[Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo, Pro] midix:
Hi all. This is like a mini review about Neo V MT11i. Before I bought it I could not find much info. I know, it is almost the same as Neo, but still there are some issues, so maybe this review will help someone to decide, especially if you are planning an upgrade after a Nokia N7x/N8x series phone.

I wanted to buy Neo MT15i when it came out because it seemed to have a good price/functionality ratio but I hesitated a bit, the price still seemed a bit too high for me.

So when Neo V came to our country (Latvia), I waited till Christmas and then bought it with a 2 year contract. Before buying I explored other options but Neo V seemed to be the best value for the money and also I really wanted to get Android 4 soon, and I found out that SonyEricsson is really good at this lately (after their failure with X10) :cool:

I also knew that Neo V may have an unexpected restart problems but my operator has been pretty good with warranties, so I trust that all will be OK, unless I do something crazy with my phone.

At first some background about me and my habits. Previously I have had SE k750i, I guess, it is a legendary phone in some way. After that I got Nokia N79, also was (and still is) pretty good.

I have a vision defect since birth, so I really appreciate when phone software manufacturers put some means to increase font size. But I also am a programmer, so I can do some tweaking if needed. On my N79 I used a software called FontRouter, it helped a bit.

I know that currently Android has no ways to increase font size globally, but ICS promise to provide that, so one more reason for me to eagerly wait for ICS.

My phone usage scenarios (most used go first):

- listen to FM radio/music player a lot while walking or going home by bus;

- reading e-books (used mobipocket on N79);

- phone calls and SMS (yeah, only 3rd position);

- shooting photos, if there is something interesting happening around;

- watching movies (I had to recompress them to watch with DivX player on N79);

- taking pictures of text (when too lazy to write something down);

- using phone camera as a "zoom device": if I am at some timetable and cannot read it, I just take a picture of it and then zoom in my phone so I can read it;

- shooting videos when in a party with friends or family; we enjoy to watch those movies later; really convenient if there is no real video camera at hand;

- occasionally surfing Internet (only Wi-Fi; mobile Internet is pretty expensive in Latvia).

So, those are main points which I'll use to evaluate if Neo V was a good choice comparing to my N79.

I live 30km from a city, so the FM coverage is not great here. It was nice to see that Neo V was receiving the signal much better than N79, less noise and more signal stability while I was jogging.

But the handsfree system of Neo is not as good as N79. N79 has play/stop buttons and a volume rocker built in the headphone wire, Neo has just one button to control radio and player.

Reading and watching movies is much better on a bigger screen. The only thing that was irritating - auto brightness. It may be unnoticeable when watching movies or picture, but is annoying when reading a text on a white background. Oh, SE, fix it soon, please.

The screen size is good for me, the phone is not much bigger than N79, so I had no problems to get used to it.

I had no chance to test it in a direct sunlight yet. N79 was pretty good at this, it has some mirroring layer, so the image just loses colors but remains readable.

Phone calls - no problems yet. Seems not as loud as N79 though. But N79 has two stereo speakers, so it would not be honest to compare it to any phone out there.

SMS - not as good as I expected. Pretty small white text on a bubble with a pretty bright background, while there is lots of free space above. Hard to read. Hope ICS or SE will fix it.

Wi-Fi works fine (with ASUS WL500GP router in g mode). I had no opportunity to compare if the reception range is the same as with N79 but I will test it soon.

Build quality - N79 feels better, it has some metal parts. I wish Neo V at least had some spare back covers, preferably, rubberized. But I am a gentle phone user, N79 looks just like new after 2 years active use. So I hope my new Neo V will be with me at least for the next 2 years.

Battery life - ok for Android, almost 2 days with little use.

Now the most questionable part. I have read many complaints about not-so-good-as-expected quality of Xperia cameras, so I was prepared, especially because I chose the 5Mp version. Also my N79 has 5Mp, so I could compare.

Here are my subjective impressions about Neo V compared to N79.

I did not tweak any settings much, just left pretty much as is to see how both devices compare when used "out of the box".

I tested indoors, because this is usually where more camera problems can be discovered.

Video recording - no doubts, Neo V is a winner.

Photos:

- more noise

- less details, a bit too much blurring

- sometimes there are weird artifacts like shifted pixels and some patches of blurring (see attached pictures)

There are still some positive moments about Neo V camera compared to N79:

- more consistent colors between shots (N79 had more problems to keep the same white balance or something like that)

- more contrast

- less artifacts around sharp edges (maybe because it has blurred the edges too much? :D)

Now some questions.

My operator does not use any branding on the phones, just locks the phone to his GSM network. After the contract ends, I can request an unlock procedure. At least so it has been till now.

I hope, the fact that I have a network-locked phone does not mean that I will need to wait for ICS much longer? And also is this phone in any major way different from an unlocked one? After my contract ends and I unlock it, will it be like the same as a normal Neo V phone, which was never locked to any network at all?

And look at two pictures from Neo V. The first one:

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk308/progmars/DSC_0009.jpg

Zoom closely to N79 box at the right bottom where it says 4GB. Notice there is a block right in the middle of the 4GB text with some pixel shifting to the left.

Now look at the other picture with some text:

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk308/progmars/DSC_0012.jpg

It is a pretty weak shot, I made a much better with the next attempt using a "Text document" mode. But this shot demonstrates some weird blocky blurring. It seems like the jpeg compressor is processing not the entire picture but only parts of it, so there are some detailed areas with visible letters and some blurred areas.

Are these both problems just a result of a bad compression or there is something more serious going on?

Anyway, for now the phone seems good. I hope ICS update will bring something new to it and fix some issues (especially camera issues and font size adjustments).