Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Sony Xperia M
Sony Xperia M is Sonys new hold on the low-budget smartphone sector. Though it has got low end specs, with a stunning design and affordable price, Xperia M does attract attention. Its spec isnt bad for its class; but may find low compared to its competitors. It sports a 4inch TFT display, 1 GB RAM and 1GHz dual-core processor supported by a strong graphics unit and a good battery. A dual SIM variant (Xperia M Dual) is also available.
BUILD / DESIGN
Sony Xperia M follows the footsteps of the Xperia family in design- result is a stylish device within the same framework but not too similar. Its a budget phone and hence the glass front and back panels on the high end Xperia phones have been swapped for a matte plastic body in the Xperia M. The Xperia M with a discreet curve at the back, gives a better grip and feel to hold in your hand.
Theres no keys on the front as it uses on-screen keys for navigating through the interface. Above the screen is the earpiece, the VGA front-facing camera, along with the proximity and ambient light sensors. Below the screen is the RGB notification light. On the Xperia Ms right panel there is the trademark aluminium power/lock button and standard volume rocker, next to a dedicated camera button. Xperia M gives a nice unibody impression, but is actually removable to access the battery and the card slots.
With dimensions of 124 x 62 x 9.3 mm Sony Xperia M is a medium sized device adequate for one hand operation and is light in weight with just 115g. It is available in black, white, purple and yellow colours.
DISPLAY
Being a budget phone it doesnt sport with the Sonys Bravia mobile engine or higher resolution display. Xperia M comes with a 4inch standard TFT display with a 854x480 screen resolution and about 245ppi. The displayss color rendering is good, but the white balance is not.
The viewing angles and sunlight visibility is not at all great. Its protected by some sort of scratch-resistant glass. The screen is one of the Xperia Ms weakest aspects. But for general browsing, texting and simple gaming, it will do an okay job.
SOFTWARE / INTERFACE
The Sony Xperia M is not to date with the latest version of Android (4.3/4.4). It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean which is skinned with Sonys own UI and hence, it gives the same experience one can expect to get on most Jelly Bean-running Xperia handsets.
The lock screen features the usual shortcuts to the camera and music apps. Adding stuff to the homescreen is done using the pinch zoom out gesture or with a tap-and-hold on a blank area of a homescreen. Unfortunately, the custom-made Sony widgets in the Xperia M do not resize or re-arrange automatically when trying to place them, even though Jelly Bean supports that feature natively.
The keyboard in portrait mode is quite cramped and is difficult to type smoothly. The slide-down notification shade includes five toggles for quick access to settings like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. You can reject a receiving a call with a custom text message. There are a bundle of Sonys usual mobile apps on the phone, including music, video, Walkman, Reader, TrackID, as well as software for streaming content to other compatible Sony devices and tablets. One major feature of Xperia M is the NFC based one-touch sharing and connecting to sonys speakers and Bravia TVs.
Xperia M Dual(Dual SIM variant) runs on Android 4.2 and Sony has announced updates for both the M variants.
CAMERA
The 5MP rear camera has features like image stabilization, HDR, panorama, geo-tagging, touch and auto focus, LED flash, 4x digital zoom and theres also a dedicated camera button. It is also capable of shooting 720p videos at 30fps. The VGA front-facing camera can take photos and record video of standard quality.
The camera takes pretty good images outdoors when light is plenty, but its not the best. The pictures are sharp and exhibit a decent color reproduction if there is enough ambient light. However, the pictures are slightly blurred and muddy in just slightly poorer light conditions.
The camera UI is identical to the one used on the Xperia Z and Z1- of course, with less options. Though the shutter responds quickly to capturing images, focusing is a problem sometimes. The LED flash sometimes helps to make the pictures better under low light.
DUAL SIM (Xperia M DUAL)
Xperia M DUAL is the dual-SIM version, which supports dual-standby. This means that when one SIM is in use or in a call, the other SIM will appear to be unavailable or switched off if users try to call it.
BATTERY
The Li-Ion 1750mAh removable battery on the Xperia M isnt something big, but does a fine job as the device is equipped with low end specs and screen. The battery seems to drain quickly for heavy users, but for an average user it would last more than a day or two. Dual SIM variant uses a bit more power for obvious reasons.
MEMORY
Sony Xperia M comes with 4 GB of internal memory of which only about 2GB is user available. It has got 1 GB of RAM and microSD card support upto 32GB for expanding memory.
PERFORMANCE
Sony Xperia M is not a powerhouse. It has Qualcomms Snapdragon S4 SoC dual-core processor with a clock speed of 1GHz. Its backed up with 1GB RAM and an Adreno 305 graphics unit.
The specs on the Xperia M are more than enough for a device of its class. Basic Android apps run smoothly and navigating through interface is fast. It does supports higher games and apps to an extend. However browsing creates lags if theres a lot of animation on the pages and multitasking over a limit is not advised (no surprise!).
SPECIFICATIONS
Weight
115 grams4.06 ounces
Dimensions
124 x 62 x 9.3 mm4.88 x 2.44 x 0.37 inches
Display
4 inches TFT16 millions colours, 854x480 pixels
On the inside
Google Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)1 GHz Qualcomm dual-core
Battery
Talk time (up to): 10 hours 18 minStandby time (up to): 552 hours
Music listening time (up to): 39 hours 24 min
Video playback time (up to): 9 hours 42 min
Camera and video
5 megapixel camera with LED flash and Auto focus4x digital zoom
Face detection
Front-facing camera for video calls
Geotagging
HD video recording (720p), up to 30 frames per second
Quick Launch
Red-eye reduction
Sweep Panorama
Touch focus
Connectivity and communication
3.5 mm audio jack (CTIA)aGPS
Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology
DLNA Certified
Media Go
Native USB tethering
NFC
PC Companion
Screen mirroring
Synchronisation via Exchange ActiveSync, Google Sync and Facebook
USB High speed 2.0 and Micro USB support
Xperia Link
Wi-Fi and WiFi Hotspot functionality
Entertainment
PlayStation CertifiedSony Entertainment Network (selected markets only)
Motions gaming
Video streaming
3D games
FM Radio with RDS
Audio playback, supported formats: MP3, 3GPP, MP4, SMF, WAV, OTA, Ogg vorbis
Audio recording, supported formats: 3GPP, MP4, AMR
Pre-loaded applications
Google Play*Google Chrome*
Google Voice Search*
Google Maps for Mobile with Street view and Latitude*
Memory
RAM: 1GBFlash memory: Up to 4 GB
Expansion slot: microSD card, up to 32 GB
Networks
UMTS HSPA+ 900 (Band VIII), 2100 (Band I) MHz (not available in all markets)UMTS HSPA+ 850 (Band V), 1900 (Band II), 1700 (Band IV), 2100 (Band I) MHz (not available in all markets)
GSM GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
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