The Sony Xperia acro S is an interesting handset because of its capabilities. It comes with an IP57 rating, which means, like the Motorola Defy XT, it's water- and dust-resistant. Unlike the Defy XT though, the handset comes packed with high-end features like a dual-core processor as well as a 4.3-inch 720p HD display.
Design
The Xperia acro S is shaped like other Xperia handsets from Sony's NXT design range. However, there are some differences--the lighted strip is missing, and the smartphone's connectors are all found at the top instead.
The micro-USB, micro-HDMI as well as the 3.5mm audio jack ports are found under shiny plastic latches, and these are watertight. Based on the IP57 rating, you'll be able to submerge the acro S 1m underwater for up to 30 minutes.
Covered in plastic and glass, the acro S doesn't seem quite as premium as the other NXT design handsets, but does give a reassuring solid feel. It's just a shame that the plastics at the rear are way too smooth and the smartphone may slip out of your hand. It did, however, survive the drops unscathed.
The acro S uses a scratch-resistant 4.3-inch 720p HD Reality Display. The screen was bright and viewable even under direct sunlight, while colors were vibrant. You'll also have no issues with the viewing angles of the handset.
Lastly, the smartphone packs a non-removable 1,910mAh battery. It has 16GB of onboard storage, and you can add extra capacity of up to 32GB with a microSD card. The slot is located on the left, next to the SIM card slot--both have their own respective plastic covers.
Features
Loaded with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), the acro S is one of the first ICS handsets from Sony. Other Sony handsets came loaded with Gingerbread (Android 2.3) first, before they got upgraded. That said, Sony's implementation for ICS is quite frankly, terrible.
If you thought some manufacturers attempts to "Gingerbread" the Ice Cream Sandwich experience was bad, you haven't seen Sony's feeble effort yet. The menu button doesn't really do anything much but calls up two buttons at the top of the screen. One allows you to set the wallpaper and theme, the other lets you add widgets. We would have preferred a Gingerbread experience or the stock Nexus app switcher compared with this useless tweak.
If you want to access widgets from the app drawer, forget it. Sony has removed this ability. It doesn't make any sense, especially when both Samsung and LG's customizations at least keeps this ICS feature intact.
Apart from this odd design change though, we found the handset easy to use. Sony's Timescape widgets are still present, though you don't have to use them.
Apart from being water- and dust-resistant, the acro S also features wet-finger tracking. You'll be able to interact with the touchscreen even if it's wet, unlike the Motorola Defy XT. As mentioned earlier, you can submerge the handset underwater for 30 minutes up to a depth of 1m, so you'll also be able to bring the handset with you into the shower.
The acro S comes with a bundled dock, but we note that you can't actually use it to sync with your PC. The dock will only charge your phone when it's plugged into a power source. Plugging the dock into a USB port does nothing.
The 12.1-megapixel camera's performance was average. While the shutter was relatively fast, you won't be able to use touch to focus unless you switch to Touch capture mode. It seems inefficient, especially since other smartphones allow you to combine touch to focus as well as using a software key to take a picture. If you're using either the onscreen shutter button or the dedicated camera button, you're stuck with a center-weighted focus.
Update (Aug 08, 1600 GMT+8): We checked with Sony and it turns out that touch focus does exist, but it's not accessible when you are using the the auto mode (which is our normal test setting for our smartphones). So yes, you can touch the screen to focus, you just have to find out how to turn it on.
As for the image quality of the Xperia acro S, we found that images retained plenty of detail, though our indoor test shots showed some light noise.
Performance
Powered by a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, the acro S was smooth as butter. The camera startup is likely the slowest experience of us using the handset--though we note that this only happens when we used the dedicated camera button. Accessing the camera using the app was quick.
The handset's speaker volume was loud, but with the speaker positioned behind the handset we sometimes couldn't hear what was being said when using the speakerphone mode even at maximum volume.
As for battery life, we managed to get slightly over one day's use out of the non-removable 1910mAh battery. This was done on our usual test settings of having two Gmail accounts, Twitter as well as Facebook on push.
Outlook
Sony's Xperia acro S is one handset that you will appreciate if you're an outdoor enthusiast. Its large 4.3-inch display is visible under bright sunlight, while the handset itself will survive rainy weather conditions as well as a trip to the beach. Sony has not yet confirmed a Jelly Bean upgrade for the smartphone, but a Sony spokesperson has said that the company is investigating the upgrade. The Xperia acro S retails for S$698 in Singapore, and will also be available in Indonesia.
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