HTC incredibles

The adorable little green robot has come of age. From its humble and shaky beginnings in 2008 on one phone, Google’s Android platform can today be found on well over 100 phone models, with more coming out of the woodwork every time you look. No longer just the territory of geeks, newer Android smartphones like the ones that grace these pages are taking the fight to Apple’s iPhone by offering extremely capable devices at every price and feature point. Today’s crop of Android devices — the svelte and stylish Xperia Arc, the gamer-oriented Xperia Play and the simply incredible Incredible S — are likely to keep up, even step up, the pressure on Apple.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

With the Arc, Sony Ericsson has finally let us admit what we’ve always known. That while we do like our smartphones to ‘do it all’, how they look is also pretty important. Clearly targeted at the design and fashion conscious buyer, the Arc is a real looker, measuring an impossible 8.7mm at the centre — the Arc’s slimmest part.

Turn it around, and the entire front is dominated by the gorgeous 4.2-in 854 x 480 pixel resolution display. And boy, is this Super LCD display bright and sharp! So, while it can’t match the natural contrast of an AMOLED screen, it does better than some of the other Super LCD screens we’ve seen recently, thanks to the inclusion of Sony proprietary tech called the ‘Mobile Bravia Engine’ (allowing Sony to dub this display a ‘Reality Display’).

Borrowing tech from their flat screen TVs, this essentially applies image optimisation techniques to up the contrast and sharpness of the picture when displaying photos or playing videos. Yes, that’s right — only photos and videos, so there’s no impact on your user interface or browser/game experience. While we’re still on multimedia, the 8-megapixel camera deserves a mention, shooting excellent images quickly and delivering above average images in low light — a common letdown for smartphones.

And unlike Sony Ericsson’s last batch of Android smartphones, the Arc packs in the latest Android version (2.3.2) for smartphones, with neat visual tweaks made in the camera, messaging and contacts sections. All in all, the phone packs in excellent features by way of the camera, form factor and the display, and looks like a piece of arc...erm, art while doing it. Question is, does art justify the price?

• Rating: 8/10
• Price: Rs 32,000
• URL: http://bit.ly/hPdmuO

HTC Incredible S

HTC incredibles

Pick up the Incredible S from HTC, and you’d think it was a phone on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Arc. It starts from the back, with an industrial design rubbery finish plastic back cover. Hold the phone in your hand, and it feels durable and provides a firm grip. Switch the phone on, and the hitherto hidden buttons light up, and even rotate into a landscape orientation when you’re using an application which works in landscape mode. Neat!

Using the device, there are a couple of things you immediately take to. First, the display —the 4-in 800x480 Super LCD display pushes out vivid, high contrast colours that look good enough to eat (I kid!). Bear in mind, this display does fade a bit in bright sunlight but seems to just sip the battery, making the 1450 mAh battery last about two days on a single charge — a major plus in the Incredible S’s favour. That it also packs in a Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon processor, 768MB of RAM, and the same Adreno 205 graphics processor as in the Xperia Play just serves to underscore how good the battery life is.

As usual, the Incredible S features HTC’s Sense user interface, which sits on top of a not-so-current Android 2.2. If you forgive the fact that it is not on the latest Android version, you will be pleasantly surprised by how stable and responsible the phone is. Nearly no lag, excellent UI touches and tricks — for most users, this will matter more than the latest version of the OS and multi- core processors.

• Rating: 8/10
• Price: Rs 28,900
• URL: http://bit.ly/gT37XZ

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

The PlayStation Phone. It had been rumoured and discussed in hushed voices for years now, and some had even started doubting its very existence. So it was only when the Xperia Play hit the news, that I started to believe. In my hands, the Xperia Play, as it is officially named, still looks like someone bolted phone functions on top of a smaller PlayStation Portable. Put that down largely to the fact that under the touchscreen of the phone slides out a large gamepad, which apart from the direction keys and the face buttons, features a pair of analogue touch pads to control on-screen action without obscuring the screen. Add to that two shoulder buttons on the outside, and what do you get? A pretty bulky phone, if you ask me — I almost winced at the appearance until I reminded myself that this was aimed squarely at gamers, who might be more forgiving.

Under the hood, specs are pretty much the same as the Arc, which is surprising for a gaming phone expected to deliver maximum performance to power hungry games. The display isn’t as bright as the Arc or the Incredible S, though. But I was more interested in the PlayStation component of the device. The phone lets you access games from the Android Market (that are compatible with the Play’s controls) or via the PlayStation Pocket app, which lets you grab PlayStation One games from yesteryears. You get Fifa 10, Crash Bandicoot, The Sims 3, Star Battalion, Bruce Lee Dragon Warriors, and Tetris on the device to start with, though to be fair, the options for further games are still few and far between. Gameplay is good, but like I said, I don’t know how well the hardware will cope with more demanding games.

As a gaming console-cum-phone, the Play stands alone in what it does. But does that justify a buy? Not really at this price, and certainly not without a ton of games specifically built for it.

• Rating: 7/10

• Price: Rs 35,000

• URL: http://bit.ly/h08WOO

Call waiting

Samsung Galaxy S II

If you thought the current gen of phones is impressive, wait till you see what’s in the works. Showed off recently, each one of these devices pack in more scorching hot hardware than most PCs did five to seven years ago!

Samsung Galaxy S II: Tough act to follow, the original Galaxy S, what with that spectacular Super AMOLED screen and zippy internals. Sample this — the Galaxy S II will feature a 4.27-in 800 x 480 Super AMOLED ‘Plus’ display, which builds on the successful Super AMOLED that the Galaxy S sported by bettering the colour reproduction and contrast levels.

Plus, it’s got an 8 megapixel primary camera with Full HD 1080p video capture accompanied by a 2 megapixel camera up front, the latest Android Gingerbread update and a case that measures just 8.49mm, shaving off a further 0.2mm over than the Xperia Arc’s thinnest point. Early previews point to this being a fab device to use, and the dual-core 1GHz Samsung chip and the 1GB of memory mean it will be a great upgrade even for almost-new 2010 spec phone owners. Sigh…you never can win, can you?

LG Optimus 2x

LG Optimus 2X: Dual-core phones may soon be commonplace, but the first to announce a real market-ready dual-core device is LG, with the Optimus 2X. Inside this phone beats a dual-core Tegra 2 processor running at 1GHz, and what this processor can do is one of the phone’s key selling points. Translated, this means amazing gaming and video capabilities — the phone has an HDMI port that can mirror the screen of the phone screen on an HDTV or play 1080p HD videos. Video capture is through an 8 mega-pixel primary camera paired with a 1.3 megapixel cam up front for face-to-face calling. Interestingly, the Optimus 2X launches with Android 2.2 and 1,500mAh battery — not much bigger than single core smartphones selling these days, so it will be interesting to note how this crop of dual-core smartphones handles a day of typical use. The age of the really smartphone is here.

HTC Sensation

HTC Sensation: Hailed as the one phone that may match up to the S II, this monster packs in 4.3-in (540 x 960) Super LCD screen, dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, an 8-megapixel camera with dual LED flashes, and Android Gingerbread
(2.3). The Sensation will also be the first phone where we will see third iteration on the HTC Sense UI, which will include customisable lock screens, 3D transitions, an improved weather app, and a new service called HTC Watch that lets you download DVD-quality movies. The Sense UI refresh may just be what it takes to Sensation-alise your lives!

Motorola Atrix : Coming to Indian shores is a phone that is already making waves in the US — the Motorola Atrix. Most will know it for the“revolutionary” webtop application, designed to provide a smooth link to your desktop computer via the ‘cloud’. Sounds like something that a lot of business folk will take to, or someone wanting to edit documents on the go. Gamers haven’t been forgotten, with a dual-core 1GHz processor and an ultra-fast 16GB SSD hard-drive on board.