Hardware

The instant you unfurl the Xperia P from its delicately designed (and presumably eco-friendly) retail box, you'll think of the Xperia S. Sony's consciously designed the current Xperia trio to match each other, from the squarish corners to the see-through strip that embellishes the base. The Xperia P can shed its lower cap, although this doesn't open up access to anything -- the micro-SIM slot exists on the left edge and there's no expandable storage option. Unlike the Xperia U, the notion of exchangeable caps has also been overlooked -- the phone will arrive with the single, matching cap -- and you'll have to hope a friend's willing to swap if you're looking to shake up the design. While the majority of the back is hewn from aluminum, both the aforementioned cap and a region on the top edge miss out, coated instead with plastic. It's just off-color from the aluminum bulk, tempering what is otherwise a fine-looking handset.

The phone is a little thicker (10.5mm) than what we're starting to become accustomed to, but it's nigh-on identical to the Xperia S. Due to the smaller 4-inch (540 x 960) screen, it feels more at ease in the hand. In general, the phone makes a lot of ergonomic sense. All the physical buttons are placed on the right edge, with the two-stage camera shutter appearing where it would on any typical point-and-shoot. It's joined by the volume rocker, the power switch and a metallic mesh guarding the loudspeaker. The grill is curiously parallel to the curved edge, not the flatter front face, but it's a minor curio. On the opposite side, there's the micro-HDMI and micro-USB port. The micro-SIM slot is accessed by removing a pretty flimsy cover that feels like its made of the same aluminum material of the phone, but looks oddly out of place.

The curved backing includes the primary camera sensor (there's a VGA camera on the front) and flash, with a Sony Ericsson Mobile icon floating just above the clear strip. Flipping the phone around, the Xperia P's screen is surrounded by a curiously heavy bezel both at the top and bottom. The top bezel includes the ear piece, some slightly crammed-in Sony branding, the front-facing camera and light sensor. It's equally thick below the screen, and while this gives the phone a sense of balance (and congruence to its relatives), the result is a waste of space.

Screen

While the phone beams out from a 4-inch TFT display, Sony's added its own additional white subpixel to the typical RGB setup, as design it calls "WhiteMagic." What does this mean in real life? Well, you won't need to swing the brightness level to full whack to use it. Even better, at full brightness, this is the most readable screen we've ever used outdoors. In the middle of a sudden heatwave in the UK, the Xperia P is able to push enough effort into that extra subpixel to make a real difference in tricky lighting. Let's take a (much) closer look:

The pixels are pretty densely packed together, explaining the relative crispness, while each RGB group is joined by a white subpixel to improve visibility. The display otherwise behaves like many other recent qHD display. Color reproduction is excellent, viewing angles are good (and are boosted at higher brightness levels) and it thankfully avoids any discoloration issues at off angles, unlike its AMOLED rivals.

Camera

Sony has a pretty good track record with its camera sensors, especially on its middle-of-the-road smartphones. Thankfully, the Xperia P follows this trend, with an 8-megapixel camera capable of crisp images -- though you can expect some noise when in lower light. The camera's dynamic range could also do with some work -- subjects were often washed out when strong lighting was involved. On the whole, Sony's automatic scene mode is capable of capturing some nice stills without diving into the settings. These include the sweep panorama modes and 3D angled stills courtesy of Sony's myriad electronics verticals.