The 1 GHz Scorpion processor and 512 MB of RAM make the machine fast enough to Android 2.3 Gingerbread easily run. The Xperia Ray is 9.4 mm thick and has a 8 megapixel camera for 720p HD video can be shot. Sony Ericsson has opted for a sleek design, making the phone stand out positively, but only with good looks will not do.
Packaging
To the the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray delivered neatly packaged and complete. You'll find the next Xperia Ray with a charging plug Micro USB cable, earbuds, a short manual and some extra booklets with technical information. The charger should be used with the MicroUSB cable to the phone to charge. Everything you need to use the phone to get started is provided.
Design
In appearance it looks, the Sony Ericsson Xperia streamlined. The unit is well finished and feels very solid even though it is made entirely of plastic. The 3.3 inch screen has a 16:9 aspect ratio and thus it seems that the device is stretched. Most devices with a similar screen size have a 3:2 ratio where Ray is very elongated in proportion. Because of this different format, the phone is surprisingly good in the hand and is easy to operate with one hand.
Below the screen are three buttons, including a large home button and two smaller capacitive buttons. To the home button that looks like a semicircle is a luminous band made that used to display notifications and also lights up when the Xperia Ray recharging.
At the top sits a power button and a 3.5 mm audio jack. The latter puts out something which is less elegant. On the left is a MicroUSB connector on the top, in the same place on the right side of the menu buttons.
The back is completely flat with a particular camera is pretty hidden. This does not protrude from which you also stable Ray put on a table. The camera lens is unprotected and can quickly become dirty. The external speaker is under the Sony Ericsson logo. The phone has two microphones, one which is just below the camera on the back is.
Is inside the ray is finished off. Pity is that the battery is positioned so that you can not remove MicroSD card without the phone off. By default, a 4 GB card included. If you need more data storage, your best bet a larger MicroSD card so you do not buy too many tickets have to be changed.
Screen
The screen provides a large extent how well a smartphone performs. With 3.3 inch screen of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray a risky choice. Because using a resolution of 854 × 480 means that the screen has a pixel density of 297 ppi. At 300 dpi the human eye sees no distinction between pixels. Result is extremely sharp images and text are given on the Xperia Ray.
The used LCD is of good quality and contrast is great. Ray uses the mobile BRAVIA Engine and Sony that is seen. If your phone right in front of you screen looks very good and is very faithful color reproduction. Also, dark colors are really dark. Look at an angle from a distance you see the color soon decline, something difficult to solve with an LCD screen.
Operating System: Android 2.3 Gingerbread with Timescape UI
If you are familiar with the Sony Ericsson skin then you will not have too much difficulty with the Timescape UIsoftwarelaag over Android 2.3 Gingerbread is applied. Compared with the skins of other manufacturers like HTC Sense is not too intrusive and generally quite useful everywhere. You have five home screens with five permanent icons in the dock bar. It is not possible to add more home screens. The five icons are media, messages, contacts, phone and application launcher. One of the most prominent applications is the overview mode. By the fingers towards you to get see all the widgets and icons of all home screens in a screen as they move back and forth.
The famous Sony Ericsson widgets such as Timescape and videos are also available on the Xperia Ray. These work in a kind of carousel with you through messages and videos can run around. A useful addition is that you have folders with icons on the home screen can be placed. The lock screen looks pretty standard, but notifications are also displayed. Especially the Facebook integration is extensive. The application list can be sorted in several ways such as alphabetically or most. That last option is useful to quickly access your favorite apps.
Call
The sound quality of a phone is good. Voices are well understood, although sometimes a bit on the soft side which can be problematic in crowded environments with high background noise. The connection is stable and does not leave. The proximity sensor is the touch screen when you lock the phone to your ear so you do not accidentally pushes someone in your ear. Video calling is also possible by the front camera, and it generally works pretty well and with an acceptable image quality.
To each contact in the phonebook of the Ray is much more information can be added. Besides numbers and address information is also additional information about various social networks depending on availability. For example, Facebook Photos displayed when a contact in another tab. You can also send contacts from multiple accounts simultaneously (eg Gmail and Exchange), or choose only the contacts of an account display. You can easily search by name. If you get a call you can send it straight to voicemail if you do not want to answer directly. You can also hang a personal ringtone to a contact.
Connectivity
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray supports Wi-Fi b / g / n and can be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot. The latter is especially useful if you're traveling and want internet on your laptop or tablet. DLNA is also supported, but more on that later. Ray supports HSDPA at speeds of 7.2 Mbps. It is very dependent on your provider what speeds you achieve this. In general, the mobile connection fast enough to check your mail and send order and some news sites to visit.
The Xpera Ray supports USB On-The-Go so you can connect a USB device like a USB stick or a keyboard. This should be via the MicroUSB connector. Sony Ericsson has also added a live real manager app which you can set the phone what to do when you connect a device. As running the music player when you connect headphones. Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP is also present.
Internet
The browser has a lot to suffer from the relatively small 3.3 inch screen. Although websites are fully displayed is not practical on the small screen because the text is nearly unreadable. Zooming through pinch-to-zoom (pinch) or double tap works quite quickly but in graphic heavy sites sometimes it takes a little longer before everything is properly aligned.
Sony Ericsson has virtually no changes to the Gingerbread browser and that's a good thing. The minimalist design with only one address bar is perfect for use on Ray. You can add pages to your browser, multiple tabs open and easily cut and paste text. Flash is also supported. Watching YouTube videos (especially at low resolutions) has no problem with Flash games and usually work well.
A welcome addition to Sony Ericsson Data Control to the app, as the name suggests, monitors the amount of data you consume. You can also set you like to be notified if you are near your data limit is. A handy extra that sadly becoming more necessary because there are few real unlimited data subscriptions.
E-mail/berichten/toetsenbord
The extensive discussion of the SMS application appears more and more necessary with the advent of WhatsApp but the service remains essential. SMS messages are displayed in threads, like a chat window. You can easily manage text messages and you have the ability to harden them. Useful if you receive a login code via SMS that not everyone needs to see. If you have a picture or a sound file to a text message is automatically changed to hanging a picture.
An Android phone can not go without Gmail and it is also present on the Xperia Ray. Enter your details once, and you going. There is little to notice the Gmail app, just that it lacks a universal mailbox. Something which is handy if you have multiple Gmail accounts used. There is also a standard email app for POP and IMAP account that is adequate. You have a little more setup work, but it works properly. Unlike the Gmail app, this app is a universal email inbox. If you use the phone in portrait mode you can also get a preview of the email if you go through your inbox. This is useful to quickly check your mail.
A 3.3 inch screen means that there are a few concessions, and unfortunately you still confronted with one of them. The keyboard in portrait mode is compatible with a full QWERTY layout, but this touch is not really well with multiple fingers. Type with two thumbs and let the auto-correction enabled then you must be pretty fast typist. You can also choose the type of T9 layout but it's a lot harder to really fast with it, if you rotate the screen ninety degrees, you can also type in landscape mode with a full QWERTY keyboard.
Camera
The 8 mega pixel camera with flash looks good on paper, especially the Exmor R sensor, backlit in the dark that you also need to make good pictures. The interface of the camera app looks uncluttered with the settings left and right a gallery with latest photographs and videos. To see more settings you can flick right. You can include a self-timer or photo light that change.
There are several shooting modes, including smile detection, so you always have happy faces in your pictures have. You can also special 3D panoramas over the phone from left to right. It lacks a physical camera button on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray, but that is fixed because you can tap the screen to a picture. You can thus also focus wherever you want in the picture.
The quality of the pictures is good but not great for an 8 megapixel camera. The contrast is good and the color is pretty. Sometimes seem a little too overexposed images too, but generally you with peace of mind your normal camera at home. In the dark, the pictures seem a little better by the special Exmor sensor, but you do not really notice much difference.
The video quality of the Xperia Ray is pretty good. HD video in 720p looks good and the recorded sound is clear. The film images look smooth and you have no problems with dropped frames. For the latter seems to be some savings in the display of details, but generally you can make pretty good movies on YouTube will not hurt.
The gallery that created images and videos can be found, the default Android gallery. This is hardly changed by Sony Ericsson. Albums are sorted into piles and can dismantle them "open up" with your fingers. A useful extra is a Facebook photo albums can be displayed in the gallery. Images are rapidly dividing by the known social networks.