With the launch of Xperia Tipo, Sony has entered the sub Rs 10,000 category in smartphones. While being a budget offering from the company Sony Tipo comes with an exciting set of features and some good hardware as well. We had a chance to get our hands on the new smartphone.
Xperia Tipo has a refreshing new look. It has a 3.2 inch display but the face of the device nears almost 4 inches, making it feel really big. 
The frame around the display is slightly beveled that makes the display look slightly raised giving the device a unique and sophisticated look.
###PAGE###
Tipo is available in a variety of colours with a flush front dressed in black and three capacitive touch keys for control. The phone is available in black, white, deep red and navy blue.
The display of the device at 3.2 inches comes with 320 x 480 pixel resolution, which is not at all much but does justice to most functions. The colour reproduction of the display is good but its brightness levels seem a little low for legibility in sunlight-more on this in the detailed review of the phone. The low cost of the device is due to a few exclusions. The mobile Bravia engine is one of them and will be dearly missed.
###PAGE###
The display, however, has a scratch resistant mineral glass on top which will make sure that daily use does not cause any damage to the device.
Xperia Tipo will be available in both single as well as dual SIM variants. Sony has made use of clever software and hardware integration for the Sony 
Xperia Tipo and the SIM selection has been made available with a SIM selection key on the right side of the device.
Xperia Tipo is powered by an 800 MHz single core Qualcomm MSM7225AA processor featuring the Adreno 200 GPU for superior graphics. Coupled with 512 MB of RAM the device gives decent all round performance but the CPU’s limitations will definitely be evident with processor intensive applications and games. The device, with its timescape user interface, is quite fast and never lacks in anything from App execution to performance.
###PAGE###
The operating system on the other hand is one of the exciting aspects of the phone. Xperia Tipo offers Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system that brings maximum application compatibility. Tipo will not upgrade to Android Jelly Bean operating system and will stay on Android ICS, but that is also good enough.
There is a 3.15 megapixel camera capable of recoding VGA resolution video at 30 FPS but the Sony Xperia Tipo misses out on a front camera, thereby making video calling impossible.
###PAGE###
For music fanatics there is Walkman integration and the xLoud sound preset is also available for some thumpy beats, but the earplugs don’t do justice to the device’s performance and it will be better to invest in good quality earplugs for the real feel.
This is just what we thought about the device based on a first-hand experience. For a more detailed review the cheapest Sony Xperia smartphone, stay tuned.