The Sony Xperia TL is the latest in a long line of attempts past Sony to produce the telephone that fits comfortably in a smartphone world dominated by Android. Since the visitor embraced Android with the Xperia X10, it has released an countless flow of devices that have been greeted with excited praise for its hardware prowess and biting thwarting for its software frustrations.

Each iteration of Sony'south flagship device has improved and been meliorate than the previous version, but no single effort has been but correct. The Xperia TL, bachelor now on AT&T, is as shut as the company has come up to finding the smartphone sweet spot, but is that skilful enough to compete with other Android manufacturers with a meliorate track record? Is it expert enough to compete with the best from Apple or Windows Phone 8 entrants?

James Bond seems to call up so. The Sony Xperia TL gets quite a bit of product placement in the latest Bond flick, Skyfall, popping upwards equally Britain'southward greatest fictional spy goes on secret missions to save the world and get the girl. If it's good enough for the globe's most debonair spy, surely the Xperia TL is expert plenty for the boilerplate gentleman or lady, right? Read on to detect out.

Hardware

Regardless of what anyone might say about Sony'due south track record of delivering timely firmware upgrades, the company can inappreciably exist faulted for its hardware choices. Sony has a knack for designing phones that look every bit incredible as they experience. The Sony Xperia TL is no exception to that trait. In fact, it's Showroom A for anyone who wants to make a instance for Sony being home to one the best team of designers in the telephone industry. It makes sense that this would be the "Bail phone" because the Xperia TL embodies several of the characteristics that have come to define the Bond graphic symbol: slender, nimble, potent, and handsome.

The Sony Xperia TL measures ix.35mm (0.4in) thin, but the telephone feels fifty-fifty thinner considering of a rear curvature that nestles inside the user's palm. The back of the device has rounded edges that stop of a sudden and meet the front edges of the telephone that slant inward. Aesthetically, the Xperia TL is a more imposing version of the Xperia Arc. The frame is 129.4mm x 67.3mm (five.09in x 2.65in) and feels tougher than its predecessor. The phone is pleasing to touch considering the back is treated with an aluminum finishing that gives the phone an interesting texture that is neither polish nor rough. The main portion of the telephone is anodized aluminum, which better resists scratches and makes the phone feel cool and at ease in the hand.

Higher up the anodized aluminum, the Xperia TL is anchored by matte material, as well as a distinctive thirteen megapixel camera and LED wink towards the top of the device. Below the flash is a circle outline that acts as a guide to where the telephone should be placed when using its built-in NFC scrap. Though Sony chose to use a Frankenstein-similar mishmash of materials, the components are complementary rather than ambivalent.

Button placement unfortunately makes less sense. The Xperia TL inexplicably has the power and book buttons toward the lower portion of the phone, so the buttons are covered by the user's palm when held in normal position. Should someone who is right-handed experience the demand to heighten or lower the volume, that person would have to tilt the phone back and awkwardly move towards the volume upward or down buttons. Sony also inverse the positioning of ports, putting an MHL-enabled USB charging port on the top left side, and slots for the SIM card and up to 32GB microSD cards on the correct. Sony could take just as hands placed those ports on the bottom in favor of more natural positions for the power and book buttons.

The Xperia TL features a 4.55-inch LCD brandish with Sony'south Mobile Bravia Engine. The 720x1280 resolution has 323ppi, so text renders much smoother than seen on lesser displays. The Bravia Engine is designed to offer real-time adjustments to color saturation and brightness settings to deliver a more brilliant brandish. For the most part, that works well when browsing in the gallery or viewing locally-stored HD videos.

Bravia has no effect in standard browsing, which is unfortunate because the screen appears too brilliant, most as if a layer of white with low opacity is placed over the screen. The vividness and deep colour displays managed in videos sadly don't provide whatever real benefit to the habitation screen or standard apps, so it wouldn't exist a surprise if some users choose to disable Mobile Bravia and use the standard display settings.

Usability

Sony offers buyers a good news, bad news state of affairs with the Xperia TL. The good news is that the phone looks incredible and has enough of great features, just the bad news is that the phone sometimes forgets that it's a premium device and doesn't showcase those stellar traits. A prime example of that tragic flaw comes when looking at the software version number shipping with the Xperia TL - Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Android 4.1 Jelly Edible bean may only be on a fraction of Android devices, just at that place's really no reason for the Xperia TL to not contribute to raising that number higher considering that Jelly Bean debuted five months earlier its release.

The Xperia TL suffers because of the decision to run Android 4.0. Despite 1GB of RAM and a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor that statistically does well, the lack of the Android iv.1 buffering and speed optimizations make for a less impressive performance. Granted we're discussing a difference of milliseconds, but there are other moments of slow switching between apps and random stutters.

One can't help but wonder how much quicker the transitions would be or how fewer pauses there might exist if the phone shipped with more upward-to-date software. Aside from the speed differences, many of the great Jelly Bean features - not to mention the new advancements made in the just released Android iv.ii - will non make their way to this phone for several month, if they arrive at all. Sony has not made whatsoever public statements about its intention to run Jelly Bean, and so consumers must gauge the device as is.

As information technology stands, the Xperia TL is usable and enjoyable despite its comparative shortcomings. The Xperia user interface has been refined to be slimmer and more adaptive, allowing users to theme the home screen or take advantage of clever adjustments made to standard Android software. Pressing the multitasking button will open a listing of recently used apps that the user tin swipe to close or tap to open up.

It also has shortcuts to useful "Small apps" that can hover over whatever open up window and be used without exiting an open up app. The Xperia UI can support using a calculator, timer, note, or vox record over a browser or whatsoever other app, allowing for more powerful multitasking. Sony has congenital in the ability to add more Pocket-size apps from the Play Store, so more tools may exist added in the futurity.

Sony has altered Android to include a bit more flair than what'due south seen in the standard version of Android without calculation every bit much gloss or garish design changes like some other manufacturers have done. The calendar integrates with Facebook to testify friends' birthdays and events, and has tabs to quickly switch between Calendar month, Calendar week, and 24-hour interval views. While Sony also beautified the Computer and Messaging apps, it's best contributions are the stellar media app alternatives. Anthology is a replacement Gallery app that is fast and well organized, grouping pictures and videos according to date. It too has tabs for geo-tagged images; online photos, including Facebook albums; and an editor that includes the standard filters and effects found in Android 4.0.

Smart Connect can exist used to create a few conditional operations, such as automatically launching the Walkman app when headphones are plugged into the telephone. It'south also where users can manage SmartTags, Sony's custom NFC tags that tin likewise be used to trigger actions on the telephone. A SmartTag sticker can be programmed to switch to vibrate when the Xperia TL is placed on pinnacle of it, or turn on Bluetooth and GPS when the phone is placed on a car dashboard. The tags, which are sold at AT&T stores in packs of iv, provide added use of NFC across the mobile payments typically associated with the engineering science.

Calling / Data

Telephone calls on the Xperia TL aren't as crystal clear as some phones with enhanced audio, but there are no call quality problems. Both parties on the phone were conspicuously audible during my testing of the Xperia TL. The phone besides accesses AT&T's 4G LTE or HSPA+ networks in areas where either form of 4G is available. Despite AT&T's network being strained in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the device consistently managed speeds of 10 to fourteen Mbps downloads and 2.5 to three Mbps uploads. LTE availability and performance volition vary by market place.