Sony Ericsson Xperia Active

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Active is one of those odd phones that can survive underwater, help you lose weight and update your social networks, all in one go. But is it actually a decent mobile too?
Sony Ericsson's released a boat load of different Android smartphones this year. We've had two versions of its huge 4.2-inch Xperia Arc flagship, mid-range options such as the excellent Xperia Ray and Neo, plus the smaller Xperia Mini and Mini Pro for those on a tight pocket-space budget.

The Xperia Active sits somewhere at the lower end of that lot. You get a 3-inch capacitive Bravia Engine touchscreen running at 320 x 480 resolution, along with a 5MP camera with LED flash and the ability to record video at 720p resolution.

It's all stuffed in a dust and water-resistant case - plus a few health apps pre-loaded. And there's a stretchy armband in the box for wearing it at the gym, or just keeping it safe.

Prices for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active, at the time of reviewing, start at around £240 to buy an unlocked model, with monthly contracts available from around £20 depending on how many included minutes and texts you require.

This makes the Active a relatively modest cheaper option in this age of dual-core monster phones, plus you get water and dust resistance as a bonus.

The phone's certainly interesting to look at, with its lightweight brushed metallic surround and bright orange band making it look like an odd blend of mobile phone, kitchen utensil and emergency flotation device. The volume, camera and power buttons sit in the orange plastic bit, so are rather lightweight and flimsy - but that's your trade-off for having water resistance.

The screen is a 3-inch capacitive model that's very responsive and never misses a touch, plus Sony Ericsson claims it has "wet finger tracking" so you can use the thing while it and your hands are both soaking wet. And yes, you can.
As with Sony Ericsson's Xperia Arc and the rest of its 2011 lineup, the screen also uses the company's Bravia Engine and Reality Display technology...

..although with a low-end resolution of only 320 x 480, it makes no difference, and it's nothing like as sharp or vibrant as the superb displays found on the Xperia Arc S and Xperia Ray.

There are no physical buttons on the face of the Active, just three capacitive touch buttons along the bottom - for Back, Home and Menu - with the Active responding to touches of these pretend buttons perfectly and without lag.

There is also a custom camera shutter button on the bottom-right edge, but it's a pretty rubbish one. It does feature a two-stage press for focusing then pressing harder to shoot, but it's rather tiny and plasticky, so it's all a bit vague.
At least there's an LED flash around the back, plus the sensor is deeply recessed into the case, giving it a little protection against scratches and general grime.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Active's chunky body feels good in the hand, thanks to its curved, rubbery back. One-handed use is straightforward, with the touch buttons high up enough for easy access, and the phone feels nicely balanced. It's not one you'll worry about dropping.

The outdoor credentials are hinted at by the Active's USB connector and headphone jack, which are placed on the bottom edge of the phone, hidden behind fat rubber doors that seal them shut and keep water out.

Take the back off and you get more reassurance that the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active can survive a few seconds in the toilet. There's a secondary back cover inside the outer case, which sits snugly over the top of the internal bits and does indeed keep it watertight.t's an odd-looking little handset. The orange plastic gives it a bit of a toy town appearance, but the silvery button icons and curved, rubberised back just about bring it back into smart gadget territory.

Interface

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Active arrives running Android 2.3.4, with Sony Ericsson applying its usual user interface over the top.

Again, the Active sits somewhere in the middle of the company's 2011 mobile phone range, taking the 'four corners' icon system we saw working to such great effect on the Xperia Mini and Mini Pro and teaming it with the Android 2.3.4 software, which has all the same options and nuances found in the much larger Xperia Arc S.

The basic system is Android as usual - five scrolling Home pages that take a mixture of app shortcuts, icons and live widgets.....and if that's not enough space for all your app shortcuts, Sony Ericsson has stuck a collapsing icon slot in the corner of the screen, each of which can hold an additional four app-launching icons.

Editing these links is simple. Long-pressing on an icon enables you to bin it or pull it out and drop it on to the Home screen. Or, if you're browsing the phone's app listings, holding one of those enables you to pull it into a vacant corner slot.

There's another new little app-dragging feature that arrived in Sony Ericsson's 2.3.4 software update - Facebook sharing. When dragging an icon, a little blue pull-down tab appears along the top of the screen, letting you drop the icon on to it and generate a Facebook status update with a link to the app's Android Market listing.

Sony Ericsson has also included folder support for quite some time. Dragging one app on top of another leads the phone to assume you want to make a folder, so up pops a folder, along with the option to give it a name.

There are also plenty of widgets on the Xperia Active, which are Android's way of adding interactive content to your Home pages. The Favourites & Call Log above is one of the best options, pulling out your favourite contacts and sticking their icons into a grid, with a separate tab showing recent calling activity.
It's well worth donating a Home screen to it, if you're a big user of today's smartphone's legacy phoning features.

If you're not impressed by Sony Ericsson's slightly bland visual approach, there are a few Themes to jazz it up. They're little more than wallpapers that change the Home screen background and add a subtle effect to the Menu pages, but it's a useful option.

And, of course, the phone supports Android's animating Live Wallpapers, although only one, Google's Maps background, comes pre-loaded. It worked without crunching up the phone or causing any drop in performance.

Contacts and calling

The Contacts section of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active is the same as those found in the rest of Sony Ericsson's 2011 Android smartphone range, combining your standard massive list of everyone you've ever met with a few clever new Facebook social features.As well as taking contact details from your SIM card and Gmail account, the phone will pull in all your friends from Facebook and Twitter, should you sign in with those accounts, magically populating your phone with everyone you've ever exchanged an internet wisecrack with.

One of Sony Ericsson's bigger Android tweaks is hidden in this section, with any contacts that have Facebook accounts associated with them getting their own mini Facebook tab within your contacts area. The Xperia Active downloads photos of your friend, presenting you with a miniature Facebook listing within the contacts area - complete with their 'interests' data from the social site.

Calling quality is good. The earpiece is loud and clear, with calls coming across bright and natural-sounding.
There's a second mic around the back of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active, which gives the phone noise-suppression abilities to make calling clearer still. It can be toggled on and off in the Call Settings, depending on if you like the way it alters the audio output. It's not a big change.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Active is a perfectly nice little smartphone, which isn't compromised in any way because of its outdoor/sporty ambitions.

The Android 2.3.4 software is packed with functionality and extra features added as part of Sony Ericsson's user interface, with the phone featuring a good camera, decent enough 720p video output and generally smooth, hassle-free operation all round.

Merits

The capacitive water-resistant screen is very sensitive to the touch, with no noticeable slowness or hindrance caused by its waterproofing and 'wet finger' sensitivity.
Sony Ericsson's Android customisations are nice, for the most part, adding in little animations, user-friendly icon dragging and dropping features, Facebook stuff all over the place and hiding away many more clever touches to discover.
It really is waterproof. The very last thing we did when compiling this review, just in case, was dunk it in the sink for a few minutes. It survived. Everything still works. The rubbery stoppers and secondary internal case do the job.

Demerits

The low-end screen resolution of 320 x 480 means text isn't as sharp as it is on many other Android smartphones today. It's not unreadable and does work well in outdoor light, but if you do a lot of reading the slight blotchiness may become an annoyance.
Despite its toughness claims, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active feels rather light and plasticky. We haven't exactly tested it to destruction, but it doesn't feel like a tough, outdoor phone. Plus the plastic buttons around the edges, and the camera button in particular, seem rather flimsy.
Media playback is once again a weak point on a Sony Ericsson phone. You won't be copying across your AVI film collection to this one, not without converting everything to MP4 beforehand.

Verdict

It's another good performer from Sony Ericsson. The Xperia Active is little more than the company's Xperia Mini in a chunky, water-resistant case, but if that's what you want... this is it.
We're used to 'outdoor' mobile phones coming in awful shells and lacking features, but that's not the case here. The Sony Ericsson Xperia Active is a fast, usable, modern smartphone, that just so happens to be a bit better sealed off from rain and coffee than most.
The only possible competition for the Xperia Active comes from Motorola's Defy and the newer Defy+, which, with their huge screens and extra-bulky builds, are aimed at completely different people.
If you want a perfectly capable, cute, light and small phone that's waterproof and doesn't compromise on performance, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active's a fine choice. Your only choice, but still a perfectly good one.

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