

One-handed keyboard is available too, only in portrait orientation. If enabled it squeezes the onscreen keyboard to the left or right side of the screen.

One-handed keyboard • Skins