Sony Xperia Tipo

Today we’ll be taking a look at the Sony Xperia Tipo. The Sony Xperia Tipo is also known as the Sony Tapioca, the Sony ST21i and Sony ST21a. This isn’t a very powerful phone, especially not for the standards of today, but then again, it’s probably cheaper than most. It also has a very good Android OS version, so you can’t really complain about this phone – you’re getting the ultimate Android experience without paying for the ultimate performance. But then again, that’s just my way of thinking, others may not be so tolerant of this phone. Also, the Sony Xperia Tipo has a Dual-SIM version available too. I may review that one too at some time, however, it isn’t too different from this one. Either way, let’s stop wasting time and commence with this little review.

SUMMARY

As promised before, I’ll start my articles with a brief summary of what the phone is good for and what are its bad sides. The hardware isn’t very good for this phone. It may have been two years ago, but right now it’s pretty weak. The phone has a nice and pleasant shape, and it also looks good in its petite body. However, apart from the looks it doesn’t really have anything to boost its performance. It may not works with the newer apps and don’t think of running 3D high demanding games on this one. Otherwise, if you just want a phone that is reliable and won’t let you don, choose the Sony Xperia Tipo.

GENERAL

We’ll now take a brief look at the general aspects of the Sony Xperia Tipo. Here you can find out a bit about the supported networks and teh announcement and release dates of the Sony Xperia Tipo. The Sony Xperia Tipo supports the following networks : 2G ( GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900 ), 3G ( HSDPA 900 and HSDPA 2100 on the ST21i and HSDPA 850, HSDPA 1900 and HSDPA 2100 on the ST21a ). This phone was announced in June 2012 and is expected to come out somewhere around Q3 of 2012. That’s all there is too the general stuff, so let’s move on since there is still a lot till the end of this review.

BODY

Next up we’ll be taking a brief look at the body / aspect of the Sony Xperia Tipo. Here you can find out a bit about the size and weight of the device and also see whether or not the Sony Xperia Tipo has any particularities of its body that might set it apart from the rest of the phones. The Sony Xperia Tipo is around 103 x 57 x 13 mm big and it weighs somewhere around 99.4 grams. All and all it’s a fairly tiny phone. Despite not being specified in any of my sources, I believe the Sony Xperia Tipo has Touch-Sensitive Controls instead of frontal buttons, either that or it has the thinnest buttons I have ever seen. That’s all I can say about the body, so let’s move on now.

DISPLAY

Next up we’ll be taking a look at the display of the Sony Xperia Tipo. Here you can find out a bit about the type of screen of the device, the screen size, the screen’s resolutio and pixel density as well as see whether or not the Sony Xperia Tipo has any screen protection and any particularities related to the screen. The screen of this phone is a TFT capacitive screen with around 256 thousand colors. The size of the screen of this device is around 3.2 inches. This phone’s screen houses a resolution of approximately 320 x 480 pixels. The pixel density of this device is around 180 ppi, which isn’t so much, however, it’s good enough for a 3.2 inch screen. The Sony Xperia Tipo also has Multitouch, however, it’s not the advanced sorts of Multitouch which can support more than two simultaneous fingers. The screen protection of the Sony Xperia Tipo consists of a Scratch-Resistant Glass surface. That’s all there is to the screen of this phone, so let”s move on now.

SOUND

Next up we’ll be taking a brief look at the audio output capabilities of the Sony Xperia Tipo. Here we’ll be trying to see whether or not the Sony Xperia Tipo has any sound enhancements whatsoever on it, be them software-based or otherwise. I won’t go into other details, since most people already know about the Alert Types ( anything works ), Loudspeaker and 3.5 mm jack. This phone has no apparent sound enhancement on it, however, judging from the mere fact that the battery even mentions a Music Play time, I’d say that it’s a bit superior as far as music clarity goes to your regular phone. That’s about it for the sound of the Sony Xperia Tipo, so let’s move on now.

MEMORY

Next up we’ll be taking a look at the memory of the Sony Xperia Tipo. Here you can find out a bit about the RAM of the device, the internal storage space and see whether or not that internal storage space can be expanded and how. The Sony Xperia Tipo has 512 MB of RAM. I’d say it’s pretty decent, but if you are to compare to the current maximum of 2 GB, it’s a pretty big leap, is it not ? The internal storage space of the Sony Xperia Tipo is around 2.9 GB out of which only 2.5 GB are user-available. If that isn’t enough to satisfy your high demand for storage, know that the Sony Xperia Tipo has a Micro SD slot which can use any Micro SD card of up to 32 GB. That’s all that can be said for the memory, so let’s move on now to the next part.

DATA CONNECTION

Next up we’ll be taking a brief look at the connectivity of the Sony Xperia Tipo. Here you can find out a bit about the GPRS and EDGE of the device, the speed and WLAN as well as the Bluetooth, USB and other ( if any ) connections. The Sony Xperia Tipo has both GPRS and EDGE. While it isn’t mentioned what Class they each have, it is known what speed they can each reach. The GPRS can go up to 86 KB/s and the GPRS up to 237 KB/s. The Speed of the Sony Xperia Tipo can be measured as following : HSDPA at up to 7.2 MB/s and HSUPA at up to 5.76 MB/s. The WLAN of the Sony Xperia Tipo is a Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with Wi-Fi hotspot. This phone also has a Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP. The USB port of the Sony Xperia Tipo is a Micro USB v2.0 one. That’s it for the connectivity of the Sony Xperia Tipo, so let’s move on now.

CAMERA

Next up we’ll be taking a brief look at the camera of the Sony Xperia Tipo. Here you can find out a bit about the main and secondary cameras of the Sony Xperia Tipo ( if any ) and see their features and capabilities. The main camera of the Sony Xperia Tipo is a 3.15 MP snapper and it can photograph at resolutions of around 2048 x 1536 pixels. The only feature of this camera is : geo-tagging. The video recording quality of the main camera is VGA. The Sony Xperia Tipo has no secondary frontal camera, however, with such a weak main one, that was sort of expected. That’s about it for the camera of the Sony Xperia Tipo, so let’s move on now.

BATTERY LIFE

Next up we’ll be taking a look at the battery life of the Sony Xperia Tipo, since we know that battery life is usually quite a problem with Android Phones. Here you can find out about the battery type of the device and see how long said battery can function. The battery of the Sony Xperia Tipo is a Standard Li-Ion 1500 mAh battery. This battery can function for around : 470 hours of stand-by ( in 2G ) and 545 hours of stand-by ( in 3G ), up to 5 hours talk-time ( 2G ) and 4 hours and 30 minutes ( 3G ) and for up to 30 hours of continuous music play. That’s about all there is to the battery of the Sony Xperia Tipo, so let’s move on now.

HARDWARE

Next up we’ll be taking a brief look at the hardware of the Sony Xperia Tipo. Here you can find out a thing or two about the three main hardware components of this device : processor, motherboard and graphics card. The processor of the Sony Xperia Tipo is a Single-Core 800 MHz processor. This processor is accompanied by a Qualcomm MSM7227A chipset and an Adreno 200 GPU. All and all, the software of this device is pretty weak compared to that of most of the phones released nowadays. However, it’s sufficient for enough people. That being said, let’s move on now to the next part.

SOFTWARE

Next up we’ll review the OS of the device. Here you can find out a bit about the OS version of the phone and see whether or not it can, or needs, to be upgraded to a better one. The OS version of the Sony Xperia Tipo is Android OS v4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich. Since this is almost the latest version of the Android OS ( I believe the latest is v4.0.4 or something – anyway v4.0 ), there is no need for an upgrade. I’d say this phone is good, at least for another year or so. That’s it for this part, let’s move on to the final part.

FEATURES

Last but not least, we’ll take a brief look at the features and capabilities of the Sony Xperia Tipo. The sensors of the Sony Xperia Tipo are as following : Accelerometer, Proximity and Compass. The browser of this phone uses HTML but has no integrated support for Adobe Flash, which could prove somewhat problematic. The Sony Xperia Tipo also has a Stereo FM radio with RDS, a GPS with A-GPS support and Java via Java MIDP emulation. This phone is available in the following colors : Classic Black, Classic White, Deep Red and Navy Blue.

Here is a list of what the Sony Xperia Tipo can do :

• SNS integration
• MP4/H.264/WMV player
• MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player
• Organizer
• Document viewer
• Voice memo/dial
• Predictive text input

This concludes our little review of the Sony Xperia Tipo. If you feel that anything is lacking from this review feel free to leave your suggestions in the comment section below for things which should be added and I will be sure to take them into consideration when writing my future projects. In the meantime, I sincerely hope you had as much fun reading my little review as I had writing it.