Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

One of the most exciting smartphones revealed at CES 2011 was the Sony Ericsson Arc, a super-slim sexy Android device. But what is it about this phone that gets our pulse racing?

Slim is in

Think the iPhone 4’s pretty slim? The Sony Ericsson Arc is slimmer, even though it packs in way more ports on its bod. At just 8.7mm thick, it’s more than half a millimeter thinner than Apple’s shiny baby — it may not sound like a lot, but in the ultra-slim world it’s like dropping a couple of dress sizes. Taking a few tips from the fantastic Samsung Galaxy S, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc is also very light at just 117g. This smartphone supermodel makes the slick Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 look like a couch potato.

Andriod 2.3 — this ain’t the Xperia X10

Sony Ericsson knows how to make a neat Android UI, but it’s not so hot at keeping its phones up-to-date with the latest version of Google’s OS. It seems to be turning over a new leaf with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc though, as it’s planned to feature the very latest version of Android at release, Android 2.3 Gingerbread. This latest edition of the OS only launched in December 2010, along with the Google Nexus S.

Top-notch camera

The Sony Ericsson Arc is unlikely to beat the Nokia N8 on the photographic front, but this slim smartphone could become the best Android camera phone ever. It has an 8.1-megapixel sensor and LED flash, but the bit that gets us excited about this snapper is its f/2.4 aperture. Most mobile phone cameras use a f/ 2.8 aperture, and this skip down the f-stop scale suggests special attention has been given to the quality of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc’s lens tech.

Stay tuned for our road test of the Arc’s camera once we get our hands on the phone.

HDMI output makes it a video winner

With an HDMI output on-board, you can easily pipe over any vids stored on your phone over to your HDTV. The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc doesn’t offer stellar media playback off-the-bat, but with an app like RockPlayer, you can turn your phone into a near-unbeatable home media centre hub.

Powerful, but no dual core

Dual-core phones are on our doorstep, but the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc opts for a MSM8255 Qualcomm Snapdragon processor instead, as seen in the HTC Desire HD. It may be tempting to ignore the Arc in favour of dual-core devices like the LG Optimus 2X, but this Snapdragon offers a powerful combo of a 1GHz processor and the Adreno 205 GPU. A dual-core processor may allow for powerful applications like 1080p video decoding, but it won’t necessarily result in better gaming performance unless there’s also a decent GPU on-board.

This is the Anzu, we think

Towards the end of 2010, two high-end Sony Ericsson phones consistently appeared in rumours — the PlayStation Phone and Xperia X12 or Anzu. Unless Sony Ericsson performed a miracle and managed to make the Arc fly under the radar until its CES 2011 revealing, we’re almost certain that the Arc is the Anzu/X12.

It’s slimmer and more stylish than the PlayStation Phone, but lacks that phone’s gaming controls. Finding it hard to choose between the two? We should know more in February, when the PlayStation Phone is likely to be unveiled.