Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray – Power beneath the Sleak Surface

While the Xperia Ray does not share the same slimness of the Arc, its 9.4mm depth is still very respectable. The 3.3 inch screen is just under an inch smaller than the display of its sibling, but by retaining the same native resolution of 854×480 it delivers crisper imagery and excellent text rendering, so you will really feel the difference even if there is an overall reduction to the available area.

Running Android 2.3 might make the Xperia Ray feel a little similar for anyone who has experience of Google`s latest mobile operating system. However, Sony Ericsson has worked hard to make its mobile experience feel different from its competitors and the interface here is focused around functionality and social networking integration. You can still customise the multiple homescreens with your own interactive widgets and the 1GHz single core processor can handle all of the transitions and multitasking procedures you would expect.

Another area in which the Xperia Ray stands out is photography, because it has a fully fledge eight megapixel camera with HD video capture available. This is a welcoming sight in a market that is flooded with standard five megapixel snappers. Smile detection for stills and an LED flash to sort out low light shots are included and although you can tinker with the settings at will the camera is best when used in its automatic mode, because the software does a good job of making the adjustments necessary to taking solid photos.

Because of its screen size the Xperia Ray is certainly targeted at the middle of the smartphone market. It stands out from entry level handsets thanks to its nippy processor and excellent photography features. It might even come close to high end handsets thanks to the quality of the design and the high resolution of the screen. As a replacement for portable media players it works well to make music and video playback feel seamless and accessible, while web browsing works as well here as it does on any equivalent Android phone. It is not the individual aspects which make the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray a worthy purchase, but their cumulative impact on the handset as a whole.

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