Which smartphone is the better choice? We pit the Sony Xperia U and the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus S7500 to see which device is worth the purchase.
In terms of design and display, the Sony Xperia U has a rectangular aspect with a transparent strip at the bottom, while the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus has a grip based back panel with round edges. The Sony device has a display of 3.5 inches TFT with a resolution of 480x854pixels and pixel density of 280ppi. Sony used the Mobile BRAVIA Engine technology to obtain a better viewing experience. The Samsung device has a 3.65 inches TFT screen with a low resolution of 320x480pixels and 158ppi. The Sony device measures 112x54x12 mm and weighs 110 grams, while the Samsung device is 5 grams heavier and its dimensions are 114.5×62.5×11.2 mm.
For the hardware and OS, the Sony Xperia U has a dual core 1GHz Cortex A9 processor, with a NovaThor U8500 chipset. There is no much of a difference when it comes to GPU performance, because the Mali-400 on the Sony Xperia U offers the same graphical need as the Adreno 200 on the Samsung smartphone. But the Samsung smartphone has a slower response because of the simple 1GHz Cortex A5 processor, backed by a Qualcomm MSM7227A Snapdragon chipset.
Both smartphone have 512MB of RAM, but the Sony device hae a 8GB of built in storage (4GB user available), while the Samsung smartphone initially has only 3GB of RAM, but with a microSD card, it can be expanded up to 32GB.
Both devices run on the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS, and if the Xperia U already received the 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update, the Galaxy Ace Plus is still waiting for the 4.1 (Jelly Bean) version. Sony uses the Timescape User Interface to make the phone more attractive, being similar to Motorola’s MotoBlur. Samsung has the TouchWiz interface, very simple to use.
For battery and camera specs, the Sony Xperia U has a slightly bigger battery with a capacity of 1320mAh and it provides up to 5 hours and a half of talktime on 3G. The Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus’ 1300mAh battery last 7 hours and 20 minutes (3G).
Both smartphones have cameras with a resolution of only 5MP, but fortunately, the companies added autofocus and LED flash on them to help you get decent pictures. There are also some similar features on both phones: geo tagging and face detection, but we picked the Xperia model as a winner because of the additional features: face and smile detection, image stabilization and 3D sweep panorama. Plus, it has a VGA secondary camera, which the Samsung handset lacks.
Both the Sony Xperia U and the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus cost $170.
Which smartphone is worth the purchase? Sound off in the comments section below.
