Sony Xperia Smartphones lands in the Philippines
Sony Philippines launched their new Xperia smartphone line yesterday afternoon in a media event at Mind Museum, Fort Bonifacio. They showcased four new smartphones — the Sony Xperia S, Sony Xperia P, Sony Xperia U, and the Sony Xperia Sola. The event was packed by members of the press and bloggers as top executives from Sony Philippines took the stage to explain Sony’s 4-screen strategy as well as the feature highlights of all four smartphones.
Here’s a quick recap video we made about the event:
Sony Xperia Philippines Launch Event Highlights Video
The event started around 12:15PM with the hosts, Magic 89.9 DJs Jessica Mendoza and Andi 9, welcoming the crowd. They then showed the newest promotional video of Sony which talks about their four-screen strategy. Basically they believe that the interaction between their various product lines (Bravia, Vaio, Xperia, and Tablet) will be a key differentiator in the market.
After the video they called to stage the President and Managing Director of Sony Philippines, Takao Kuroda. He shared that Sony has a great market here in the Philippines. He even revealed that they’ve been seeing double digit growth in sales int the last two-three years.
Sony Philippines Mobile Division Marketing Manager Vincent Dela Cruz then took the stage and was interviewed by Andi 9 about the different features of the Xperia smartphone line-up. This was followed by a quick speech by Patrick Larraga, Sony Philippines Mobile Division head, about how mobile fits into Sony’s over-all strategy.
After Patrick they had a quick raffle and they formally closed the event. Members of the press and media stayed for another half an hour for photo opportunities and interviews.
Initial Impressions about the new Xperia line-up
We were able to spend a few minutes with the Xperia S, P, and U. All three smartphones were definitely impressive and you can tell that Sony really wanted to make an impression with this line-up.
The Sony Xperia S, the flagship model, has great specs, looks ridiculously sezzy, and has a brilliant screen that just puts other smartphones to shame. It also comes with NFC chips which you can program so that it will automatically open an application if you tap it at the back of your handset. The 12-megapixel camera also takes amazing photos and records 1080p video even in low light conditions. Definitely worthy of being called the “flagship model” for this line-up!
Next we have the Sony Xperia P. What makes this particular unit special is the WhiteMagic display technology from Sony. Apparently this smartphone will still have a brilliant screen even under intense sunlight. This model also comes with the free NFC chips.
Lastly we have the Sony Xperia U. This 3.5-inch head turner still has a lot of personality and funk to offer despite it’s price. The glowing transparent strip near the bottom actually changes color depending on what image you’re viewing. You can also change the bottom part of the unit with a different color once they become available locally. This handset also packs a respectable 5-MP camera.
Unfortunately there weren’t any demo units of the Sony Xperia Sola available so we weren’t able to try that particular model out.
All four units will be upgradeable to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich when it becomes ready here in the Philippines.
Follow-up articles on the new Sony Xperia Smartphones coming soon!
We’ll do a series of follow-up articles on the new Sony Xperia smartphones later this week. For now we just want to extend our congratulations to the team of Sony Philippines and their PR Firm, Stratos Inc., for a job well done! Looking forward to the next Sony Philippines product launches!