The Xperia Arc (we’re going to be making lot of comparisons to the Arc in this review) is 125 x 63mm with a depth of 8.7mm. The Ray slices most of that off and comes in at a remarkable 111 x 53mm. It is slightly fatter, by less than a millimetre, clocking in at 9.4mm deep.
It reminds us very much of the original (and, at the time, revolutionary) HTC Touch Diamond from 2008 – a niche handset that only retro phone geeks are likely to recall.
Indeed, compared to the larger handsets we’ve become used to using, such as the Samsung Galaxy S2, Apple iPhone 4 and HTC Sensation, this really does feel teeny and we couldn’t stop picking it up at first.
But it is no slouch. Under that hood, you’ll find a not-too-shabby 8MP camera with HD video recording, Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread, HSUPA/HSDPA and 1GHz processor.
The Ray sits comfortably in the hand, and at 100g, you’ll barely even notice it’s there. Indeed if ever there was a candidate for a ‘going out phone’ that would slip unobtrusively into a pair of skinny jeans, this is most definitely it.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray’s screen is the same resolution as the Xperia Arc’s amazing display, which means 480 x 854 pixels. But it’s a lot smaller, at 3.3 inches, compared to the Xperia Arc’s 4.2 inches, which means a much higher density.