Sony Ericsson Xperia ray Review

Introduction:

No matter how you slice it, the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray  is the embodiment of cuteness. It’s stylish, with bikini waistline and shiny black mirrored face, available in various colors, sports the newest version of Android beautified by the Timescape overlay, and has the acclaimed 8MP Exmor R camera sensor.

From the looks of it, only a very few things can ruin this munchkin, chief among which would be an eventual high price tag. Is that the case? Read on our review of the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray where we try to solve this puzzle for you...


Design:

As small touchscreen smartphones go, the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray is almost the perfect size, not getting lost in your palm if you have big hands, and fitting admirably if you are regular. The handset is one of the thinnest smartphones out there, at 0.37” (9.4 mm), and feathery at just 3.53oz (100 g). We also noticed that the Xperia ray is extremely comfortable for one handed operation due to its dimensions - your thumb just reaches everywhere like an anteater's tongue.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia ray is almost the perfect size

You can compare the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

A big part amidst the phone's positives plays the screen, which is 3.3” LCD,  and Sony Ericsson didn't skimp on the level of image detail, gracing the Xperia ray with 480x854 pixels – a pretty high resolution for a screen of this size. Plugging the numbers in a pixel density calculator returned 297ppi, which is just shy of the 300ppi threshold. This threshold became mainstream knowledge when Steve Jobs introduced the 326 ppi Retina Display iPhone 4, and said that above around 300ppi a normal human eye can't detect the individual pixels from 10-12 inches of distance.

Unlike the Xperia arc, the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray’s screen sports rather wide viewing angles, with nary a change in contrast or brightness when looked from extremes. Couple that with above average brightness and visibility outside, plus very good sensitivity, and we can say that the Xperia ray flaunts one of the best little LCD screens we’ve encountered so far.

The 3.3 inches LCD display

This alone makes it a pretty enticing handset, running the latest version of Android - 2.3 Gingerbread, but when you add the 8MP Exmor R camera sensor on the back with LED video light (yep, you can't use it as a flash, it has to be turned on manually), which proved its virtues in the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc, we might have a formidable category contender.

Unlike the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc, the Xperia ray sports a front-facing VGA camera for video chat, but it skips the HDMI port – something had to give. There are also only 300MB of user-available ROM for apps, and a 4GB microSD card is included in the package.

VGA camera for video chat	Home button

The Sony Ericsson Xperia ray is the first to hit retail with the new Xperia line design, which boasts a huge semi-circle in the middle for a physical home button, and two capacitive keys on its flanks. We dare to say it's better than the previous design, which had overly thin buttons arranged in an arc under the display, which took getting used to.

The resulting design looks very stylish – a thin handset with shiny black front, but lighthearted at the same time, with the choice of pink, black, white and gold colors. It is actually one of the few handsets that look even better in person to us than the press shots, which don't do the glossy front justice. It has every chance to grab the hearts of the design-conscious and/or female smartphone lovers, plus it delivers on the functionality front as well. The only thing we disliked is the placement of the microUSB port on the upper left side, which makes using the phone with the cable plugged in a bit uncomfortable.

Right side	Left side	microUSB port
3.5mm jack and power button on the top edge	8MP camera with LED light	Under the battery cover