The Xperia Arc looks likely to be one of the last devices to carry the Sony Ericsson name after Sony said in October that it has bought Ericsson’s share of the joint venture. Sony no doubt wants to ensure future handsets integrate more easily with its other devices, and hopefully the results will be more focused than we’ve seen from the Xperia range.

For a while, it looked as if Sony Ericsson was going the way of Siemens’ now-defunct mobile phone business, but then the company regrouped and is ditching the dated Symbian operating system, embracing Google’s Android instead and introducing a range of new devices.

Like the Xperia Pro that we reviewed in November, the Arc is a decent device. But it already feels dated when compared to its contemporaries. Its closest rivals in terms of specifications — the HTC Sensation and the Samsung Galaxy S2 — both make the Arc seem woefully underpowered.

The biggest single let-down of the Arc is the lag to which it is prone. Whether it’s switching between home screens or opening a message, the Arc tends to keep the user waiting a little too long. We can only assume the poor responsiveness is on account of the single-core, 1GHz processor not being up to the demands of Sony’s custom Android overlay, Timescape.

Like so many custom Android interfaces, Timescape is more show than substance and, although it looks good, it does little to enhance the user experience, making it more of an annoyance than anything else.

The Arc’s hardware design is, however, very easy on the eye. Looking at it from the front, it resembles a dozen other Android devices. But the slightly curved rear cover makes it comfortable in hand and the chrome trim around all four edges lend it an air of sophistication.

The 4,2-inch, 480×854 pixel LED-backlit LCD display is also a delight, offering incredibly crisp images and good contrast, though it’s still not quite as good as recent Amoled displays. In keeping with the competition, the Arc is also a fairly compact device at only 8,7mm thick and weighing 117g.

Powered by Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread), the Arc has 320MB of internal storage, which is nothing to write home about. This is offset by the fact that it not only offers expansion via a microSD slot but an 8GB microSD card is also included in the box.

As is often the case with Sony Ericsson devices, the Arc includes a very capable 8-megapixel camera that has autofocus, image stabilisation, an LED flash and the ability to shoot video at 720p at 30 frames a second. There is no front-facing camera but, considering how little most people seem to use these, that’s no real loss.

The Arc includes a stereo FM radio, GPS, a mini HDMI port, support for Wi-Fi and DNLA media streaming and 3G (up to 7,2Mbit/s).

Battery life is fairly standard for a phone in this class, and we got a day of use out of it with Wi-Fi and mobile data enabled throughout or closer to two if we turned off everything we could whenever we could.

Aside from the awful lag between making selections and things actually happening on screen, the Arc isn’t a terrible device. It’s just that there are so many better ones in its class that it’s hard to recommend it, particularly considering that, at R6 999, it’s similarly priced. — Craig Wilson, TechCentral