CyanogenMod 7 coming to Sony Ericsson Xperia handsets officially

Steve Kondik, CyanogenMod’s chief developer, has confirmed that CyanogenMod 7 (CM7) will be coming to Sony Ericsson Xperia handsets in its upcoming release. They have been working with FreeXperia team to make this happen and this team is now part of the CyanogenMod development group.

According to the Steve Kondik’s Google Plus Post, The list of 10 Xperia phones to get the CyanogenMod 7 (CM7) include

• Xperia Arc
• Xperia Neo
• Xperia Mini
• Xperia Mini Pro
• Xperia Play
• Xperia Ray
• Xperia X10
• Xperia X8
• Xperia X10 Mini
• Xperia X10 Mini Pro

Most these phones already run on the Android 2.3, with the Xperia X10 being the latest one to get this update. This is definitely a happy news for the Xperia X8, Xperia X10 Mini and Xperia X10 Mini Pro users who are still with Android 2.1.

Read

Sony Ericsson Android update 2.3.4 with 3D sweep panorama hands-on

On Wednesday I attended a Sony Ericsson event where I had some hands-on time with new XPERIA ray and XPERIA arc S which has a beta version of Gingerbread 2.3.4 update. This update will bring about a number of improvements and features, including the ability to record still pictures in 3D.

As the name implies, the XPERIA arc S is a refresh of the XPERIA Arc. If you have read my review you would be aware by how impressed I am by the original arc. But I also questioned whether it would be able to withstand the onslaught of dual core flagships by Samsung and HTC. Well for better or worse, it is exactly the same device as the original Arc with a higher clock speed. It certainly feels speedy but so was the original Arc. It will ship with Android 2.3.4 and comes with Sony Ericsson 3D sweep panorama which I will touch on below.

Despite the fact that there are currently no XPERIA smartphones on the market with dual camera modules, the aforementioned 2.3.4 update will bring to Sony Ericsson XPERIA smartphones a unique feature (on smartphones at least) to capture 3D images and view them on a 3D compatible HDTV via HDMI connection.

So how does a phone with a single camera module take a 3D image? Sony Ericsson did not elaborate, but this is achieved by sweeping the phone horizontally, much like what you would do to capture a stitch panorama picture with a compatible Sony Cybershot digital camera. We were advised that mounting it with a tripod will yield the best result (unsurprisingly), but the image produced was still sharp despite being shot handheld.

We were shown a couple of still 3D images recorded with a XPERIA arc S on a Bravia 3D TV. While I am not a fan of 3D, I came away impressed by phone’s ability to record images with 3D effects. I have some theories on how this is achieved, but none were confirmed by Sony Ericsson’s rep.

No date has been confirmed but the 2.3.4 Android update for XPERIA smartphones will roll out from October 2011 in selected markets.

Sony Ericsson announces Xperia arc S, coming in Q4

Sony Ericsson has announced their new Xperia arc Android smartphone. This has been upgraded from their previous Xperia arc and they claim that this has 25% faster camera start up and 20% faster web page rendering compared to Xperia arc. This runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and the it is powered by 1.4Ghz processor. It has 4.2 inch Reality display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine and 8 MP camera with Exmor R image sensor.

This has 3D and 2D sweep panorama photography so that the panorama images captured can be viewed on a 3D TV using the HDMI output. This also comes with Sony Entertainment Network services such as Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited that lets you listen to 10 million unique songs and ad free radio channels, and watch Hollywood blockbusters, all-time classics, and TV shows from all major studios.

Features of Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S

• 4.2 inch (854 x 480 pixels) TFT Capacitive multi-touch displaywith Mobile BRAVIA Engine
• 8.7 mm thick and weighs 117 g
• 1.4 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 processor
• 8MP Auto focus camera with LED flash and 720p HD video recording
• 3.5 mm audio jack and FM radio with RDS
• 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP, aGPS and USB OTG, HDMI port
• 512MB RAM, 320MB user memory that is expandable up to 32GB with MircoSD
• 1500 mAh with 7 h 25 min talk time and 460 h standby

The Sony Entertainment Network services are available in select countries (USA, Italy, Spain, Germany, UK, France, Australia, Canada and Japan). The Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S comes in White, Blue, Silver, Black and Pink colors and would be in selected markets from Q4 2011.

FIFA 12 coming to Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY

Sony Ericsson has announced that they have made limited time agreement with EA Mobile to offer FIFA 12 game optimized for Xperia PLAY. This would offer the Xperia PLAY owners to experience the FIFA 12 exclusively, before it comes to the Android Market. They launched Battlefield: Bad Company 2 last month.

The FIFA 12 has improved gameplay depth, authentic commentaries, updated teams from the world’s top leagues and all new replay systems. The dedicated Adreno 205 Graphical Processing Unit (GPU), optimized memory bandwidth and 60fps rendering would enhance the football gameplay experience on the Xperia PLAY.

The FIFA 12 would be available to download worldwide this holiday season, which is this September, via Games app on the Xperia PLAY smartphones.