Xperia T: The Best Bits

A few weeks ago I managed to get hold of an Xperia T following on from its use in the fantastic Xperia Face Off promo which ran through November over at the Sony Mobile GB Facebook page.

With all considerations of its use, prior to finding its way into my pocket, as you can imagine it is a little beaten up here and there, but I've managed to gleam a lot from it in terms of Sony's direction. So from what I've discovered over the past 5 weeks, here are my top 5 features, in no particular order, of the Sony Xperia T.



My top 5 features of the Xperia T:

SmartConnect

Have I ever mentioned my desire to look at my phone for the smallest amount of time? I'm very much technology orientated, meaning I have hardware to serve all purposes. I aim for my phone to be used as minimally as possible considering, unlike the rest of my gadgets, it's with me at all times. Whether I'm with friends, on a night out, at the beach or shopping, you know, those occasions where it's inappropriate to get your phone out and spend a tedious 30 minutes trying to figure out one small objective. My phone is one thing I can't escape. But it's that 'Always on me' thing that makes it hard not to occasionally transform into an antisocial 'un-fun' nightmare amongst the people who I otherwise wish to share my time with.

Queue Sony's SmartConnect. SmartConnect is one of those things which Sony love to do, in taking what it already knows works, or maybe doesn't so well, and focussing on improving it until it fully shines amongst the crowd. Formally known as LiveWare Manager and available for several smartphone generations now, the latest reincarnation really is an impressive feature to automate your mobile. It allows you to build rules based around your day to day life. What should happen when you pair your Smart Wireless Headset Pro? And should a different rule come into effect if you pair the headset between 9am and 3pm as opposed to 8pm-10pm? Wanting your smart tags to perform a different function depending on the time of day?

With a strong combination of events based on coloured smart tags, hardware connections and time restrictions, it's easy to set a list of rules such as launching applications, playing music or setting power saving options based on combinations of these properties and even to determine what happens once these properties are no longer true. A feature which Sony has taken care to provide a strong foundation for future development.

Small Apps

Small apps are something we've seen before. In fact, we've been seeing them for years. Think of when you're sat at a PC and launch a calculator, or notepad. Now consider just how convenient it is, for such small accessories to be easily accessible without consuming too much of the computer's resources.

In the latest version of Sony's OS interpretation, small apps have been included to provide the same user experience from a mobile phone, and effective it is, too! Small apps are just that, small applications that float on the screen without taking up the full screen themselves. You can move them, hide them by forcing them to a small tab on the side of the screen, or open and close them at your will simply from the bottom right system key without consuming an exhaustive amount of the device's resources.

By default, a calculator, timer, notepad and sound recorder are included as floating apps however third party small apps such as the camera and a web browser are also available. It's early days yet, so expect more small apps to follow in time.

Redesigned Launcher

Sony have managed to maintain the same theme since the very beginning of Xperia's android presence, and the new launcher is no exception, though is arguably one of the biggest overhauls yet. The highlights are courtesy of the ever present areas such as the window button which provides a list of all currently open windows as well as the ability to launch the small apps detailed above.

Sony have managed to catchup to their competitors and third parties in integrating power controls into the system bar. This is a long overdue welcome feature to long time Xperia fans who have previously had to outfit their phone with a third party control switch application, or live with shifting to the home screen widget or settings menu whenever they wanted to change a setting such as Bluetooth or WiFi.

In terms of the launcher itself, tap and hold is a thing of the past with the theme and widget options appearing at the top of the screen. The downside to no longer being able to access these options through a system button is that without any free space on the launcher, it's impossible to access settings such as the wallpaper/theme options without resizing widgets, or removing them altogether.  Paired with the odd scaling of widgets on the Xperia launcher leading to strange looking widgets (try the 'multi-line' Evernote widget, for example), it's funny to thing the worst part of the Xperia Launcher is the launcher itself, but I'm prepared to forgive this faux pas for the smaller things that lie around the latest Xperia iteration.

As an alternative, I've installed the Nova Launcher. I cannot comment on the lock screen side of the OS modification as I installed Holo Locker almost immediately after obtaining the phone.

Google Integration

Xperia is all about integration, as you'll see not only from this penultimate favourite, but also the final favourite up next. Here, I want to discuss the Xperia's integration with Google. This again is nothing new, but for the first time ever this year I've really felt the Google ecosystem working well across the Xperia range. This may be due to Google's own enhancements to its ecosystem such as the launch of Google Play Music (in more countries) and Google Play Movies.

What can be said for certain however is that having moved across to the Xperia T from the arc S, there is absolutely no way I could imagine the arc S being able to handle the ecosystem upgrades as flawlessly as the Xperia T. Fast, fluid and effective, the Xperia T is able to pull of as a great device for cloud based media effortlessly regardless of it's 16GB internal memory and microSD slot.

Other favourites carried over from Google's ecosystem include Google Play Books, Reader, Currents and much more for a fully featured environment, and the addition of Google Now with the release of Jelly Bean to the range early next year will present additional challenges to pit the Xperia T against, however the termination of Google Listen has left me lacklustre of a native pod-casting app so I'm currently in the market for one! (I've heard Media Monkey is great for this, so maybe another blog post to follow...)

Sony Integration

Last but not least, Sony's very own integration. I've already mentioned the Smart Wireless Headset Pro and the Smart Tags. I'm a massive fan of Sony in other ways. I've long loved my PS3, and treated myself for Christmas to a brand new Bravia HX8 so it's a fantastic addition to see the integration possibilities between the devices all connected. Sony's ambitious aver it's four screen strategy announced in 2011, and it really begins to show when pairing these devices all together along with the Xperia T to harness the additional features they provide. Dock the Xperia T to the Bravia TV with MHL and use the remote control to see a whole new platform previously locked away, giving access to a range of android features on the big screen. I've yet to give this a close inspection, but it's one of those things I've been strongly anticipating, and so I'll more than likely have a blog post of its own for this, after Christmas.

Additionally, Sony have carried over the ability to throw media to devices which worked charms after a family day out during the weekend, allowing a slideshow to be presented of the days events.