Smartphone review: Sony Xperia S

Poor old Sony. They seem - as the saying goes - too big to fail but with a massive £3.6 billion loss the electronics giant is having a bad time of it. New CEO Kaz Hirai is no doubt putting boot to buttocks in an effort to improve its fortunes but it can't be great fun to be there right now, particularly if you're among the 10,000 employees to be laid off.

One of the big changes it made recently was splitting up the phone partnership with Ericsson. That was finally completed last year and Sony has begun launching its own smartphones, still under the Xperia brand.

Past performance in this sector has been mixed so there was some optimism that post-Ericsson Sony was taking charge and putting in a major effort. Unfortunately we're only going to add to its woes albeit in an incredibly minor way: the Xperia S isn't that impressive. Not terrible, just not quite enough to be worth recommending over the many other Android phones.

Going purely on looks this is a really smart smartphone, so a huge improvement in that respect. Once we'd gotten hold of it though disappointments began to mount. Plastic construction is never a good start but the Xperia S features some other questionable design decisions.

On the other hand it does have one of the finest displays we've ever seen on a smartphone and the camera functionality is great. This might well be enough for many of you to overlook the downsides, so check out our full review to find out more.