Sony Xperia acro S - Armored Droid

The Sony Xperia acro S is a ruggedized version of the Sony Xperia S released earlier this year. With a 4.3-inch 720p display (720 x 1280), which makes it the sharpest display on a smartphone, and a 12 MP camera, the Xperia S was a very impressive Android phone when it because available in February 2012. By the time it was released locally late summer this year, its dual core Qualcomm S3 was not too impressive compared to the like of the newer Qualcomm S4 or Nvidia Tegra 3. As much as Sony tweaked and improved the Qualcomm S3 is was still a 2011 chipset in a 2012 phone. Also, the Xperia S used the older standard four Gingerbread buttons than the new three button Ice Cream Sandwich/Jelly Bean standard. The Xperia S came out of the box with Gingerbread, but it still has  receive the promised Ice Cream Sandwich update. Finally, instead of a HSDPA+ 21.1 Mbps radio, you have a HSDPA 14.4 Mbps radio. Given that the local networks do have HSDPA+ 21.1 Mbps towers, the faster radio would be welcome. Does the Xperia acro S fix this?

In short, no, yes, yes and no. The Xperia acro S still has the same dual core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm S3 based processor. Even at the Xperia arco S street price of Php24,500 it does look like a great deal with the quad core HTC One X sitting just 1K away.

But the Acro S does get updated Ice Cream Sandwich/Jelly Bean standard capacitative buttons and now does come out of the box with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. For the radio we have the old HSDPA 14.4 Mbps affair. At its current price, well I would lean towards recommending the HTC One X more. 

Its sibling the Xperia S, will cost you 1.5 to 2K less than an Xperia acro S. Would that be a better deal. Well the Xperia acro S does come with a larger 1910 mAh battery as compared to the 1750 mAh unit on the Xperia S. Also the Xperia acro S adds a MicroSD card slot. On the other hand the the Xperia S has more built in storage at 32 GB versus the 16 GB on the Acro S.

In the end the real reason to buy the Xperi acro S is because it is a rugged phone, IP57 certified to be dust and water resistant, and with a reinforced front glass. In the end you should not compare this phone with the HTC One X, Galaxy S III or Xperia S. It is a niche product for those looking for a hihg end rugged smartphone.