What would be a great first smartphone?

Ultimately, it depends on your budget. I'd go with the P.

It's twice the price, but twice the ram and four times the storage, which is important since neither phone takes memory cards for extra storage. e.g., NOVA takes 2 GB of storage space to install. That's half the space on the U! You'll quickly find yourself having to uninstall and reinstall games. That sucks. Get the P!

if you want a phone around the size of an iphone, then the p isn't really good. Look at this phone, the xperia sola. it has specs which are similar to the xperia u save for the screen and the front cam along with storage.

It's essentially the same as the Xperia u and has expandable storage so you can store many things without worrying about losing space as you wont be able to play, let alone store games as big as NOVA as they require more than 2GB and the xperia u has a non-expandable 8 gb memory, of which 2gb is given for apps and 4gb is user-accessable. the only loss is a relaceable battery and the front facing camera. you still get the rear 5mp camera and the promise of Android 4.0

Xperia P is great phone dude :) i will suggest u Xperia P coz em using it and there's no doubt good battery good camara and fast processor and now it's upgraded to ICS

The P is a better phone for your money. Yes its more expensive but more worth it in the long run. You'll need the extra space if you are interested in many games. 

You can go with whichever phone you'd like, but depending on the carrier and on other aspects, you may want to choose a different phone from one of these. Of the two phones that you're wondering about, the Sony Xerpia P seems better camera wise. They're both great phones. The Xerpia U is cheaper in most places it seems but the P has a larger screen. Your budget seems like the deal breaker here. If you can afford the P, it's better but not by much. If you'd like just a step down from the P, you can go with the U for cheaper. Hope this helped, good luck! (:

better feauteres!!!!!!!! enjoooy