Sony Xperia S High-End Android Smartphone Coming With Many Surprises

In emblematic mobile we analyzed with retrospective some of the Android phones that marked history in our favorite operating system. A section that shows us how much we have changed.

Emblematic mobile phones: Sony Xperia S

The Sony Xperia S was a very important terminal for the Japanese company, being the first high-end Android designed entirely by Sony. Wait, did not Sony have before on the market?

Indeed, dear reader. The Japanese have been in the mobile market for many years, but not on their own, but through a partnership with Ericsson, launching their mobile phones under the Sony Ericsson brand . A brand that since even before Android had stood out for its really striking and innovative designs. We were expecting a lot from Sony’s solo release on the market.

On February 16, 2012, Sony fully acquired the rights to the “Sony Ericsson” brand, which would begin to be called “Sony” obtaining the complete rights to launch their own mobiles.

A review of your specifications

The Sony Xperia S was not a breaking ground in terms of specifications, since terminals like the Galaxy S III or HTC One X a priori seemed to have a better datasheet. Even so, it is a terminal whose attractive point ended up focusing on its breakthrough design, something that Sony Ericsson had always highlighted.

• 4.3 inch screen with HD resolution.
• Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 dual core 1.5GHz.
• 1GB of RAM.
• 32GB of storage.
• Main 12MP camera and 1.3MP rear.
• 1 750 mAh battery.
• Measurements: 128 x 64 x 10.6 mm.
• Weight: 144 g.
• Android 2.3 Gingerbread, upgradeable to Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.

The revolution of a design: The transparent bar

The Sony Xperia S was a rather striking terminal, and not just the “separation” with Ericsson. With the launch of the brand, Sony established a new design line with three models focused on three different ranges. Xperia U for the mid-range, Xperia P for the mid-high range, and Xperia S for the high-end.

These terminals stood out for the radical change. The curves disappeared to give way to a design with straighter lines (something that Sony has since maintained with very few exceptions).

Nevertheless, the real protagonist was a transparent bar that was located under the screen . In this bar appeared the icons of the touch buttons (although we had to press in the upper area) and also lit up. Through a Mod (in the Xperia S and U), you could customize the color of the bar to illuminate the notifications. For me it was a pretty result on notifications Led, and the truth is that it molled a lot.

An idea that did not work for another one that yes

The beginning in solitaro of Sony was certainly not the best. It was a terminal that beyond the camera and its original design did not offer too many reasons to be bought. In addition, its meager battery and arriving with an outdated version of Android weighed heavily. Like what happened to One X, its latest version of Android was 4.1 Jelly Bean, so it did not even get a year of updates.

Of course, over the years Sony has greatly improved this aspect, seeing as even its X3 Z3 almost becomes the oldest mobile to receive Nougat (received betas that worked really well, but in the end was not possible for not complying Some technical issues required by Google).

What has changed little is the relationship with the community and developers. Sony is usually quite generous in this aspect (it offers the source code of Android 7.0 for mobile that no longer update so that the community can install ROMs) and at the time the truth is that also behaved, offering enough help to  Team Free Xperia.

As for the striking design, the truth is that it lasted quite a bit. By the middle of the same year they would launch an improved version called Xperia T, which presented a design more similar to the Xperia Arc of the last generation. A year after the launch of the Xperia S Sony introduced the Xperia Z, the terminal that set the company’s design standard to these days.