Geekzone: technology news, blogs, forums
Guest
Welcome Guest.
You haven't logged in yet. If you don't have an account you can register now.


garbonzai

315 posts

Ultimate Geek


#141235 5-Mar-2014 15:16
Send private message

Thinking of getting a new phone, although I would love a top of the line smart phone with all the bells and whistle, I don't want to spend $600 and up,

Budget, up to $400 approx,

The Sony Experia SP seems to tick all the boxes, my only concern is that, is Dual-core 1.7 GHz Krait CPU good enough, has a Adreno 320 GPU, I think the CPU is about as fast as a Quad-core Cortex-A9 (might be wrong) which puts it on par Galaxcy S3 and HTC One X.

Some of the cheap quad core phones have cortex a5 cpu's, so I would presume the Krait Duals are quicker?

Any thoughts and recommendations on models in price range and anyone has a Xperia SP and how they find it.

I can't find any charts etc for mobile phone CPU speeds online other than computer cpu's.

Cheers





 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Create new topic
jonathan18
7413 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified
Trusted

  #999579 5-Mar-2014 16:04
Send private message

To confirm - it's a Sony Xperia SP!

Yep, I've got one; bought it from mobicity.co.nz (for $350), though I had many problems getting it sent (took ages - see separate thread on this).

At the time I thought it offered the best bung for buck in the mid-range of phones; NFC, SD card slot, 4G, decent-sized screen with 720 resolution; I'm still not sure what else is out there with similar specs, but I guess one key competitor is the Motorola G - while it was released after I got the SP, I am still happy with the SP, especially given the lack of SD card on the G. That said, if you're not worried about capacity, especially if you can get the 16GB model, the G probably offers better bang for buck (eg, quad-core...).

Totally happy with the SP, really; it's quick enough without being super-quick or too annoyingly slow. Some complain about the screen quality, but I've found it fine. Never used either 4G (with 2 degrees) or the NFC yet! Biggest complaint would be the weight - it's a substantial phone and I do feel it in my pocket, especially when exercising.

Oh, before I forget - it received an upgrade to 4.3 from 4.1 last month; the installation went fine on my phone, though I've had to re-install many apps since that have given up working (Spotify, Angry Birds, and now Google Play today...). Apparently it's also down to get 4.4 in the future, though I'm unsure when this will happen.



ibuksh
524 posts

Ultimate Geek


  #999581 5-Mar-2014 16:05
Send private message

My dad has the Xperia SP and while I was using S3, I found both their performance to be quite similar.

SP is currently cheaper than the S3 so thats one thing to think about

myndlyz
472 posts

Ultimate Geek


  #999590 5-Mar-2014 16:22
Send private message

why dont you go for a motorola moto g? much newer version of android (the latest i think now) and it has a quad core processor



garbonzai

315 posts

Ultimate Geek


  #999594 5-Mar-2014 16:33
Send private message

jonathan18: To confirm - it's a Sony Xperia SP!

Yep, I've got one; bought it from mobicity.co.nz (for $350), though I had many problems getting it sent (took ages - see separate thread on this).

At the time I thought it offered the best bung for buck in the mid-range of phones; NFC, SD card slot, 4G, decent-sized screen with 720 resolution; I'm still not sure what else is out there with similar specs, but I guess one key competitor is the Motorola G - while it was released after I got the SP, I am still happy with the SP, especially given the lack of SD card on the G. That said, if you're not worried about capacity, especially if you can get the 16GB model, the G probably offers better bang for buck (eg, quad-core...).

Totally happy with the SP, really; it's quick enough without being super-quick or too annoyingly slow. Some complain about the screen quality, but I've found it fine. Never used either 4G (with 2 degrees) or the NFC yet! Biggest complaint would be the weight - it's a substantial phone and I do feel it in my pocket, especially when exercising.

Oh, before I forget - it received an upgrade to 4.3 from 4.1 last month; the installation went fine on my phone, though I've had to re-install many apps since that have given up working (Spotify, Angry Birds, and now Google Play today...). Apparently it's also down to get 4.4 in the future, though I'm unsure when this will happen.



Ha, just corrected the "Soney", I don't think their is a  spell checker in the title bar,

The Moto G lacks a few features of the SP and I'm use to a heavy phone with Atrix 2, I presume Moto G's A7 Quad is slightly faster than Krait A9 dual in the SP, but then the  SP 320 GPU is faster than the 305.

May have to have a quick play with one somewhere (Noel Leeming I think),

Thanks




 

 

 

 

 

 

 


  #999599 5-Mar-2014 16:44
Send private message

my wife and i both have them, i just recently upgraded to android 4.3 while she is still on 4.1, and mine is a lot slower since the upgrade.

They are good phones but the internal memory fills quickly when you add a few apps/pics/videos

i havent found anything that would put me off buying one, as i wasnt in the market for a ultra fast $1000 phone.

4g is good and pretty quick as is 3g.

overall im happy with it and it does what i need to do.

jeffnz
2870 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #999602 5-Mar-2014 16:49
Send private message

have a look in the offers thread as someone was selling a Moto G 8GB for $200 last night which is a good price but 8gb bit small.




Galaxy S10

 

Garmin  Fenix 5




garbonzai

315 posts

Ultimate Geek


  #1052426 24-May-2014 18:15
Send private message

Ended up getting a Moto G, for $199, so that will do me for a while.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 
 
 

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.
Batwing
672 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted
Subscriber

  #1052541 24-May-2014 21:50
Send private message

My partner has the Xperia SP and the Moto G - I bought her the Xperia SP last year as it certainly looked to have the best spec for the price at the time. Unfortunately the 4.2.2 based ROM it shipped with was horribly slow, the update to 4.3 made it worse. She won't let me "fix" it with a custom ROM.

The Moto G is lightning quick in comparison, despite the theoretically slower graphics processor it seems to handle all the games she plays just as well as the SP, with the added advantage of not grinding to a halt trying to open contacts or text messages. Now I just have to convince her to start using the Moto instead of leaving it in a drawer...

garbonzai

315 posts

Ultimate Geek


  #1052742 25-May-2014 12:20
Send private message

Batwing: My partner has the Xperia SP and the Moto G - I bought her the Xperia SP last year as it certainly looked to have the best spec for the price at the time. Unfortunately the 4.2.2 based ROM it shipped with was horribly slow, the update to 4.3 made it worse. She won't let me "fix" it with a custom ROM.

The Moto G is lightning quick in comparison, despite the theoretically slower graphics processor it seems to handle all the games she plays just as well as the SP, with the added advantage of not grinding to a halt trying to open contacts or text messages. Now I just have to convince her to start using the Moto instead of leaving it in a drawer...



Yea, I'm happy so far, still setting it up the way I want as got late yesterday afternoon, is blazingly fast and has no lag compared to Atrix 2 and has very nice screen, just have to cut back on the crap to keep space on the 8GB.

The Moto G I got is dual sim too, so that's cool and selling the Atrix 2 on Trademe I will probably recoup what I paid for Moto G or even more.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Create new topic





News and reviews »

Air New Zealand Starts AI adoption with OpenAI
Posted 24-Jul-2025 16:00


eero Pro 7 Review
Posted 23-Jul-2025 12:07


BeeStation Plus Review
Posted 21-Jul-2025 14:21


eero Unveils New Wi-Fi 7 Products in New Zealand
Posted 21-Jul-2025 00:01


WiZ Introduces HDMI Sync Box and other Light Devices
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:32


RedShield Enhances DDoS and Bot Attack Protection
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:26


Seagate Ships 30TB Drives
Posted 17-Jul-2025 11:24


Oclean AirPump A10 Water Flosser Review
Posted 13-Jul-2025 11:05


Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7: Raising the Bar for Smartphones
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Brings New Edge-To-Edge FlexWindow
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Epson Launches New AM-C550Z WorkForce Enterprise printer
Posted 9-Jul-2025 18:22


Samsung Releases Smart Monitor M9
Posted 9-Jul-2025 17:46


Nearly Half of Older Kiwis Still Write their Passwords on Paper
Posted 9-Jul-2025 08:42


D-Link 4G+ Cat6 Wi-Fi 6 DWR-933M Mobile Hotspot Review
Posted 1-Jul-2025 11:34


Oppo A5 Series Launches With New Levels of Durability
Posted 30-Jun-2025 10:15









Geekzone Live »

Try automatic live updates from Geekzone directly in your browser, without refreshing the page, with Geekzone Live now.



Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.