Sony Ericsson Xperia arc review

While many newer Android phones, such as LG’s Optimus 2X, have dual-core processors, the arc makes do with a single-core chip. It’s not slow – in the Quadrant benchmarks, the arc scored about the same as the Xperia Play and was faster than Google’s Nexus One, but it trailed behind dual-core devices such as the Motorola Xoom tablet. The interface felt slick and responsive, but we still noticed slowdowns in the Timescape app (which scrolls through your friends’ Facebook and Twitter status updates) and while browsing a spreadsheet in Google Docs.

The handset’s 4.2in screen is responsive, and its 480×854 resolution is crisp and colourful. We’re not sure what Sony’s Bravia Engine screen technology does, but we can say that image quality was great, with vibrant colours and strong contrast. If anything, reds and oranges were too bright. You can set the display to adjust display brightness automatically depending on ambient light levels, but it flickers noticeably as it changes.

Our Vodafone review sample included a few Vodafone apps, such as a Music Store and a link to Vodafone’s 360 social networking service. There are also some preloaded Sony Ericsson apps, such as a trial copy of OfficeSuite that lets you view office and PDF files (an upgrade to editing capability is €7.99), LiveWare manager, which lets you specify the behaviour of Bluetooth accessories, and a music recognition service called TrackID. There’s also the Timescape app mentioned above, which aggregates updates from Twitter and Facebook. It’s not particularly useful, though – for example, you can’t re-tweet directly from the interface.