Sony Xperia U ST25A-WY Unlocked Phone

Sony Xperia U ST25A-WY Unlocked Phone with Android 2.3 OS and 3.5-Inch Touchscreen--U.S. Warranty (White/Yellow) Rating :

Product Details

Color: White/Yellow

Product Dimensions:
4.4 x 0.5 x 2.1 inches ; 4.8 ounces
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
Product Code: B008D09MTY
Item model number: ST25A-WY
Batteries: 1 Lithium ion batteries required.
Average Customer Review:4.1 out of 5 stars style="margin-left:-3px">See all reviews (79 customer reviews)

Product Description

Color: White/Yellow

From the Manufacturer

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The Sony-powered smartphone that's all about you.

Experience change. Make it personal.

Let the true you shine through on your Xperia U.

Make life more personal with exchangeable bottom caps. Xperia U comes with 2 exchangeable bottom caps to fit your mood or style. The color-changing, illuminating transparent elements match colors with your favorite artist’s album art when you browse your music. It also changes to match the shades in your photos and wallpaper.

Experience fantasy. In great quality on screen.

Watch every moment from every movie or video in razor-sharp clarity.

See every smile from last year’s party in true detail. Sheer video magic on your Xperia U’s 3.5-inch Reality Display powered by the Mobile BRAVIA Engine. And you can easily find the latest Hollywood blockbusters on the pre-loaded Video Unlimited application from Sony Entertainment Network.

Experience moments. Just snap away.

Capture sunsets, waves and spectacular dives. Fire off the shots.

With the 5 MP fast capture camera you can go from sleep to snap in just over a second. Want something more moving? Film it all in 720p HD.

Experience sound. In soul-shaking clarity.

Blast out the music through the speaker with xLOUD loudness enhancement.

Want to get lost in a movie? Get completely immersed with xLOUD from Sony. Plug in your earphones, sit back and listen as the deep bass and high treble shoot around your head.
Want more songs? Enjoy a global catalogue of millions of songs easily accessible through the preloaded Music Unlimited application from Sony Entertainment Network.

Experience power. The Android way.

Download and run your apps and content super fast.

Browse the internet. Stream the latest video clips. Download the coolest apps. Run them super fast with the power of the 1 GHz Dual core Processor. Find your way with Google maps. Send your love by Gmail. Your Xperia U Android smartphone has Google Mobile services built in.

Key Features

Google Android 2.3, upgradeable to 4.0
3.5-inch Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine
720p HD video recording
Fast capture with 5 MP camera
1 GHz dual core processor
xLOUD and 3-D surround sound
Wi-Fi and DLNA

Vital Statistics

Android Gingerbread Operating System

The Xperia U runs the Android 2.3 operating system (dubbed Gingerbread). It features a cleaner, more refined interface with new icons, improved top notification bar, and more intuitive navigation.
Multitasking in Gingerbread allows you the ability to run more than one app at a time. If you're playing a game, you can easily switch to an incoming e-mail and then switch back to the game without losing your place. And like the previous version of Android ("Froyo"), Gingerbread provides support for Adobe Flash Player 10.1 for access to the full Web.
A new onscreen keyboard makes it easier to type thanks to additional spacing between the keys and larger font sizes. And the more you use the keyboard, the easier typing will be as the enhanced suggest feature records previous input history to make better suggestions.
The Xperia U also brings one-touch access to the popular Google mobile services you use every day. It also provides easy access to both personal and corporate e-mail, calendars, and contacts supported by Exchange Server and Gmail. And through the Google Play store, you'll get access to thousands of useful applications, widgets, and fun games to download and install on your phone, with many more apps being added every day.

Google Integration

Google Play store for browsing and downloading thousands of free and paid apps
Pre-loaded Android apps: Browser, Calculator, Calendar (Google or Corporate), Camera, Clock, Contacts, Email, Gallery, Messaging, Music, News & Weather, Phone, Settings, Video Player, Voice Dialer, Voice Search, YouTube
Google applications: Gmail, Google Search, Google Voice Search, Google Latitude, Google Maps, Google Places, Google Talk
Google Maps Navigation with spoken turn-by-turn directions showing real-time traffic and 360° views of the destination

Unlocked Phone

Customer Reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars

(79)

4.1 out of 5 stars

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See all 79 customer reviews

“The camera works great and does the job not really fancy but what you need for you phone at any good moment. ”Cec | 10 reviewers made a similar statement

“Screen Protector a. Comes with it in the box, that's nice. ”Henry | 12 reviewers made a similar statement

“I've used Palm, Blackberry, WinMobile, Webos, Ios, Meego, WP7 and Android. ”Mohammed K. Hassan | 7 reviewers made a similar statement

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 77 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 starsPros and ConsOctober 1, 2012

By Henry

Color Name:Black/White|Amazon Verified Purchase

Sony Xperia UGeneral:The Sony Xperia U is an entry level Android device at a very reasonable price point of $219 (Although I find the price constantly fluctuating on Amazon). Keep in mind, if it's not already clear to you now, that this is a very small/thin phone. Using the iPhone as a reference, the Xperia U 3.5 in display is NOT like the iPhone's 3.5 in. Xperia U's display is taller but thinner (considerably so, which you'll notice when the keyboard comes up and how tiny certain icons such as battery, service bar, and general font), which still satisfies the 3.5 in, but keep that in mind when purchasing (I personally like small phones, not into the whole mini-tv in my pocket kinda thing). The phones I've owned in the past couple years are the Droid Pro Plus, Mytouch 4g, Blackberry Curve, Mytouch 3g slide, and the original iPhone. This is to help give the reader a sense of where I'm coming from and what I'm comparing to. I really enjoyed the Droid Pro Plus, which was my last phone before this phone, but I sustained a little bit of water damage on a hiking trip so I figured I'd try something new. I'm pretty picky, so the things that bother me might not bother you, but here goes:Pros:1. Fast a. The phone is very responsive with the Dual-core 1 GHz processor b. Very little lag overall. Using Angry Birds as the reference, cuz everyone's played Angry Birds, there's slight choppiness with the background enabled in the game but it's perfectly smooth with it disengaged. It's never really stalled even with background enabled, only the FPS has dipped a bit and it's a bit noticeable, but other than that no issues. c. Browsing with the phone is also a nice experience (in regards to speed). I've browsed through CNET, Gizmodo, and Slickdeals, which all have a lot of stuff on their pages. The pages load pretty quickly (on wi-fi - I've noticed most of the time the bottle neck is the phone not the connection, so even on wifi I've had phones that took a while to load pages) and when scrolling, there's a slight millisecond lag with every scroll, but it's consistent and smooth enough for me.2. Crisp Display a. The clarity of the screen is very nice with 480 x 854 pixels, 3.5 inches (~280 ppi pixel density) b. You really can't see any pixels with the naked eye3. Dedicated Camera Button a. Makes it much easier to take pictures, there's a light press, which autofocuses, and a strong press, which actually takes the picture. b. The key also allows you to take a picture outside of the lock screen in case you need to take a quick snapshot at something and don't feel like unlocking your device, finding the camera app and then taking the picture. Nice little touch c. In my opinion, the 5MP camera is good enough for the phone. It's certainly not the best camera out there, but it's far from the worst. It's just average. A little noise here and there.4. Swype a. This is really the first time I've really used Swype. I don't know what changed, but before I didn't like using it, now with this device I love it. I don't have particularly large or small hands, but this phone feels better with one hand than using it with 2 hands, just imo. So Swype really saved it for me, but you have to download it.5. Front Facing Camera a. Honestly, I haven't used it yet, but it's a nifty feature that I haven't really had on other phones so it's a plus for me. Skype and taking pictures of myself I guess.6. Phone/Voice Quality a. Now this phone doesn't really beat the Droid Pro Plus or Blackberry Curve in loudness and clarity of voice, but it's by no means "bad." It's just something to keep in mind and not get lost in all the features, forgetting the fact that the device is (or should be) primarily a phone. The sound levels peak a bit when at its max especially when using the xLOUD function which enhances the loudness of speaker. But nothing really new or surprising to me since most of the phones I've owned had similar issues.7. App Stacking a. Move an app over another and it stacks into a folder. Nifty8. Screen Protector a. Comes with it in the box, that's nice.Cons:1. Texting a. Now let the reader understand, my critique is not the texting experience overall, but this is where my pickiness really shines. When adding a new contact to text, you have to click the Write New button (indicated by a pencil and + Sign) then you have to hit Add Contact (Plus sign with a portrait) then you have to type in the Name which will eventually auto-populate, not in the bar but in the scrolling section below. Then you have to click the name itself then press done. My goodness, my other phone, all I had to do was press Write new, Type the name and it would usually auto-populate in the bar itself, in which case I can hit enter and I'd be done with it. So rather than 3 motions, it takes about 5 motions to text a new buddy. My hope is that I don't have to text new people often, luckily once you have a thread going, it's easier to get to in the inbox.2. Service Bar Indicator a. I've never really experienced this problem before, but the service bar indicator is often inaccurate. Sometimes I'm in a place where I KNOW there's no service, but there are 2 bars. I go ahead and test text and lo and behold, no service. Tricky. That gets on my nerves a bit.3. Light Bar a. There is no built-in way to turn the light bar off. It's cool...for the first 5 minutes, but there's no way to adjust brightness of it or turn it off in the system. Luckily, the way to remedy that is to get an app called "Screen Filter." You click-off the Enable soft-key backlight in the App settings and it goes off. But the app will constantly stay in your notifications bar. I'm a bit OCD so I love clearing the notification bar, but unfortunately that little Screen Filter notification will always be there unless I want the light bar on.4. Battery Life a. As some have indicated, Battery Life isn't the best, with a Li-Ion of 1320 mAh. What I do to preserve the battery is turn off the live wall paper, dim my lights, turn off the light bar and limit the number of widgets. It lasts me about a day and a half, but really, I just charge it at night... why have your battery run out the middle of the next day, right?5. LED Notification Indicator a. The LED light is WEAK. So weak in fact, that the blue indicator cannot be seen in daylight unless your face is 5 cm away from it. It's quite useless. Luckily, there's another app fix (sort of). Light Flow Lite allows you do change the color of the LED light for notifications. Customizable between e-mail, calendar, SMS, MMS, etc., so if you happen to get the phone, do yourself a favor and change your notification lights to RED as I noticed it's the strongest light that pierces through the screen. (Still dim though. Let's put it this way, if you're across the room and you have 20/20 vision and there's a remote light source in the room, trust me, you can't see it)6. Vibration a. Vibration is WEAK as well. Maybe I'm spoiled and the Droid Pro Plus and Blackberry Curve has always had strong vibrations that I could feel in my pocket, but this... doesn't really cut it for me. I've always relied on the sound of the vibration itself rather than any sort of chime, but this phone. I gotta have the sound on or I don't notice my texts. Not a huge deal breaker for me, but it still kinda bothers me.7. Camera a. I know I had this primarily as a pro, but there was this one little thing that sorta bugged me. When going into camera mode outside of the lock-screen, you hold it down a few seconds and let go. The thing is, it takes a picture immediately as you let go rather than going into camera mode, allowing you to actually preview what it is you're taking a picture of. If you have a good sense of what's in front of you and what will be on the screen, good on you, but everytime I've engaged the camera, I've always had the first accidental fire of my legs or random wall fixture followed by taking the real picture. Just something to keep in mind.8. SD Card a. There is none, so you deal with the space given. b. Not a deal breaker for me because I don't generally keep my music on the phone. And I can always take pictures off the phone after I've uploaded it to my computer. So even though I don't really mind, the lack of it today definitely makes it a con.So there are my little tid-bits about the phone. Overall the phone is a great phone for the price, the cons don't really outweigh the pros for me. If I could, i'd give a 3.75 rating, but, just rounded up cuz it def. doesn't deserve a 3 star rating. I've yet to try a phone that really fit everything that I wanted, and this phone has many pluses... and with the other stuff, ah I'll get used it. Oh and if you're triyng to figure out why MMS doesn't work, Click Settings > Xperia > Internet Settings and it'll d/l whatever it downloads to active it. Android 2.3 is nice and all, but I will be expecting ICS to come out for it soon. Sony's working on it, so stay tunedThanks!

Buy Sony Xperia U ST25A-WY Unlocked Phone with Android 2.3 OS and 3.5-Inch Touchscreen--U.S. Warranty (White/Yellow)