Sony smartphone buying guide
- — 28 May, 2012 11:55
If you're wondering where the Ericsson name has gone, Sony Ericsson is no longer. In October 2011 Sony paid Ericsson US$1.45 billion to buy out its share of the Sony Ericsson joint venture. Sony therefore took sole control of the Sony Ericsson brand.
Sony is best known for its Walkman range of mobile phones, which were popular before the rise of smartphones. Today, it mainly focuses on producing smartphones running the Google Android software platform with its Xperia brand.
Sony Xperia range
Although the likes of HTC and Samsung are widely considered the leading Android phone manufacturers, Sony does hold one advantage over both of these competitors: where both HTC and Samsung also produce Windows Phone smartphones, Sony focuses almost solely on the Android platform for its smartphones.
The XPERIA brand is Sony's dedicated line of Android phones. It came about in early 2010 with the launch of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 — the company's first Android phone. It had a 4in screen, which at the time was one of the largest on the market, and was also powered by an impressive 1GHz processor.
Sony's current flagship Android phone is the Xperia S. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc and Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play are other notable current models. The latter was dubbed the 'PlayStation phone' and features a 4in multi-touch display, a touch-sensitive joystick, a D-pad and four of the PlayStation's famous control buttons; triangle, square, circle and X. It intended to combine a smartphone with a portable gaming console.
