i own an xperia sola, and got a chance to test black pearl 2 recently.

first, the MT6577's processor actually perform better than STE U8500 according to antutu and quadrant.

second, the PowerVR SGX531 is not as good as sola's Mali-400 GPU. (nenamark 2 score slightly lower than sola)

third, RAM, BP2 actually have more RAM available to user compared to sola

4. kernel is newer than sola (3.0.13 for BP2, 3.0.8 for sola)

5. obviously screen is larger (4" vs 3.7")

6. BP2 have less ROM compared to sola
(BP2: internal storage = 500MB, phone storage = 2GB;
sola: internal storage = 2GB, phone storage = 4GB)

7. battery life should last longer than sola (1600mAh battery)

funny thing is , the back of the case say 5MP but when u go into the camera app the max resolution is 8MP!

and that's as much as i can remember for now. of course BP2 got dual sim sola only got one.

if you can buy mi501, that's a better choice for one obvious reason = moar power.

mi501 = the best android malaysia has to offer.

This post has been edited by ralph_d: Nov 29 2012, 05:24 PM

well something have to give to keep the price below 1k.
even if they manage to make it, the price will land at those premium brand price range, which leads to the famous question: would you buy a csl or buy samsung/htc/sony/etc.?
they got to sell their stuff y'knw

used it for a while, one full charge can certainly last whole day with average usage. If minimal usage maybe 2 days.

As for gaming, no problem running Dead Trigger and Beach Buggy Blitz.

like i already said before comparing with NovaThor U8500 (as both is dual core cortex-a9 @ 1GHz, 512mb ram) The processor perform slightly better than U8500, but still, Mali-400MP is stronger than PowerVR SGX531.

any specific thing you wanna know?

im not that familiar with the msm8225 but yes on paper mt6577 should be better, considering the cortex-A5 and cortex-A9 difference and also one is 45nm and the other is 40nm, and it's a common sense that smaller means more energy efficient, which leads to better battery life.

on real world though, not that much difference. apart from BP2 have USB-OTG function, i don't know mi501 got or not.

issues, well there's hiccups here and there, which is normal because even my sola got hiccups here and there. ICS still don't have Project Butter unlike Jelly Bean which is much much smoother. No problem with Wi-Fi so far, and GPS is a little slow (compared to my sola again) but that's normal for a new phone. It'll lock faster after starting it up at the same place several times. The A-GPS function is redundant though, not recommended to turn on, or it'll just make things worse.

I am anti Go Launcher kind of user, and i hate that BP2 comes preinstall Go Launcher with it. so i use back stock launcher, and it perform much much better. hmm... might want to test Zenonia 5 tonight, note to self

overall, if 5.2" is too large, this 4" alternative is not that bad at all. I bought my sola for RM999 back then, and both perform almost the same. BP2 lacks some of the functions sola have (NFC, floating touch, Sony's own s/w, which I like) but performance wise it still can keep up.

The camera was awesome too. not only still shot but also got panoramic shot and scrolling shot. even better it is an 8MP unit!

This post has been edited by ralph_d: Dec 7 2012, 11:59 AM

the screen cannot match with sony's no air gap screen
the only good thing about BP2's screen is it got IPS, other than that it's just another 4" WVGA screen.

if you ask me about the camera the answer would be quite subjective. (I'd say 'quite satisfied')
The phone is at home now, not with me, and gimme some time to take 'proper' photos (current photo only some macro shots in my room). I'll upload them here afterwards. You'll be the judge yourself

The camera app is the default ICS camera app, no special add on or whatsoever.

saw this on ninetology sabah facebook page



This post has been edited by ralph_d: Dec 10 2012, 08:37 AM

Here they are. all raw no edit
click to enlarge

Outdoor 1:
BP2:

Sola:

Link

Outdoor 2:
BP2:

Sola:

Link

Outdoor 3:
BP2:

Sola:

Link

Indoor 1:
BP2:

Sola:

Link

Indoor 2:
BP2:

Sola:

Link

This post has been edited by ralph_d: Dec 10 2012, 09:55 AM

overall i still prefer sola's result, it's a sony so the quality is there.

as for the BP2, i take all the shot in medium settings (sharpness, hue, saturation, brightness, contrast). these cannot be change in sola's default camera app. the speed also significantly faster than sola. sola take 1-2 seconds to take focus (SCN Auto) but BP2's speed is just like what google claimed - zero shutter lag.

quality wise still cannot match with sony.

anyone want benchmark test result screenshot?

lazada is a great place to start
or just look for mobile phone shop around your area

Benchmarks:

Quadrant:


AnTuTu:




Nenamark2:

the shop around my area sell at the rrp price (599)
lazada selling at 550.
not sure about other place.

---

Added on December 10, 2012, 3:02 pmmay i know what you planning to do with it?
even gaming it handle pretty well, 3d games like dead trigger, beach buggy blitz no problem at all.

This post has been edited by ralph_d: Dec 10 2012, 03:02 PM

comes with DiGi
surprisingly unlike those dual sim phone i used before, 3G also available on sim2 slot

@issacc the big difference of course the chip inside, one is mediatek 1GHz dual core and the other one is by qualcomm 1.2GHz dual core.

camera BP2 default 5MP but the camera app can go as high as 8MP, where the mercury stuck at 5MP. Video recording BP2 can record 720p HD, not sure about the Mercury though, 480p only?

Gaming mercury is better thanks to the extra 200MHz in the processor compared to BP2. BP2 also not bad for gaming, saw on ninetology sabah's video can play Dead Trigger and Beach Buggy Blitz smoothly.

Screen BP2 is better than Mercury minus the size. high PPI and IPS display is it's strength. Viewing angle on mercury esp. on landscape mode is not that good (black color become reflective)

@kucingfight you can ignore it. Ninetology claim that if you rip it off you'll void your warranty. Not much problem if you only have one sim card.

S advance have 768mb of ram compare to BP2 512mb, and samsung say gonna update to JB next year.
Apart from those two (not to forget s advance's curvy amoled screen), the rest more or less similar.
different price point anyway, BP2 is almost half the price of s advance.

This post has been edited by ralph_d: Dec 21 2012, 09:15 AM

another android phone, running on android 4.0.4 ics

This post has been edited by ralph_d: Dec 21 2012, 10:42 AM

if you are in between 21-30 years old, and monthly income less than 3k, and you want to buy BP2, hold your horses! Next year can buy at cheaper price.

http://www.skmm.gov.my/skmmgovmy/media/Gen...se-PKB-GMBO.pdf

according to ninetology malaysia's facebook:

USB-OTG do not work on BP2. tested (at least my usb-otg cable which works on sola and N7)