Gadgetory

hey guys it's Brandon minimun from pocketnow.com if you're looking for an Android 2.3 smartphone that's super thin and that has a really fantastic screen you can't beat the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and the Samsung Galaxy S 2 in this video we're going to compare them let's get to it people want to get in here we're gonna talk about specs we're going to talk about hardware software web browsing performance benchmarks price and availability and a lot more so you can determine which of these super-thin devices with really great screens is right for you so let's start off with the Samsung Galaxy S 2 you probably know the specs by heart now we cover it a lot certainly we've got the dual core Exynos processor 1.2 gigahertz we've also got a full gigabyte of RAM 16 gigabytes of storage or 32 gigabytes although that model isn't really shipping right now you can buy one of these unlocked for about six hundred and thirty-five dollars now both of these devices are very expensive because they're not on the carrier in the US but around the world in Europe especially you can get both of these phones at a lower subsidized price so that is the Samsung Galaxy S 2 now we've got a 4.3 inch display the resolution is w vga which is 800 down by 480 across really the most common resolution these days the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc has quite a different spec she has a single core 1 gigahertz Snapdragon processor the mighty Snapdragon we've seen the CPU in many many devices as a strong performer not as strong as the Exynos as we're going to see it's got 512 megabytes of RAM and in terms of storage has one gigabyte onboard although there is a microSD slot also with this device now we can buy this or you can buy this anyone can buy this for about $600 in some cases cheaper around 500 bucks unlocked if you search online for it again this phone is not available in the US on a carrier right now it might go to 8 T we're not sure about that yet but definitely unlocked and around the world and especially in Europe you can get this any lower subsidized price now let's talk about hardware and by the way the screen on the Xperia Arc is a little bit smaller than on the gap cs2 4.2 inches instead of 4.3 inches the resolution is slightly greater it's f WVGA so that is 854 down you get extra 54 pixels by 480 neither of these devices have the newer stock of qHD screens that go all the way to 960 by 540 but that's okay there's not that big of a difference between WVGA or f wbj in the case of the Xperia Arc and the higher qHD display now I mentioned that both of these devices are thin and while they are thin let's look at them individually and see how the thinness is pulled off on the galaxy s2 we've got a very thin bezel it's very close to eight millimeters and then we've got a thicker part down here which probably adds about another millimeter maybe a millimeter and a half but most of the device is very thin the Xperia Arc is a really interesting design it's got that arc design in the center at its thinnest point it gets very close to the eight millimeters although not quite that you find on galaxy s2 and then it's thicker probably around ten millimeters a little bit more than 10 millimeters at the thickest parts but in hand the Xperia Arc feels super thin as does the galaxy s2 in terms of fit and finish both of these devices for you a very high quality in hand I think you'll notice that it with the Xperia Arc it feels a little bit more slippery because we got we have the shiny plastic on the back whereas on the galaxy s2 we've got this sort of texture that doesn't pick up fingerprints unless you've got a lot of them on there but definitely the Xperia Arc picks up fingerprints although you have this really cool design on the Xperia Arc hopefully you can see it it's kind of white down here or at least a greyish color and up here it's black so you get this cool fade down to black now in terms of cameras both of them have eight megapixel cameras you get 720p video capture on the arc 1080p video capture on the samsung galaxy s2 the art can actually do HDMI out which is kind of rare these days so here's the adapter at the top and it's a micro sized adapter safe to get a special cable for that to work you can do video out on the samsung galaxy s2 but you have to get a special adapter especially a USB plug you have to go and buy something separate although I is the same can be said about the Xperia Arc since most people don't have a type D connector laying around the house so let's turn both of these devices on we're going to test boot up time let's find the power button it's on the side on the galaxy s2 it's on the top on the arc press and hold and they both should be off I felt them both a vibrate yep and the boot up test is not particularly relevant most people leave their phones on all the time but some people still turn them off at night so this actually matters so that you can lower the time between when you turn on your phone you can check your email and operate the device okay so we got a picture first from the galaxy s2 and we'll let that sort of settle down media scanner running of course we'll wait till the media scanner is finished okay it's finished on the galaxy s2 preparing SD card sort of the same kind of deal here we're gonna zoom in on the screen to get a better map viewing angle here okay we're done so galaxy s2 is quicker now we're going to go into settings WoW is that a little freeze we're forced close oh that's a great first impression there we're gonna go into settings to determine which one has more all right we've got text messages there we're gonna go into settings to determine which has more RAM right now just we started both devices up we're not running at any applications except for the ones that are running in the background we're go to running services here and we can take a look at RAM we've got 113 used on the arc a little bit more on the galaxy s2 608 and megabytes free on the galaxy s2 207 megabytes free on the arc so three times more the amount of RAM free on the the samsung galaxy s2 which doesn't always tell the story because Android is a very good at managing program memory and unless you're running many games at the same time but you can't even do anyway it's gonna be hard to use 600 megabytes of RAM in day-to-day usage ok let's go back to the home screen and talk about the software first let's talk about the galaxy s2 of course we've got Samsung's proprietary interface here which they call TouchWiz we've got a variety of widgets here screens we can customize them we can pinch out and get this sort of zoomed out view and add multiple home screens if we want these widgets are nice they're not the most amazing widgets what's cool is Samsung has added a new way to add widgets so we can actually add them with this little interactive thing we slide around it kind of makes it easier to see your widgets if we go into the application tray this is all customizable you get a sort of iPhone esque way of looking at your applications and we can go to a list view if we want back to grid view and we can go to edit and this allows us to move around icons and kind of customize and you can even customize the back add a folder and so on and so forth and this interface is present throughout all applications so in the browser and email and calendar in context it's all there very nice interface that makes this home screens look at least visually pleasing now let's take a look at the interface on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc Sony Ericsson has gone with a less animated interface here than they did back with the x10 and other devices that really flaunted the Timescape Mediascape thing you still get elements of the Timescape media scape in fact if you go into the application tray this still exists where you can flip through in a very 3d environment your Twitter updates your Facebook updates your text messages your contacts and your emails some people like this but some people think it's way to visually intense but for those that want something more simple here you have a choice of multiple home screens you can swipe through you can add widgets to them obviously you don't get a fancy interface like you get on the galaxy s2 to add widgets but this will look very familiar to most people there aren't that many added widgets from sony ericsson just you know this Timescape one you also have this way of flicking through your YouTube videos or your the videos that are on your phone in a 3d environment and you've got a clock a lot of basic stuff again quick shortcuts to your music your photos and to your videos from there if we dive into the program tray over here we get this iPhone esque layout just like you get on the Galaxy s2 so we can flick through we can tap this button in the bottom right corner the icons will jiggle again like yeah you can move them around on the screen customize them they all set to a grid in the upper left corner again like the iPhone like the galaxy s2 can swipe to the right we can customize add more panels if we want when we're done we hit this button or we can change the listing order so we can make them half abetik or most used recently installed and so on and so forth so so very simple in terms of how Sony Ericsson has put forth this interface it's almost close to stock more so than the Galaxy S 2 at least and we're going to run some benchmark tests and quadrant standard between the Galaxy s2 and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc we're gonna jump right through the results and the results are in and if you measure up the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc against other single core phones it really does a really great job I mean it's thirteen hundred and seventy five which is a very very strong score again for a single core device but we're seeing 3200 here on the galaxy s2 if you if you benchmark any dual-core Android phone you're gonna get benchmarks that are off the charts so we're not even going to proceed with other benchmarks obviously a dual-core phone is going to be faster than a single core phone but of the single core phones the arc is one of the fastest and remember that this device the arc is $100 in some cases in more than a hundred dollars cheaper than the galaxy s2 so you might be losing a little bit of speed but it's potentially a really good value so let's open up the web browser and see how they compare in terms of web browsing speed okay here we are and open up the browser we've got plugins turn to on-demand so it shouldn't load any shouldn't be loading any Flash content we've got both devices on Wi-Fi we're gonna go to pocket now on both see which one gets there faster and you can really see the difference in the screens right now so more contrast is found on the galaxy s 2 the Xperia Arc has that Bravia Engine and a lot of people think that the colors are just unbelievably real on the Xperia Arc and as we flip through and do a comparison you're going to see that an action the colors are just really really good on the Xperia Arc contrast definitely the best on the galaxy s2 thanks to the Super AMOLED plus display and they're off and actually the arc is beating the galaxy s2 okay while they're loading us flick down the page both of them can keep up with a flick while the page is loading without getting everything into program memory well the arc beat the galaxy s2 it's doing something and it stopped okay well let the galaxy has to finish alright and we're done we can scroll down the page on both a little bit shoppi on the Xperia Arc let's zoom in see what it's like very smooth on both I'd say a little bit a little bit more choppy here on the arc let's click on this link here and both tap both are very very capable okay and the Galaxy has finished a little bit faster than the arc but again the arc is doing a great job of keeping up with a galaxy s2 we've tested a lot of phones against the galaxy s2 and in almost every case it wins so we're happy to see a phone keep up so again we can scroll down the page let's go to a more complex web page we'll go to end gadget which is very long and scrollable so we can see really how the GPU and the CPU performs okay we've got Engadget loaded on both are going to scroll to the bottom directly and just go to the desktop version so we can see the most graphic intense rendition of this website so they're off and let's see which one gets to the site first galaxy SSI head start there and loading the the top page elements here comes the arc like this is some sort of horse race let's flick down the page while they're loading no checker boards on either which is fantastic let's do screen reader rotation speed test while they're loading ok galaxy s2 their galaxy s2 there I'll just turn the camera off the tripod so you can see the viewing angle it's very very wide on both devices but when you get to a really extreme viewing angle on the galaxy s2 you can see the screen a little bit better whereas it's becoming kind of inverted the screens keep timing out a little bit inverted on the on the arc okay both have finished loading we can scroll down the page they're both pretty smooth again the arc is a little bit choppy when it comes to scrolling down the page it's hard to beat the galaxy s2 but in terms of page render times the the arc really can keep up not necessarily beating the galaxy s2 but certainly almost a matching its speed so right now we just clicked on another link we'll see where this takes us and then we'll wrap up the the web browser speed test here okay and the galaxy has to finish it looks like we jump down to the comments but here we are at the top so Sony Xperia Arc definitely no slouch when it comes to web browsing so at the end of the day the Galaxy S 2 is definitely the better device here if you just look at the facts I mean it browses the web faster it loads faster there's more RAM available but in terms of value the Xperia Arc might be the value in Android right now it's fast it's beautiful its thin its light and it can really keep up in a lot of ways in terms of web browsing - to the Galaxy S - so if you're looking the same 100 or 150 bucks which is a lot the arc is a great choice still and you can get the arc in a version that is AT&T capable we'll post a link on how to get that particular version in Europe they're already selling it they've been selling it for a while but you can import into the US use it on AT&T if you want as an unlocked phone if you liked this video please give us a thumbs up and thank you very much for watching that's it for now you