Sony Xperia go Review


Sony announced the Xperia go back in May, that went on sale in India in July. The Xperia go is a durable Smartphone which is dust and water proof. It was running on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) at the launch, but it received the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update few months back. Sony Mobile has also promised Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) update for the device, which is expected next year. Let’s get into the complete review and see how rugged it is.

Hardware


The Xperia go has superior build quality to withstand some heavy torture. Even though it is plastic, the hard body of the phone feels rough in the hand, which makes it easy to hold and preventing it from slipping. The 3.5-inch (480 x 320 pixels) Reality Display is of course better than the entry-level Xperia tipo that we reviewed recently. The display is scratch resistant with anti-reflection coating on mineral glass.


It has Reality display powered by Mobile BRAVIA Engine that enhances the image and video quality. You can enable it from the display settings. Usually the capacitive touch screens don’t respond to your touch when it’s wet. But the phone has a special coating, hence tracks your finger even if it’s wet.


At the top there is a earpiece with a Sony branding below that. There are proximity and ambient light sensors along with an LED notification light next to it. The phone also has a built-in Magnetometer for fitness apps. We will see more about them in the Apps section.


There are capacitive illuminated touch buttons for back, home and menu, below the display. These even provide haptic feedback when you touch them. There is a Xperia branding below that along with a microphone hole.


Since the phone is water and dust proof, all the ports are covered. There is a 3.5mm audio jack with a protective cover on the left.


On the right there is a micro USB slot under the protective cover. It also gives a warning to close the cover when you remove the USB, so that you don’t forget to close it back. The brushed metal volume rocker is present below that.


There is a metal power / lock button at the top.


At the bottom there is a lanyard hole.


At the back there is a 5 Megapixel auto focus camera with LED Flash.


There is a Xperia branding at the bottom along with a loudspeaker.


You can open the back cover, but the 1305 mAh battery at the bottom is not removable.


On the left there is a micro SD card slot under the protective cover and a SIM card try that uses a normal SIM card.


The phone is tightly sealed with several screws to prevent water or dust from getting in.

Camera


The 5MP shooter takes some decent shots. You can Quick launch from the settings that lets you launch and capture an image from the lock screen. You can reduce the camera resolution to 3MP (16:9) or 2MP.

There are different camera modes such as scene recognition, normal, 3D sweep panorama, 3D Sweep Panorama Multi Angle and Sweep Panorama. You can set the flash to auto or change it to fill flash, red-eye reduction or turn it off. Other camera features include, Self-timer (2 seconds and 10 seconds), Smile detection (Big smile, Average smile and Small smile), Geotagging, Option to switch off shutter sound and change the capture mode to touch capture from the on-screen button. There are different scene modes (portrait, landscape, night scene, night portrait, beach and snow, sports and party), metering and white balance settings. There is no dedicated camera button and no front-facing camera for video calls.

Here are some camera samples (click to view full images)

It can record videos at 720p resolution. Focus mode include, single auto focus, face detection and infinity. Some features are similar to the camera. You can also use the LED video light.

Here is the 720p HD video sample

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjfv2onpqkM

Software


The phone runs on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). The UI is similar to the Xperia phones running on ICS. Since this is a durable phone, it has fitness apps in a folder in the bottom tray in the homescreen. The Xperia tipo had media apps. You can replace the bottom tray icons or create a new folder. You can use the menu button or hold on the home screen and click the ‘+ button’ on the top to add shortcuts and widgets to the home screen.


The drop-down notification bar is similar to the other Android phones. You can control music and change FM stations from there and swipe away notifications. The lockscreen has slide to unlock and lets you launch the camera or take images quickly just by sliding from other side.

Apps


There are several pre-loaded apps in the phone. The utility apps include, Calendar, Calculator, Clock and News and Weather. There are Google Apps including Gmail, Play Store, Maps, Talk, YouTube and Google Search. The Office Suite 6 lets you view documents and the Back up & restore app lets you back up and restore data for contacts, memory, calendar, settings, download apps and more.


There are several fitness apps including miCoach, FigureRunner, SmartConnect (to Trigger events when you connect devices such as headphones are charger) and WalkMate (to measure your steps). There is a Compass app and a Torch application to use the phone’s LED flash as torch light.

Music Player and FM Radio

The phone can play MP3, AAC, AMR, OTA and OGG formats. The player is quite different from tipo. It is called walkman, and shows the songs along with the cover art. There is an equalizer with different settings such as Heavy, Pop, Jazz, Unique, Soul, Easy listening, Bass boost, Treble boost and Custom. Other Sound enchancement features include, Headphone surround (Studio, Club and Concert hall). There is a xLOUD speaker setting to enchance the loudness of the speaker, but the audio is not loud even after the feature is enabled. This might be the protection for the loudspeaker at the back to prevent water or dust from getting in.

The FM Radio has auto scan feature to search for channels. The TrackID lets you find details about the songs. You can switch from Mono or Stereo and also mark stations as favorites. The phone can play videos of different formats including 3GP, MKV and AVI using the Movies app.

Calls, Messaging and Browser


The calls went though well without dropped calls. The phone is easy to hold during calls. The Messaging features are similar to the other Xperia phones that has MMS and conversational view. The Xperia Keyboard has personalized keyboard layout such as T9 phone keypad and Full keyboard extra along with number, other than the normal keyboard.


The Android webkit browser scored 312 points in the HTML5 test with 3 bonus points, few points more than the Xperia tipo.

Connectivity


The connectivity features in the Xperia go include, 3G (HSDPA up to 14.4 Mbps ; HSUPA: up to 5.76 Mbps), Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP, WiFi 820.11 b/g/n, DLNA and aGPS. There is a default data usage manager in the Android 4.0 enables you to track the mobile data usage per month.


You can share media from the Xperia go, to other DLNA-capable devices using the Connected Devices app. There is a extended standby mode in power management in the settings that extends the battery life of the device by disabling data traffic when the device is off.

Benchmarks

The phone is powered by a 1 GHz Dual-core Cortex A9 NovaThor U8500 processor and has Mali-400 GPU. Let’s see how it performs.

Quadrant Benchmark

In the Quadrant Benchmark the Xperia go tops other dual-core Smartphones Galaxy Beam and the Atrix 2.

AnTuTu Benchmark

In the AnTuTu Benchmark (v2.9) the Xperia go is once again in the top stop by overtaking others by few points.

SmartBench 2012 (Productivity)

In the SmartBench 2012 Productivity the Xperia go is behind the Atrix 2 and Beam.

SmartBench 2012 (Gaming)

The Xperia go misses the top spot by few points in the SmartBench 2012 Gaming.

Conclusion

The Sony Xperia go is definitely one of the best rugged Android Smartphone with good build quality. The 1305 mAh battery lasts through the whole day with few hours of music, calls, messages and Radio. The camera captures nice shots, has a LED flash and offers 720p video recording. The phone has sealed battery and the loudspeaker output is low, which are disappointing. If you need a rugged Android phone with good performance at a price tag of around Rs. 18,000, go for it.

Pros

  • Good build quality
  • Water and dust proof
  • Good camera with 720p video recording

Cons

  • Average Loudspeaker output
  • No front-facing camera

Author: Srivatsan Sridhar

Srivatsan Sridhar is a Mobile Technology Enthusiast who is passionate about Mobile phones and Mobile apps. He uses the phones he reviews as his main phone. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram