The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc maybe a petite superhero, but that just means it’s nothing but screen, so we can hardly complain – especially when it’s Sony Ericsson’s unique 4.2-inch Reality Display.
Dig a little deeper though and you’ll discover another hidden imaging power of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, beyond its hardware. It deploys Sony’s mobile Bravia engine for incredible video visuals and picture processing you’d expect on an expensive flatscreen TV. Like an evil maniac revealing the identity of the caped crusader, we’re about to make public all of its secrets, so read on and find out why you need to see it in action.
The mobile Bravia engine isn’t a whirring motor inside your mobile: it’s more of a phantom operating behind the scenes. You’ll never see it, but you’ll see the results as soon as you fire up a video on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc’s lavish screen.
Noise fighting
The Bravia engine’s mission is to rid the world, or your camera clips at least, of pesky noise. We don’t mean actual sounds, but the speckles of irregular colour that find their way into every shot, particularly in low light scenarios.
The Bravia engine’s smart algorithms work out what shouldn’t be there, and gently tone them down and smooth them out, so you get more accurate footage. Of course, doing this for every frame of a fast moving HD video in realtime is incredibly tricky, but the scorching 1GHz processor inside the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc means it’s up to the challenge.
Eagle vision sharpness
Noise is just one of the limitations even the finest camera sensors struggle with: another holy grail of imaging is perfect sharpness: crisp images with a perfect representation of the changing tone in colour. Once again, the mobile Bravia engine steps in on the Xperia Arc to give this a steroid injection, and make videos look so crispy, they’re positively charred.
Even the high definition 720p videos you’ve shot with the Arc’s impressive Exmor R camera sensor can benefit from this conversion, and the smartphone’s screen is certainly pixel packed enough to detect the difference.
Colour control
If you’re watching a video with a fairly uniform background, like a blue sky or white snow, a smartphone prone to compression will lose all the subtlety and the difference in shades. That’s not so much of a problem with footage shot by the super sensitive Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc’s 8.1 megapixel shooter, but if it’s a clip a friend has sent you, or one you’ve pulled down from the web, it might be. The mobile Bravia engine swoops in to solve the issue, analysing the background and using colour management software to give the effect of true, accurate gradation.
The power of proper contrast
Another nightmare scenario when shooting video, and watching it back of course, is that everything is simply too dark, or even too bright – and when watching the video back, even your bat sonar powers won’t help you define everything there. Once again, the mobile Bravia engine on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc comes to the rescue, making sure black on white doesn’t end up a grey puddle, and evening vistas aren’t a black abyss, but the wonderful kaleidoscope of night time shades you saw with your own peepers.
Reality Display
Aiding and abetting all of the mobile Bravia engine’s powers is the lush display itself on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. At an 854×480 resolution, the 4.2-inch screen is one of the sharpest Android phones on the block, and it’s augmented by LED backlighting – another feature found in Sony’s Bravia TV. That serves to keep contrast looking just the way the engine renders it, by allowing for deeper blacks and purer whites. After watching videos on this, anything else would be a crime against your eyes – let the Arc be your protector.
Read more about the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc: The world’s thinnest Android phone up close
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc: Android apps to give you X-ray vision
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc: Exmor R sensor gives you night vision!
