I have been using this phone for 20 days and this below is what I feel.
I will not be dividing into pros and cons, please bear.
1) The camera is excellent with lots of pics better than my DSC and frankly speaking, for that WOW moment you wont have time to bring out, switch on your DSC to capture it, but this phone does just this with awe. Very fast capture speed. JUST one problem, sometimes there is extra light in indoor night shots.
2) The UI is great, snappy and fast. And I have tried other launchers too like GO and ADW, but the inbuilt one feels the best without any sort of lag. For me, the 5 home screens(fixed) are a little less than enough.
3) The display is just mindblowing and could give AMOLED a run for their money, specially with SONY's new White Magic Technology which ensures you dont have pain while reading outdoors.
4) The loudspeaker volume is a little lower han expected and I frankly dont know what that XLOUD is there for, but plug in the provided headset or Creative speakers and you will know what SONY is made up of. Its unbelievable.
5) The screen has enough area for an user, I just dont feel one with the 4.7 inch ones.
6) Though its running Gingerbread, its great and stable too. And ICS is on the way, so no problem there. Please dont reject the phone with this as an excuse. Sony has already released a firmware update 6.0.B.3.184 in the meantime for fixing some network problems I am going to speak about later.
7) When I bought the phone, I was using AIRTEL and there was a significant network drop issue(when I held the phone covering the transparent strip, network dropped to 1 bar) though I did not have dropped call issue. I was inclined to call it DEATH GRIP but since it wasnt happening outdoors, it was a sofware issue which is fixed with the latest update. I use a Vodafone now and get a 3g speed of 2 to 3 Mbps without any kind of network drop, so I guess it was a signal issue.
8) Battery life is good but not great, which I donot expect from an Android phone, and considering that I am a hardcore use, it lasts me more than 1 and a half days with ease.
9) I have played games like ANGRY BIRDS, NFS SHIFT, TEMPLE RUN, without any lag, hitch or crash whatsoever. I use MoboPlayer but the stock player is as good. The music player is excellent. And Track ID is just so cooooool.
10) For the record, my phone has not hanged a single time since I turned it on while buying the set.
11) In display, I will give it 20 out of 10, just for its innovative transparent strip design and metal feel, with the colour.
12) Some great apps to download are 3G watchdog for monitoring data usage, Pulse for news feed, Prey for tracking down mobile, Adobe Reader and so on.
13) Believe me 16 GB on board memory is more than enough for users if you plan to use it like a mobile phone and not anything else.
14) Connectivity: HDMI is great with a dedicated TV launcher pre installed, Nokia Headsets are not working with it( I use WH-701), USB on-the-go is working like a charm, NFC is also there, and WIFI I havent used yet.
15) One of the more surprising features is the Greenheart Power Booster Charger. It efficiently charges my phone from 15% to 100% in 2 to 3 hours.
So thats almost all of it. Now make a wise decision and do adequate research, but I can tell you this, If 25000 is your budget, close your eyes and go for this set, you wont regret it.
