I have the Sony Xperia Neo L. It comes with ICS out of the box.
The good:
- Good battery (1500mAh, better than most other cells in this price range)
- 4-inch IPS LCD (without Bravia, but it doesn't seem to make a big difference especially when considering this is the only Xperia model in the price range that contains IPS screen)
- Hardware keys
- Basically the same hardware as Xperia Play and offers some access to Playstation games
- Has Front Camera and expandable storage
- Good resolution 854x480
- Fairly decent build quality; plastic that doesn't creak like the LG and Samsung alternatives I was looking at (I'm thinking Galaxy S Duos), good loudspeaker
- Decent call quality for a Sony phone; this is coming from someone who knows Nokia and Samsung are traditionally the best in this department.
The bad:
- No NFC
- Camera UI is incomplete; uses Android's stock camera app, face detection and smile detection are not there. It does however take decent pictures and the autofocus does work well despite reviews to the contrary.
- Music player lacks Sony's proprietary "clear bass" function (Xperia U and sola have it) and has the design of 2011 Xperias; thus this phone is a nostalgia SE phone and not part of the NXT series
- Hardware slightly slow (1GHz Snapdragon with Adreno 205)
- Screen is not Gorilla glass (but most Xperia phones skimp on this)
Overall I'd probably recommend the Xperia sola over this phone (price difference is not much) if the lack of a front camera in the sola isn't a deal breaker for you.
