[Q] Alternative to XPeria Ray? - Buy Ray now or wait - Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini, Mini Pro, Xperia Pro, A

Hi all!
have been reading in this (awesome) forum for a while now. so first, thanks for the great work!
at the moment i own a ZTE blade with CM7 and its getting old. so i wanted to buy a new phone. sadly, all the new and great phones are massively big. i dont want to have to bua a manpurse so, the ray is one of the few phones that actually are small and where the community support (xda!) is great
the question is, is it intelligent/reasonable to buy a ray now? or should i wait? the xperia U is almost released and it has a dual core and nicer design (imo) but it also has a weaker battery and the worst part: no SD card slot.
as i want to use the phone as my mediaplayer as well, the 4gb of memory the U offers could be a bit of a pain.
so, my question:
is the ray that awesome that i should buy it now? or is there an alternative that you would recommend? what i expect from a phone:
small
nice screen resolution (>= 800x480)
reasonable battery
custom roms!
hope somebody can help me

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IMHO, i would suggest you wait and see once Xperia U has been released and see it perform first.
if you are really sticking with the Sony brand and the listed specifications is what you prefer, the Xperia U is the closest one in comparison.
some downside (comparing it to ray) is the lower resolution camera 5MP, no SD card (4GB is not enough, at least 8GB or more), battery capacity is really low (not sure why?)
if i would choose my next Sony phone, I would go with the Xperia P.

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Sony Experia U compared to Sony Ericsson Experia Ray
- better processor (dual core) and GPU (Mali400)
- no SD card slot
- lower quality camera
- smaller battery life
the decisive questions are
- how much better is the NovaThor U8500 CPU compared to Qualcomm Snapdragon SM8255 ?
- is the 8mpix ExmorR camera of Ray so much better than the simple 5mpix camera of U?
but even the NovaThor U8500 CPU is getting old...
so this is a hard decision, Experia Sola has the sd card but it will cost 50 euro more than Ray
here you can see Sola and Ray side by side: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9gO11MG6ss

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future support for sola?
hi,
yes, the question is, how will the sola or U perform compared to the ray, because the ray is awesomely small.
this may be hard to answer, but would you think that it is likely that the Sola or U will get community support and custom roms like the 2011 xperia line?
the sola would be my fallback device. it is still reasonably small and has the sd slot. sadly a bad battery as well.

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Derzis said:
Sony Experia U compared to Sony Ericsson Experia Ray
- better processor (dual core) and GPU (Mali400)
- no SD card slot
- lower quality camera
- smaller battery life
the decisive questions are
- how much better is the NovaThor U8500 CPU compared to Qualcomm Snapdragon SM8255 ?
- is the 8mpix ExmorR camera of Ray so much better than the simple 5mpix camera of U?
but even the NovaThor U8500 CPU is getting old...
so this is a hard decision, Experia Sola has the sd card but it will cost 50 euro more than Ray
here you can see Sola and Ray side by side: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9gO11MG6ss
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Camera quality cannot be said like this, it needs to be checked by comparing 2 photos.
Battery life needs to be tested also, as this information on websites are about phone in perfect conditions.
And how do you confirm that Mali400 is better than Adreno 205?

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TheOneAndOnlyDude said:
yes, the question is, how will the sola or U perform compared to the ray, because the ray is awesomely small. this may be hard to answer, but would you think that it is likely that the Sola or U will get community support and custom roms like the 2011 xperia line?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, of course and even more than the 2011 experia line
i think the 2012 experia line will be even more successfull with the community then the 2011 line
Someguyfromhell said:
And how do you confirm that Mali400 is better than Adreno 205?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mali400 is definitely better than Adreno 205, Samsung Galaxy S II uses the Mali400
"ARM's Mali-400 MP4 is the Fastest Smartphone GPU" http://www.anandtech.com/show/4760/arms-mali400-mp4-is-the-fastest-smartphone-gpufor-now
NovaThor uses a less powerfull version of Mali 400 than Samsung Galaxy S II
even Samsung I9070 Galaxy S Advance will use the same NovaThor 8500
but of course Mali400 and Adreno 205 are old now, in autumn new GPU will come Mali 604 vs Adreno 320
even Mali 604 is already old since it was announced in 2010 so in 2013 we get Mali 658
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5077/arms-malit658-gpu-in-2013-up-to-10x-faster-than-mali400

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Buy Xperia Sola

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Buy phone with 1GB ram, to be prepared for JB 4.1! None of those has 1GB.

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mirkuma said:
Buy phone with 1GB ram, to be prepared for JB 4.1! None of those has 1GB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Xperia SX seems to be a real Xperia Ray successor: small & powerful. The problem is that international version is not announced yet. At the moment it's only available in Japan. But is probably worth waiting...
Sent from my ST18i using xda app-developers app

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Xperia Ray is the best smartphone, i'm the crispy display and far better battery backup. The phone was announced in 2011 and if you have never purchased it yet then i would like to suggest you Xperia U. Limitation with storage but good phone with looks and powerful configuration.

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if i thinking about xperia U, i thinkings :
"is that too bad for a phone w/o sd slot?"
"how about future mod about this phone?" (like how can i backup my phone using CMW. but who knows....XDA devs are awesome)
"how far google can support this phone in the future?" (i believes that google will update this phone to JB)
For mostly users (dont really care about novathor,snapdragon or else), this may like some phone with best performance in its class (regarding from price n specs).
Xperia U's targeted for user whos like using cloudstorage more (the future ways) than natively sdcard.
USB OTG, dont forget that.
Sent from my SK17i

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andrasandhi said:
...
"how far google can support this phone in the future?" (i believes that google will update this phone to JB)
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
needless to say, updating Xperia smartphones is not google's bussiness, ya know?

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Xperia Sola Is most convenient one to your option
also remember that XDA users and developers will move to 2012 line
and Ray is 2011 ,by the time this devices will lose attention
or ,I think It's best if you waited for Google 5 Devices
I think those will be great options ,also will have the top XDA support + Google support
Regards

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Pixelado said:
needless to say, updating Xperia smartphones is not google's bussiness, ya know?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hu uh, i know buddy
Little miss explanations
Sent from my SK17i

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I have Xperia U and I can much better phone than 2011 series and also will get ICS with 3.0 kernel,so I would buy it.
Sent from my ST25i using Tapatalk 2