The Sony Xperia V is a

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

designed, developed and marketed by

Sony Mobile Sony Mobile Communications Inc., originally Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, was a Multinational corporation, multinational consumer electronics and telecommunications company, best known for its Mobile phones, mobile phone products. The ...

. Presented initially on 29 August 2012 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, the Xperia V was released in December 2012 and belongs to Sony's handset line up of the second half of 2012, which includes the flagship

Xperia T Sony Xperia T (renamed Sony Xperia TL in the United States) is an Android (operating system), Android smartphone manufactured by Sony Mobile. Introduced on 29 August 2012, it is Sony Mobile's last device ever introduced to feature the Sony Erics ...

and the entry-level Xperia J. The device employs a 1280×720 (

720p 720p (720 lines progressive) is a progressive HD signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HD (1.78:1). All major HD broadcasting standards (such as SMPTE 292M) includ ...

) pixel resolution display, a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and a 13-megapixel camera, and an interchangeable battery while protected by a water-resistant outer skin. This is the first Sony Mobile's device alongside the Xperia J that does not feature the Sony Ericsson's liquid energy logo after

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

acquired

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

's stake in Sony Ericsson in February 2012.

Availability

The device was officially announced by Sony on 29 August 2012 in Berlin along with the Xperia J and T. The device is water and dust resistant which is similar to the Xperia go and Xperia acro S. It was to be released during the fourth quarter of 2012. As of January 2015, Sony has run out of replacement batteries in Hong Kong and is no long producing them, meaning it is no longer supporting the Xperia V.

Hardware

The phone has a

capacitive touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically layered on the top of the e ...

display that measures 4.3 inches with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at 342

ppi PPI may refer to: Science and technology Biochemistry * PPi, the anion P2O74−, a pyrophosphate * Polyproline I helix * Protein–protein interaction Medicine * Patient and public involvement * Prepulse inhibition, of a later pulse * Proton-pump ...

equipped with Sony's Mobile

BRAVIA Bravia (stylized as BRAVIA) is a brand of Sony Visual Products Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony, and is used for its television products. Its name is a backronym for "Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture". All Sony high-defin ...

Engine 2 which enhances the display of the device. It is capable of displaying 16,777,216 colours and supports multitouch. The camera of the device has 13

megapixels In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sma ...

capable of 16 times digital zoom with Sony's

Exmor Exmor is a technology developed by Sony and implemented on some of their CMOS sensor, CMOS image sensors. It performs on-chip Analog-to-digital converter, analog/digital signal conversion and two-step noise reduction in parallel on each column ...

R for low light capturing. It is capable of video recording at 1080p HD and also video calling. The phone also features a VGA front-facing camera with 0.3 megapixels. The device has a 1.5 GHz Dual-core

Qualcomm Snapdragon Snapdragon is a suite of system-on-chip (SoC) semiconductor products for mobile devices designed and marketed by Qualcomm, who often refers to these SoCs as "mobile platforms". They typically integrate central processing units (CPU) based o ...

processor with 1 GiB

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

, internal storage of 8 GiB and an external slot for storage expansion up to 64 GiB. The device is also NFC (

Near Field Communication Near-field communication (NFC) is a set of communication protocols that enables communication between two electronic devices over a distance of or less. NFC offers a low-speed connection through a simple setup that can be used for the boots ...

) enabled which can be used with Xperia SmartTags, or for low value financial transactions, as NFC becomes more widespread in use, with the appropriate applications from

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

. The device also features a micro USB connector with USB on the Go support It also has a scratch-resistant and shatterproof glass. Despite being equipped with a user-replaceable battery, the Xperia V has a dust- ( IP5X) and water-resistant ( IPX5/7) rating, similar to the Sony Xperia acro S.

Software

The phone is released with Sony's Android 4.0 ''Ice Cream Sandwich'' integrated with Facebook and the Entertainment Network, allowing users to access Music & Video Unlimited. Other than that, the device also has the

Walkman is a brand of Personal stereo, portable audio players manufactured by Sony since 1979. It was originally introduced as a portable Compact Cassette, cassette player and later expanded to include a range of portable audio products. Since 2011, ...

music player with a manual equalizer and is DLNA certified. The operating system can be upgraded to version 4.3 Jellybean from 29 January (see bottom of page), with it being the final version and no Android version 4.4 KitKat being released for Xperia V. Though Sony did not release any software updates after Jellybean 4.3, they have always been supporting open source nature of Android; as a result, there are lot of ROMs available. Recently it also received Lollipop-based ROMSs which include '
cyanogenmod
'','

'' thanks to developers at XDA.

References

External links

Sony Xperia V official webpage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sony Xperia V Android (operating system) devices Mobile phones introduced in 2012 Discontinued smartphones V Mobile phones with user-replaceable battery