Hands-On With Sony Ericsson?s Xperia Arc Smartphone

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Sony Ericsson announced the latest addition to its high-end Xperia series of smartphones last week at CES with the debut of the Xperia Arc.

It’s a slick little number, and I got to spend a bit of time playing with it on the show floor.

The Arc’s screen measures in at an expansive 4.2 inches, a screen size proving to be very popular in smartphone announcements this week. The 849 x 480 resolution on the capacitive touchscreen highlights visual media well, and Sony is doing all it can to play up the entertainment-hub aspects of the Arc. HDMI-out lets you hook up to an HDTV with an HD cable — which comes included with the phone, saving you another trip to Best Buy.

And much like Motorola’s new Atrix, when hooking the phone up to a TV-out, the Arc’s UI is replicated on the screen, even rotating depending on the position of the phone. Essentially, you can turn your TV into a wireless device and start web browsing or watch YouTube videos through the phone to your big screen.

The 8.1-megapixel back-facing camera is easy to shoot with, especially on the Arc’s very bright screen. It’s also capable of recording video at HD 720p, which looked and ran smooth in playback on the Arc itself.

While many of the phones we saw announced last week will be running Froyo, the Xperia Arc has a leg up on its competitors with the latest Android OS release, Gingerbread 2.3. At a show where many of the big manufacturers are showcasing two or three new Android smartphones with none of them running Gingerbread, it was a refreshing change of pace to see Sony Ericsson’s up-to-date offering.

Most striking about the Arc is its titular shape, measuring in at a very slim 8.7mm at the phone’s waist. While the shape of the Arc is a nice fit for resting in the hand, it’s essentially an exercise in creating attractive industrial design, and I think it works. The metallic-blue finish on the back cover and the silver sheen on the phone’s sides give it a damn fine look.

I was a bit concerned with the plastic construction, as there wasn’t a lot of metal composing the outside of the phone casing. On the plus side, it keeps the phone light and not too bulky, but I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that it might not hold up to a good drop from a high-enough spot.

The Xperia Arc is indeed a high-end phone, and though Sony Ericsson didn’t give any exact details on pricing, the company “anticipates a premium smartphone price” upon its release. We should start to see the Arc pop up globally some time in the spring.

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