Detailed Review
Design:
Xperia Tipo is Sony’s low cost Xperia series smartphone. The handset dimension is 103 mm, 57 mm and 13 mm in height, width and depth and is 99.4 gm in weight. The phone comes with 3.2 inches scratch-resistant TFT touch screen with 320 x 480 pixels screen resolution. It is available in Black, Red, Blue and white colours. On the top, it has a 3.5 mm earjack. The right side has a USB charger/PC connecting port whereas the left side of the phone gives you volume/camera key on the upper side. It lacks with front facing camera. Below the screen is a physical home key with back and menu key along its sides. On the back of the device you have a 3.2 megapixels camera but lacks with LED flash light. And below the camera is a speaker grill. Overall, the phone is handy with a different and attractive look but lacks with the small screen size.
Interface/OS:
The Sony Xperia Tipo runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. This phone is power backed by 800 MHz Qualcomm processor and 512 MB of RAM. When tested, the mobile functioned smoother and easier but, delayed in multitasking and swapping applications because of its slower 512 MB of RAM.
Camera:
The Xperia Tipo comes with an average 3.2 megapixels main camera but without LED flash light and it does not have a front facing camera for video calls. The camera has all smart features like, Geo-tagging, image stabilization, smile and face detection and touch focus. The camera gives you HD video recording with 720 pixels resolution. It has in-built photo light, 3D sweep panorama and auto focus functions enabled with 4X digital zoom. The image playback supported formats are BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WBMP and the image captured supported format is JPEG. When tested, the outdoor images were clear and rich with colours whereas, the indoor shots were clear with flash support but the colours were dull. The camera captures the picture fast and the overall camera performance is average.
Memory:
Sony Xperia Tipo gives you in-built 320 MB user accessible memory with 512 MB of RAM. It allows you to extend it up to 32 GB through micro SD extension slot.
Battery:
Xperia Tipo comes with a standard Li-Ion 1200 mAh battery which, to an extent has done justice to this device. It delivers the stand by time of up to 400 hours on 2G and up to 350 hours on 3G. The music playback time for this music centric phone is up to 17 hours and the Talk Time from the battery is up to 13 hours on 2G and up to 6.5 hours when on 3G. The overall battery performance when tested was great with average daily use but it discharges early with more browsing and 3G use.
Audio/Video:
Xperia Tipo is amazing and so its music player. But it is not exclusive to this particular phone. It is available on other Xperia models as well. This phone has a FM radio with RDS player and it supports MP3, 3GPP, MP4, SMF, WAV, OTA and Ogg vorbis audio playback supported formats. Track ID music recognition is in-built in the device and 3GPP, MP4 and AMR are audio recording supported formats. The video quality of the phone, when tested, was good and it really delivers 720 pixels HD video recording. The video playback and recording formats are 3GPP and MP4. When tested, camera performed average with its video quality and was in HD 720 pixels.
Features:
Xperia Tipo from Sony is in-built with all basic Android smart phone features and applications and you can purchase or download latest android applications to your phone. It has many social and other apps integrated like, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, etc. The list of pre-loaded applications include: Google Voice Search, Google Talk video chat, Google Mail, Google Calendar, and Google Maps with Street View. For connectivity and communication you have multiple options like USB High speed 2.0 and Micro USB support with Native USB tethering. As well as WiFi and WiFi Hotspot functionality with DLNA Certified you can connect/access to internet. Synchronization via Exchange ActiveSync, Google Sync and Facebook is possible. aGPS is in-built in the device and you have a WebKit web browser with Pan and zoom functions in it. Bluetooth technology helps you pair with other devices and share data with them.
Conclusion:
The Sony Xperia Tipo is truly a compact smart phone in Sony’s Xperia series. It has its own fixed target audience but this phone is much better than others in this price range. Its 800 MHz processor, 3.2 megapixels camera and Android 4.0 version are its main key features that gives it edge over its competitors. But its week 512 MB RAM, small screen size and no front facing camera are its weak points. So, we give this phone 3 star rating.
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