I have been using the phone for almost 2 weeks (on T-Mobile network in the USA). Generally, I'm happy with the phone. It is a bit thick and bulky, but overall small and portable. I'll mention pros and cons of the phone:
Pros:
- touchscreen very responsive, navigation is very smooth
- physical keyboard is great, tactile feel is just right
- camera button has a 2-stage press, just like a real digital camera. Half press gets the focus and flash adjusted, and a full press takes the picture. Genius. I never saw this on a phone before, not sure why. This means you don't have to tap the screen to take a picture (and therefore kill your focus).
- video Skype with front-facing camera works great.
- photo quality and HD video recording both are good. About equal in quality to iPhone 4. But the Sony has many more options for photography experts (metering, focus mode, exposure, etc).
- Bluetooth pairing worked perfectly (to my BlueAnt S4)
Cons:
- audio quality is disappointing, I'm sorry to say. In normal conversation (not speakerphone), the voice sounds muffled. I tried calling different phones, no difference. Volume is ok, but the other person's voice is a little muffled.
A previous forum post said the sound is excellent. I don't understand how he reached this conclusion (unless I happen to have a defective phone....but I doubt it).
- in speakerphone mode, max volume is not quite as loud as I would like. This is especially true while in a Skype call: it's hard to hear the other person unless you are in a quiet room.
- battery life is somewhat disappointing. Daily charging is required -- and I leave WiFi and 3G off most of the time. If you leave the WiFi on all day (even without actually being connected), the phone will require a recharge by midday. Battery management doesn't come even close to what the iPhone 4 can do.
- the back cover is INCREDIBLY difficult to remove, for accessing the battery, SIM, and micro SD card. Be very careful, it was designed to fit very tightly.
That is all. Despite the negatives, the phone is the size I wanted, the processor is fast, it does HD video recording, and basically does all the things a modern smartphone should do, but in a small package. Overall it's a winner.