Sony Ericsson has been a little disappointing of late and although the Swedish manufacturer launched a number of devices at Mobile World Congress last year in the form of the Xperia X10 Mini, Mini Pro and Vivaz, none of them - in our opinion - took off quite as well as they should have done.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc is the next chapter in Sony Ericsson's book and on first glance, it looks like a good move.
The first thing that will strike you when you pick up the Arc is how the device looks and feels in the hand.
The 4.2-inch screen dominates the front of the device, featuring Sony's Mobile Bravia technology. In short, it means the screen is clearer, brighter, with more contrast and less noise.
Although this does seem a little stuffy, you can tell the difference when the Bravia technology is turned on and off. You can see the change in our video hands on (it's at the end).
The one test will be whether it drains the battery, and although we weren't able to judge this in the 15 minutes or so we played with the device, we were assured by Sony Ericsson spokespeople that it wouldn't affect the battery too significantly. We'll report back on this in our full review.
Back to the look and feel. The back of the Xperia Arc is concave - like the Google Nexus S's screen - making it feel smaller and lighter.
Even though the Arc has a massive 4.2-inch display it still feels extremley svelte in the hand, especially when compared to other devices. It's super light too, even when compared to the Xperia X10.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc is all about multimedia and that's brought to the fore with an 8-megapixel camera. It features Sony's Exmor R technology – yes, more Sony stuff – that's included in Sony's camcorders and cameras.
It means you can get decent shots while even in low-light conditions. On screen, photos look impressive, although the proof will be what they look like when blown up on a computer screen.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc runs on Android 2.3, although Sony Ericsson has applied it slightly differently in comparison to previous Sony Ericsson devices that were locked into the OS version. This means the Xperia Arc is upgradable to Android 3.0, according to Sony Ericsson.
The UI seems a lot faster than previous Sony Ericsson Android devices. Swiping between the five homescreens is swifter and that's without a dual core processor.
In fact, the 1Ghz Qualcomm processor runs along smoothly, with no stops or jerks as seen on previous Sony Ericsson's devices.
Sony Ericsson's UI is stripped down to make it easier to use, and it's pretty much vanilla Android with a couple of additions such as the Mediascape widget rather than a full app.
You can access the multimedia via a multimedia screen though. Timescape is still available as an application though, to make accessing your email and social networks a breeze.
Although we didn't spend enough time with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc to form a solid opinion, from what we've seen so far, this is definitely the best Sony Ericsson Android phone to date.
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