Review: Sony Ericsson Experia Arc
Posted Monday, June 20, 2011 at 7:20 pm by Jason Cartwright
The Xperia Arc is Sony Ericsson’s centrepiece in their smartphone line-up. The 4.2” display is encased in a sexy thin and light body and is one impressive piece of engineering. Powered by Android 2.3.2 (Gingerbread), the Xperia Arc is valid competitor in today’s smartphone market.
The Arc feels good in your hand and while photos show off how thin it is, the weight can’t be under-rated. While I’ve never found an iPhone4 to be heavy (137 grams), the weight difference is noticeable. Connectivity is another strong point of the Xperia arc, with HDMI out and Micro USB, as well as all your standard wireless tech. Having a standard USB cable that plugs into a wall charger is also appreciated.
The camera may well be 8.1 Megapixels and record 720p video, I wasn’t blown away by the end result. While it may not be the best on the market, its solid and owners of the Arc can share online sans embarrassment. The physical camera button is positioned in an awkward position and didn’t feel as natural as it could have. Still smart phones are about device convergence, and the Xperia Arc will save you carrying a dedicated camera for day-to-day use.
The on-screen keyboard of the Arc is solid and with the large display, it is pretty easy to type on. When mistakes inevitably happen, placing the cursor between the characters and modifying text is a simple task.
The Arc integrates accounts solidly. Naturally Google is supported well, but Facebook is equally well catered for. Just enter your account details and your contact list and photo library grow to support Facebook. Your Facebook friend updates are surfaced on the front page with Timescape. A sliding tile UI that encompasses Facebook, Twitter, text messages and emails, surfacing the latest info. During my time with the Arc, I found this a very useful widget, my only wish was that it supported more sizes.
Specifications
Dimensions: 125.0 × 63.0 × 8.7 mm
Weight: 117.0 grams
Display: 4.2” TFT, 854×480 pixels
Storage: 1GB internal, microSD card slot supports up to 32GB
Camera: 8.1 Megapixel (720p video recording, LED flash, Geo-tagging, touch focus)
Connectivity: HDMI, Micro USB, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS
Google Android OS
The Xperia Arc is powered by Android 2.3.2, this is .2 releases away from the most recent version of Android. No word on whether the Xperia Arc will receive either 2.3.4 or Ice cream sandwich, as with all Android updates, its very much wait and see. Installing apps via https://market.android.com/ and having them pushed wirelessly to the phone was a great experience and frankly should be available for all smartphones OS’s. If only we could arrange our home screen icons on the desktop as well, think I’d rather touch my eyeball with a hot needle.
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Overall
The Xperia Arc is a very, very solid entrant to the hotly contested smart phone war. The market leader is the iPhone4 and as yet there is still no screen or camera on the market that beats it. That said I enjoyed my time with the Xperia Arc and would be happy using it as my personal phone, if only I wasn’t hundreds of dollars invested in iOS apps.
When you think of smart phones, Sony Ericsson probably doesn’t immediately jump to mind, but now with the Xperia Arc on the market, I suggest it should. A solid job Sony, my only suggestion now is to drop the Ericsson name, it continues to remind me of the traditional 1-line displays from Ericsson in the 90’s.
Review: Microsoft Arc Keyboard and Mouse
Posted Friday, March 5, 2010 at 10:45 am by Jason Cartwright
Keyboard
The Microsoft Arc Keyboard is unique in its styling and configuration. The name arc comes from the keyboards arc shape, curing up in the center which has 2 benefits, the first is that it’s supposed to match the natural configuration of the human hands, as well as being able to rest comfortably on your knees if used in a home entertainment scenario.
Typing on the keyboard does take some time to adjust to, especially after having the muscle memory established on flat, laptop-style keyboards. Over the course of a few days your hands adjust and typing is fine. Note: I am a touch typist, if your a hunt and peck style typist, this really won’t be an issue. Part of the adjustment comes from the increased distance between keys. The Arc keyboard has chicklet style keys, similar to that of recent apple products, the difference being that the keys are higher. This means the gap between keys is deep, this can prevent you from free flowing from one key to another.
After first opening the box, you’ll notice this keyboard is small and light. Microsoft have had to make some serious sacrifices to reach this form factor. There’s no num pad which isn’t uncommon in laptops, but is rare for a desktop keyboard. There’s also a condensed navigation section, with the up, down, left right keys being condensed into a single 4-way key. This takes a bit of getting used to.
Looking to the top of the keyboard, there left hand side contains the standard F1-F6 keys, but to access F7-F12, you’ll need to hold the function key. Move across you’ll find Home(/Printscreen), End, Page up, Page down, then media controls, which are incredibly responsive, then top right is a decent sized Delete key. Great for correcting mistakes without looking. 
Mouse
Designed for portability the Microsoft Arc Mouse folds in half for easier travel. In it’s folded mode, it’d easily fit in your pocket, but before taking your mouse on the road, just snap the USB Bluetooth module in the underside of the mouse. After using the mouse for the best part of a week, I’d have to say the arc is simply too high to be comfortable and the back button is way to far forward to be accessible. Overall the mouse works great, it’s super sensitive which is great when gaming, but even in general desktop use. I run 2 monitors running 1920×1200 resolution, so moving from one side to the other can require quite a lot of physical movement with some mice. With a sensitive mouse like this, I actually had to turn the mouse speed down and can now move across the 3840 pixels with a slight move of the wrist.
Connectivity
What was surprising to me is that the keyboard and mouse need their own separate USB Bluetooth module, taking up 2 of your USB ports. Sure a wired solution would have the same requirement, however there are other Microsoft keyboard and mouse solutions that have a single USB dongle. Admittedly the Arc system is easier, just plug in and go, rather than have to sync each device.
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Device Stage
If your not familiar with it, Windows 7 comes with a new feature called Device Stage. Designed to be an attractive, functional interface into new devices connected to your system. Unfortunately there’s very few devices that currently support Device Stage. The Microsoft Arc Keyboard and Mouse does support Device Stage, a welcome addition, and naturally you’d expect the company to support it’s own hardware. Lets hope more hardware manufacturers adopt Device Stage in the near future.
Update
After testing the Arc keyboard with the Xbox 360 I found a weird glitch. Whilst the keyboard works great in the standard Xbox 360 interface, it fails in Media Center. Strangely only the left and right functions work, up and down does nothing. This is possibly due to the keyboard combining the 4 arrow keys into a single key.
Disclaimer
After posting on twitter that my Microsoft Explorer 3.0 mouse had died, I received an email from Microsoft. They offered to replace the mouse and after further discussions sent me through a Microsoft Arc and Keyboard.
More info @ Microsoft Hardware
Microsoft Arc keyboard gets Aus release date, pricing.
Posted Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:01 am by Jason Cartwright 
Perhaps not the best day to launch a tech product, April 1st has been confirmed as the release date for Microsoft’s Arc Keyboard. Australian pricing will be $79.95.
Seemingly the ideal keyboard for sitting on the couch, strangely misses out on the little green Media Centre button. Shame, would love to have used it with the Xbox 360.
More @ Microsoft Hardware
