SONY XPERIA M REVIEW

Average camera
Not everyone has the money to
shell out for a top-end handset, and
to be honest even if you do have
the money you might be well
advised to take a look lower down
the scale anyway. As my end of
2013 roundups showed, you can get
some superb mid-range and entry-
level handsets right now.
Sony has recently wowed us with it
top notch Xperia Z1 Compact , but
the company also has its eye on the
important mid-range and entry
level sectors. So, the Xperia M is a
sub-£200 handset that sits in a
pretty crowded part of the market –
and a part of the market that
Motorola has recently made its own
with the Moto G.
Sony has made the Xperia M fit
with its current handset line-up in
design terms, but there have been
clear compromises in build quality
and also in terms of the aesthetics.
So, on the plus side, we have the
tell-tale circular silver on/off button
just above the mid-point on the
right edge. There’s a dedicated
camera button on this edge, too,
which has the usual ability to
launch the camera if you give it a
long press – then it will focus on a
half press and take a shot on a full
press. There’s a volume rocker on
this edge, as well.
There’s also a good quality
backplate with a grippy rubber-feel
finish. Mine was black, though
there are white, purple and yellow
options too. The backplate hugs the
sides of the handset providing
protection there and ensuring a
snug fit and a tough, resilient feel.
Rather than the sides of the handset
continuing the rubbery feel, they’re
given a metal-look finish. It’s a
touch of distinctiveness I rather
like.
There’s a characteristic “thinner in
the middle” styling to the overall
design which helps make the Xperia
M comfy to hold in the hand. Its
relatively small size should increase
its appeal for those with little hands
and pockets.
The Sony Xperia M is tall, though –
far too tall, actually, for its 4in
screen. There’s a fair bit of side
bezel and a huge amount of top
and bottom bezel. I measured
18mm between the top of the screen
and the top of the handset, and a
slightly less but still plentiful 15mm
at the bottom.
Part of that bottom bezel is given
over to a horizontal notification
light. It glows red when you’re
charging the phone, and green
when the charge is complete. You
can specify colour settings for
missed calls and SMS, incoming
calls and SMS, and for alarm
notifications – white, turquoise,
yellow, green, red, blue and purple
lights are available. For some this
will be a welcome spark of
individuality, for others it will be
irritating. The latter group will be
pleased to know that as well as
having all those colour choices you
can select none and just do away
with the feature.
At 4in the screen is pretty small for
a modern handset, and it doesn’t do
justice to websites and video. The
resolution of 854 x 480 pixels does it
no favours and, because it lacks
Sony’s display frills – Triluminos
and X–Reality are absent – it’s a
pretty standard looking screen.
Viewing angles aren’t great. The
Motorola Moto G, which is selling
online for around £140 sim-free as I
write, has a 4.5in 1,280 x 720 pixel
screen. On that basis alone it is a
better buy in my book.
While I am grumbling about the
screen, it is worth pointing out a
couple of other annoyances. A strip
along its bottom edge is used for the
Android touch buttons, so you miss
out on a bit of viewing area. The
keyboard is tiny, and I found
accuracy to be an issue. Viewing
angles aren’t great either and the
keyboard seems rather a long way
under the glass front, as it were – it
looks rather last generation in that
respect.
The camera shoots stills to 5-
megapixels which is really an entry-
level specification these days, and
you’ll only get that if you don’t
mind giving up on wide 16:9
resolution in favour of 4:3. If you
want 16:9 then you’ll get 3-
megapixel snaps. You have to hold
that side button down for a fair
while before the camera app pops
up, but on the plus side there’s an
HDR option with saves the camera
from being a disappointment.
There’s also a VGA front camera on
board.
Sound is delivered through a back-
mounted speaker which goes fairly
loud, but is not of the highest
quality.
The general specifications are also
less than stellar. The processor is
dual-core and runs at 1GHz, and it’s
only got 1GB of RAM in support. To
be fair, it’s not sluggish, but still,
this does seem a bit last generation.
Even worse, Android is way back in
the dark ages at version 4.1.
A big problem with the Sony Xperia
M is its lack of storage space.
There’s just 4GB of memory
installed, but a quick check of my
review sample straight out of the
box showed just 2GB of this was
free. You’ll need a microSD card
pretty quickly – but note that the
card lives in a slot under the
backplate next to the microSIM, so
hotswapping is a bit painful.
Fans of NFC will be pleased to see it
present in such a low cost handset,
but the real silver lining has to be
battery life. I found that it easily
extended past the full day mark. Of
course if you want to game or
watch video for hours on end you’ll
deplete the 1,700 mAh battery
rather more quickly. But still,
Sony’s very useful power
management utility is a winner.
You can select three power options.
One of these lets you leave Wi-Fi off
in the knowledge that it will turn
on automatically when it comes
near a saved Wi-Fi network.
Another lets you specify what the
handset should do when the battery
gets below 30 per cent. Options
include turning off Wi-Fi, vibration,
GPS, Bluetooth, auto-sync and
mobile data, and changing the
screen brightness and time-out
settings. And a third option,
stamina mode, lets you specify
which apps will remain active when
the battery gets low.
You get the usual gamut of Sony
add-on apps which will please fans
of the company’s ecosystem, though
as already noted these and a few
additional extra apps are
responsible for eating into the fairly
slim storage capacity of the phone.
Verdict
This handset is clearly a budget
effort, and while it does have a few
pleasing features there’s not enough
of the good stuff present to warrant
any kind of strong
recommendation. Like every other
maker sniffing around the £150 to
£200 mark, the Moto G looms large
as a key rival, and quite simply,
unless you are a diehard Sony fan,
you should be looking at the Moto
smartphone rather than this one.
Specifications
Network 3G
Processor 1GHz dual-core
Qualcomm
Ram 1GB
Memory 4GB
Memory expansion microSD
Display 4in, 854 x 480 pixels
Main camera 5 megapixel
Front camera VGA
NFC Yes
Wi-Fi Yes
GPS Yes
FM radio Yes
Battery 1,700mAh
Size 62 x 9.3 x 124 (WxDxH)
Weight 115g
OS Android 4.1