[REF] Why I bought my Xperia SP

Bert98 said:

Hi all. I didn't get my SP yet - I'll buy it in June-July - but I'm almost sure I'll get this phone, because my budget is ~250-300€ and now it costs 279, so it's perfectly in that price range.
What made me choose it is definitely the LED bar, coming from an Xperia U I'll miss it if I get another phone
Another reason is the screen, because a 3.5" is too small for my hands, and seeing my sister's Galaxy S3 (4.7") I can reach all of the screen with one hand, so it's perfect
Plus, I love Sony's customizations.
The only phone that will make me change my mind about this purchase is the Z1 compact, if it drops to ~350€ I'll get that one, but it's very improbable
So, I think I'll be part of this community soon :thumbup:


Inviato dal mio Xperia U utilizzando Tapatalk

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(This post is mainly focused on performance and cpu and gpu specs, if you don't know/care about that please ignore it)


Right now, and until the snapdragon 600 phones (s4, htc one, lg g pro...) prices drop significantly (which can take more than a year) the xperia sp is definitely the best or one of the best phones you can buy for ~250€ (yes, you can buy it right now online unlocked for that price in the UE)... and it's really simple why.

Sony's (and qualcomm in general) strategy for midranges this year is the snapdragon 400 which is inferior in all its variants to the S4Pro that the SP has. They opted for the adreno 305 gpu in every single model (the SP has a far superior 320), quadcores with cortex A7 and the same dualcore krait with clocks up to 1.7ghz, which are inferior or equal to the xperia's SP. [yes, even its "sucessors", the xperia G and M2 are worse than the SP itself, which is kind of ridiculous]

Plus, the Xperia SP optimization is really good, outperforming some quadcores with similar processing units, like the nexus 4.

So my advice is get one soon, before they sold out and you get stuck with the new crappy midrange phones that qualcomm wants you to buy.

pm2lp said:

(This post is mainly focused on performance and cpu and gpu specs, if you don't know/care about that please ignore it)


Right now, and until the snapdragon 600 phones (s4, htc one, lg g pro...) prices drop significantly (which can take more than a year) the xperia sp is definitely the best or one of the best phones you can buy for ~250€ (yes, you can buy it right now online unlocked for that price in the UE)... and it's really simple why.

Sony's (and qualcomm in general) strategy for midranges this year is the snapdragon 400 which is inferior in all its variants to the S4Pro that the SP has. They opted for the adreno 305 gpu in every single model (the SP has a far superior 320), quadcores with cortex A7 and the same dualcore krait with clocks up to 1.7ghz, which are inferior or equal to the xperia's SP. [yes, even its "sucessors", the xperia G and M2 are worse than the SP itself, which is kind of ridiculous]

Plus, the Xperia SP optimization is really good, outperforming some quadcores with similar processing units, like the nexus 4.

So my advice is get one soon, before they sold out and you get stuck with the new crappy midrange phones that qualcomm wants you to buy.

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Thanks a lot, I'll try to anticipate the purchase before it's off market thanks a lot, I had this impression too but i wasn't sure

Inviato dal mio Xperia U utilizzando Tapatalk

Here's a simple answer which may solve everybody's query:

Why settle down with cheap plastic, when you get a premium design precise crafted with a hardware that is twice as powerful as its competitors.....

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Now, lets compare the hardware:
Krait 200 > Cortex A7
Single thread 1.7GHz > Single thread 1.5Ghz
Adreno 320 > Adreno 305
8GB Internal + 32GB Expandable is a complete winner

Hey yall, I'm also considering getting the SP but there seems to be something bothering me about what I've read in the thread about, using 4.3 (ram issue). So a few questions:

1. Does all 4.3 based roms have this problem e.g CM10.2
2. What is the biggest let down on this phone

Specs are a bonus for me, I'm more concerned about real world performance.
:laugh: Thank you in advance

9

My previous phone for more than two years was SE Xperia Live with Walkman. I did enjoyed it for some time, it was compact ant ergonomic yet screen (3.2") shrunk among all 4+-inchers (time was not kind for battery also) so I needed new smart. I didn't needed BIG screen, high-end specs and I was not impressed with the idea of spending 400 euros on phone.

What other options did I have to choose?

• Lumia 920;
• Nexus 4;
• SGS 3;
• SGS 4 mini;
• SGS 2 plus;
• and a bunch of others.

Fist two options are quite old and rare to get and do not support microSD; not to mention that WP OS lacks ability to record phone calls; and other are SameSongs
SP is reasonably priced, specs are more than needed, it has quite a battery and of course - sexy LED bar (and overall design of this device is amazing). A bit disappointed by the front camera, but selfies is not my kinda thing.

I bought my SP because it was the best phone I could see in this price range, I wanted a 4g ready phone with 1gb ram, at least 4 inch screen, decent GPU/CPU combo and good build quality. This phone met all those requirements and it had a few bonuses like the light bar which looks awesome and the 8MP camera which isn't as bad as people say for a mid ranger. My previous phones were ZTE Skate, Huawei Honor and LG Optimus L9, only the L9 got an official update which took forever! Was kinda hoping Sony were a bit better in the software aspect, but I have hopes that the new 192 update will sort this phone out! Stock 4.1 is fine for now

Sent from my C6906 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Bought mine because it was only SGD30 for a 2 year plan with the provider.

Got mine because my optimus 4x was water damaged and the rotation sensor failed. I chose it because it has good gaming specs, decent battery life and some nice ROMs going for it. Wish it was 16gb internal though, gonna need 64gb sdcard soon!

Sent while my supervisor wasn't looking

Hi, I'm wondering if i should get the Xperia SP, but my problem is that the screen is too big for me, and the front camera is only vga... Could someone please recommend a phone with the aprox. same specs and a smaller hd screen and a front camera that is better than vga?

I owned 3 smartphones before the Sony Xperia SP.
In order from earliest to latest, they are: Samsung Galaxy Mini, Nokia 603 and Samsung Galaxy W.
The latter two are still operating alongside Xperia SP now.

Back in January 2011, my Nokia 5610's display went dead, and repairing it doesn't make much sense. I've to get another phone, and since many are using the Galaxy Mini, I gave it a try. Because I'm using SingTel Prepaid back then, I'm limited to GPRS all the time (I don't have WiFi). Things are not as fast, but it's still serviceable. Over time, the phone's CPU and RAM couldn't catch up with my increasingly demand for daily task and lags very badly. It was only March 2011.

I knew it's too early for renewal so I waited until November 2011, when my mum's mobile contract is up, I asked to get the Nokia 603. Same story for Nokia 603, but it gets unbearable by April 2012 and I asked for a change in August 2012 for Samsung Galaxy W. I went for SingTel 3G Prepaid now, thinking it should improve the situation.

This situation didn't improve much. I've to root and install custom ROM on the Samsung Galaxy W to get away from the laggy TouchWiz UX by December 2012. Tried CM10 with Sony's skin on top, and the phone actually doesn't lag that much. Some stutters here and there, but it's still better than TouchWiz UX.

By February 2013, I know my next phone is going to be from Sony Mobile. I tested the Sony Xperia Z, and I liked it. However, the pricetag of S$988 is a little too high for me back then, especially when I upgraded my phones in less than 1 year gap. I waiting patiently until 4 May 2013, and saw the Sony Xperia SP with M1 Prepaid for only S$518 on the newspaper.

It launched in Singapore on 26 April 2013, at S$598. Since it's S$80 cheaper with the bundle, why bought buy it, since the video reviews said it is good. The Transparent Elements (Illumination belt) impresses me too.

So I bought it on 5 May 2013, porting my number to rival M1 in the process. I joined the Sony Xperia SP Facebook group a few days after, and see it grew from less than 50 members to over 10,000.
Thanks to M1, I'm connected to the 4G LTE network when I activated data plans. Pairing the Snapdragon S4 Pro with LTE, the Xperia SP is operating smoothly* throughout this 11 month of cycle. Some hiccups, but not that big of a problem like the previous handsets...

FYI: I still love this phone even after 11 months of usage. The QMR update that arrived brings me back to why I bought the phone: Transparent Elements.

* Many are heading back to Android 4.1.2 because they find Android 4.3 laggy. I agree that it's laggy first, but when I turned on Developer Options and set the 3 animation scales to 0.5x, it's very smooth.

Flawless Gaming!

Being a hardcore gamer I needed a phone which would be small enough to hold yet big enough to see everything clearly.

This beast has a high performance GPU - Adreno 320

I mostly play HD games like Nova 3, Asphalt 8 (High Settings), Ravensword Shadowlands etc.

And my SP lets me play 'em all without any efforts or lags :victory:

wax911 said:

Hey yall, I'm also considering getting the SP but there seems to be something bothering me about what I've read in the thread about, using 4.3 (ram issue). So a few questions:

1. Does all 4.3 based roms have this problem e.g CM10.2
2. What is the biggest let down on this phone

Specs are a bonus for me, I'm more concerned about real world performance.
:laugh: Thank you in advance

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Click to collapse

Stock 12.1.A.1.201 fixes a lot of problems. Users are still complaining it lags because they didn't follow my method to make the device faster.
Enable Developer Options (Settings -> About phone -> Tap Build Number 7 times), set the 3 animation scales to 0.5x each. Speed boost and RAM seems to free up even more after a restart. Try it and you'll see the difference.

dotzev said:

Hi, I'm wondering if i should get the Xperia SP, but my problem is that the screen is too big for me, and the front camera is only vga... Could someone please recommend a phone with the aprox. same specs and a smaller hd screen and a front camera that is better than vga?

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Click to collapse

Same specs would only be Moto X (bigger screen though). Moto G would be a good option if you no need the powerful Adreno 320 GPU.