I always loved Sony Ericsson phones - and in the past fifteen years have had several - but I have found in the last few years that I've been swayed to other brands...however I was excited to see the first "Sony" phone and having had the phone nearly two months I am not disappointed in my choice. Its definitely the phone to bring people back to the brand.
The xperia S is really user friendly...its easy to navigate through the screens and you can choose to set your icons in "most used" order which means all the apps you actually use are on the first menu page and quickly accessible. Its the first android phone I have had but I find it has tons of apps which easily compete with apple apps...and lots of the decent apps are free.
Like most smart phones the battery drains pretty quickly and I do find that the apps can eat data but again I think thats a common smartphone issue.
The smart tags that come with the phone are a brilliant touch - allowing your phone to switch to pre set modes as appropriate e.g the bedroom mode tag turns the phone to silent and switches wi-fi off to save battery, the car mode tag turns the navigation apps on.....
The 12 megapixel camera is brilliant - my husband and I took pictures of the same scene (he used a HTC) and the difference in colour and definition between the two sets of photos are amazing.