Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo Sim Free Smartphone - Blue/Grey

I bought the Xperia Neo to replace an Orange San Francisco- a terrific phone with an abysmal camera and tendency to hang during sessions of Angry Birds. Well, the Xperia plays AB brilliantly and the 8.1 Mpixel camera is about as good as you'll get on a mobile phone.In the box, apart from the phone & battery are a charger adapter and a micro USB cable used for charging. This means you'll have to buy a separate USB cable to tether to your computer if you want to avoid swapping cables. Also in the box is a screen protector, decent earphones and a mini HDMI cable (good grief!). There's a brief start up guide but no printed manual, that's on the phone.Setup is straight forward, pop in your SIM card and battery, charge up and switch on. A wizard guides you through setup, registers with your network and helps you transfer contacts.The Xperia is good to use though I find the shiny blue/black casing a bit slippery. It's all plastic but feels well built. Personally, I think the 3.7 inch screen size and slightly curved back fits well in the hand and is more pocket friendly than the 4 inch and above phones. The screen itself, though LCD rather than AMOLED, is bright, sharp and responsive.It runs Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread with a little customisation from Sony Ericsson. Of course, being Android you can easily customise it yourself. It's fast and responsive in use.Calls are clear though the dialler is bit basic. Excellent camera with 720p video and a physical button on the side of the phone. There's also a front-facing camera for video calls.Overall, I think the Xperia Neo is great midrange phone particularly for someone looking for a pocket friendly media phone.

I have never owned a smart phone before and as I'm of the older generation it's taking me a bit of time to get used to all the functions. I personeley would have prefered an instruction manual in paper form. So far it's been great, the screen is clear and easy to read, radio good, calls clear, camera excellent, my only small niggle is when I'm texting I get the wrong letters up on a regular basis, probably because my fingers are to big. If the iphone is better the this phone it will need to something realy special.

Fairly easy to use even for a 70yr + lady. Can browse the web etc LOVELY clear 8mg camera. Takes better pics than my dedicated digital camera. Face is clear. Only drawback was typing page was tricky, but solved when I bought an in car charger complete with case and pen. Now its easy with the pen.

What can I say about the Neo smart phone other than its simply brilliant,Ive had a red Neo for the past 4 months and its proved itself to be dependable and reliable and a pleasure to use.Before this phone I had a K800i and then a samsung phone.My Neo is my first smart phone,mines got loads of wallpapers on and about 16 games on to.Ive found texting to be very easy and I recently downloaded the Swift X keyboard to replace the original one and its now even better for texting than it was before.Battery life wasnt good at first but over time it improved and also if you turn off applications which arent needed that helps extend the battery life alot.Call quality is excellent and Ive never had a dropped call no matter how low my signal strength has been.Build quality is excellent and Id recommend you get a case for it and a screen protecter to help keep it looking good.I recently updated my phone to the android 2.3.4 and now its better than ever and Surfing the web is easy and very fast and reliable.The camera is simply brilliant and its very easy to use to,who needs to buy a proper camera when you can just use your phone.I havent had a single problem with my neo during the past 4 months since I bought it,Its a beautiful phone and its well worth the money,buy one you wont regret it. :-)

PositivesI love it! Absolutely crazily fantastic camera for a phone.The touch is responsive, and the phone is easy to navigate.I love the live wallpapers, and the way you can customise your home screen with widgets and short cuts.It's got extendible memory which is fantastic as I plan to use it quite a lot for music and photos.Typing is easy especially in landscape.Lovely to look at and great design.I never thought I'd say it, but I think I like it more than the iPhone!Negatives (if I'm being picky)Apps are stored on the phones internal memory, so you can't download hundreds like I like toThe battery life is good, but you probably need to plug it in every day if you're using it frequentlyThere are some apps you can't delete on it - I don't want to play golf on my phone, for example!

I bought this phone - new and unlocked - on eBay for about £210 in Oct2011I have been VERY pleased with it. It looks and feels great, the screen is incredibly high-resolution, it runs quickly and has android 2.3. Camera is very good and it is MUCH cheaper than similarly-spec'd phones from the likes of HTC etcThe only thing that initially made me hesitant about buying it was the depth - it seemed a bit deeper than other phones of similar spec. All I can say after using it for 3 months is that this depth isn't an issue at all. Actually, it feels slim. All in all, 5 stars, great phone for half the price of an iPhone or similarly spec'd phone. Best phone I've had. Battery life is very good too. I get 2 day's of charge on it - just! Well done Sony. Compared to - say - the Galaxy Ace or HTC wildfire S, this phone is WAY better. If you can get this phone at around £210, it's a GREAT deal