We throw Sony's new Xperia S into the ring with the Android platform's reigning champion – the Samsung's Galaxy S2 – to see which handset is the best going into 2012.
Form
Samsung Galaxy S2 - 125.3x66.1x8.5mm, 116g
Samsung Galaxy S2 - 125.3x66.1x8.5mm, 116g
Sony Xperia S - 128x64x10.6mm, 144g
The Samsung Galaxy S2 launched this time last year but it's still up there as one of the more attractive looking handsets on the market with its imposing proportions and more angular styling.
Overall the design is minimalist, which makes everything look clean and modern, though it does have a textured back panel to spice things up a little.
The Sony Xperia S is a much striking device with next to no curvature or softening on the corners. In contrast to this the backpanel is completely smooth, which does provide some interesting contrast.
The other significant visual tweak is that the screen takes precedence over the bodywork, leading to a very thin bezel and a more ‘premium' look and feel.
We think Sony's device looks much smarter.
Winner - Sony Xperia S
DisplaySamsung is traditionally pretty consistent at producing some top quality displays for its devices, so much so that other manufacturers, such as Nokia, even buy them for their own handsets too.
The Galaxy S2 uses Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus technology, which offers excellent picture quality, brightness, colour depth and is a bit more battery friendly than your avergae LCD panel.
The 4.3-inch multi-touch capacitive display is also reinforced with Corning's impressively resilient Gorilla Glass and boasts an 800x480 pixel WVGA resolution, giving a pixel density of 217 pixels-per-inch (ppi).
However Sony seems keen to take the South Korean manufacturer down a peg or two.
The Xperia S's display measures the same 4.3-inches as its Samsung rival and while its not Super AMOLED Plus, it still uses a fancy LED backlit LCD screen resulting in some sharp imagery.
As might be expected it's multi-touch capable, but what you might not expect is support for all 10 of your digits.
We can't quite fathom what kind of app we might need all 10 for but we suppose it's always nice to have the option and its certainly not something we're going to hold against the Xperia S.
It's also scratch-resistant and boasts a very impressive resolution of 1280x720 pixels, which is not something you see very often on a smartphone.
The pixel density comes at an astounding 342ppi, which is higher than even the Apple iPhone's acclaimed, and significantly smaller, Retina display.
We have to commend Sony here for producing a brilliantly high-spec display.
Winner - Sony Xperia S
StorageSamsung's Galaxy S2 has two storage options. You've got a choice of either 16GB or 32GB and either one you choose comes with 1GB of RAM and a microSD slot for up to an additional 32GB of card storage.
Sony's new handset only has the one option but it's an ample 32GB and 1GB of RAM. Unfortunately, Sony has decided to forego the usual card slot on this particular model, which is a bit of a shame.
Samsung is holding the trump card for this round with its microSD capability.
Winner - Samsung Galaxy S2ProcessorInside the Galaxy S2 is a 1.2GHz dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor running on Samsung's brilliant Exynos chipset alongside a Mali-400MP graphics processing unit (GPU).
It might not have the fastest clock speed on the market but thanks to the chipset and GPU combo this setup is still one of the better performing hardware configurations currently available.
The Xperia S is also a dual core device loaded with a 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor on the MSM8260 Snapdragon chipset and features Qualcomm's new Adreno 220 GPU, which should pack quite a punch.
We think this qualifies as a draw as both phones are capable of high-end performance.
Winner - Draw
Operating SystemBoth handsets are currently running Android 2.3 Gingerbread but are due to be updated to Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 at some point this year, which should offer a performance boost and a much quicker and more intuitive user interface.
These devices are on an equal footing in this context as well.
Winner - Draw
CameraThe Samsung Galaxy S2 may not have the absolute best 8-megapixel camera out there but it's certainly one of the better ones available, showing the majority of contemporary handsets how it's done.
The resolution clocks in at 3264x2448 pixels and camera features include 1080p video capture, an LED flash, geo-tagging, autofocus, touch focus, image stabilisation and face and smile detection. There's also a reasonably good 2-megapixel secondary camera on the front.
Sony has come straight out of left field with the Xperia S, taking no prisoners with a 12-megapixel beast of a primary camera sporting a 4000x3000 pixel resolution and an Exmor R CMOS sensor.
Features wise it has the same setup as the Galaxy S2 for still images, plus the addition of 3D ‘sweep' panoramic capture.
Again, we were impressed with the quality of its predecessor, the Xperia Arc S, in this category and with that pedigree it should deliver some pretty snazzy pictures.
For video it can capture in 1080p on the primary camera and features continuous autofocus, a video light and video stabilisation. The 1.3-megapixel secondary camera can also capture video in 720p.
Sony is offering one of the most competitive camera set-ups we've seen for some time on the Xperia S so we've no qualms about voting it the winner in this round.
Winner - Sony Xperia S
Final Thoughts
Sony has come close to toppling Samsung's Galaxy S2 from its perch. It doesn't quite achieve this and we'd mainly pin that on the lack of a microSD card so instead it ends up sitting awkwardly on the same branch in this weird phones-as-birds metaphor we've created.
Sony has come close to toppling Samsung's Galaxy S2 from its perch. It doesn't quite achieve this and we'd mainly pin that on the lack of a microSD card so instead it ends up sitting awkwardly on the same branch in this weird phones-as-birds metaphor we've created.
Regardless, It's on an equal footing in terms of the operating system and processing power but has sharper looks, a far superior camera and a much better display.
All in all we have to say that if we were pushed we'd likely go with the Xperia S over the Galaxy S2. 
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