Sony Xperia P Review

Introduction:

The Sony Xperia P is the company's first smartphone to feature WhiteMagic technology. What kind of witchcraft is that, you ask? Well, thanks to some display manufacturing ingenuity, the handset's screen is capable of outglowing almost any smartphone currently on the market, which ensures its excellent outdoor visibility.

Other than that we are dealing with a reasonably priced mid-range Android handset with some pretty decent specs. The processor inside it has a couple of cores ticking at 1GHz, an Exmor R camera of 8 mexapixel resides on the unit's back, and a shell made out of anodized aluminum protects the smartphone's internals. We cannot hide that we have high hopes for the Xperia P, so without further ado, let us fire it up and see how it performs. 

Box contents:

• Wall charger
• microUSB cable
• Wired headset with in-ear headphones
• Start-up guide

Design:

At a glance, the Sony Xperia P looks more or less like a slightly smaller version of the Xperia S. The curved back side, the sharp edges, the glowing transparent strip at the bottom of the device – all of these visual cues have been taken straight from the company's flagship. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that. The smartphone looks just as attractive as its boxy big brother, so we are more than happy with the way it has been designed.

The Sony Xperia P is one of the smaller (narrower) smartphones out there

What makes the Xperia P different, however, is that instead of plastic of one kind or another, Sony has chosen to treat its mid-ranger to an aluminum shell, which covers most of its back side, with the exception of areas where antennas are located. At first, the presence of premium materials is not evident, but then you feel the difference once the coldness of the anodized metal is sensed by your fingertips. The lack of a microSD card slot and the non-removable battery are the trade-offs associated with this design trait. At 10.5 millimeters, the smartphone is not too thick, but far from being impressively thin either, so it won't remain unnoticed while it is resting in the pocket of your jeans. 

Left edge	Right	Top	Bottom
The sides of the Sony Xperia P

Sony Xperia P is one of the smaller (narrower) smartphones out there, yet using it with a single hand might require a bit of an effort as the display is situated relatively far from the device's bottom side. As a result, your thumb might find it difficult to reach the very top of the handset's elogated body. On the other hand, the physical buttons, all of which are located on the unit's right side, are pretty easy to operate, and the 2-stage camera shutter is really convenient when taking photos. The transparent band below the display is where the usual capacitive Android keys are, and it is great to see that they are really responsive to the touch.

Front	Front-facing camera	Android keys

Back	Rear camera	The transparent band

Display:

We are genuinely amazed by how blindingly bright the LCD display on the Sony Xperia P can be. At 935 nits, its outdoor visibility is nothing short of excellent even when Mr Sun is shining right at the handset’s front side. That is thanks to Sony’s very own WhiteMagic technology, which we see in a smartphone for the first time, and hopefully not the last.

Brightness aside, the screen exhibits a great level of detail due to its 275ppi pixel density. The exact resolution is 540 by 960 pixels (qHD) spread over 4 inches of real estate. As a result, everything looks nice and sharp, from tiniest of text fonts to the smooth curves of home screen icons.

In terms of color representation, however, things could have been a bit more accurate. Unless the brightness is set to a high level, whites appear yellowish, but once the display is glowing near its maximum, shades of yellow start looking greenish. Thankfully, you won't be noticing these flaws all the time due to their dependency on the brightness setting, which gets adjusted automatically by default.

Sony Xperia P 360-degrees View:

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