Sony Xperia M C1904 Hands-On Review – New Affordable Xperia

Android has really made it possible for the mobile phone manufacturers to provide smartphones in affordable price. The success of Micromax in India is known to everyone which earlier was an emerging brand but now pretty much stable in India by offering only the affordable Android smartphones.

Sony has recently announced Sony Xperia M an affordable smartphone which got impressive features and quality hardware. Xperia M is the latest addition to the Xperia family and it’s priced at Rs 12,990 only.

Sony Xperia M C1904 Review

From the very first week, the device has become very popular and people are going for it. If you too want to buy this affordable Xperia from Sony but confused whether it’s worth of money or not then read my review of Sony Xperia M.

Design

Xperia M C1904 look got lots of inspiration from Xperia Z. it got similar aluminum power button along with volume rocker and camera shutter at the right side while the left side got the microUSB port. The 3.5mm audio port is at the top (centre) and the loudspeaker is at the rear (bottom) side.

Front side got camera on top on left side along with brand tag at the centre. The capacitive buttons are included in the display itself. The rear part got 5MP camera at left corner and an LED flash neighbor to it.

Sony branding is at the centre and Xperia at bottom (just above loudspkear). There is one active noise cancellation mic near the rear camera for ensuring good call quality.

Sony has launched M in four different colors which are black, white, yellow and purple. I got the yellow one with me which is slightly greenish but I found the black one as best.

As far as designing is concerned, device looks great and it feels like holding a branded smartphone and off course it’s branded. It weighs very light and according to specs its just 115 grams and only 9.3 mm thick.

Performance

As soon as I got started using Xperia M then I installed lots of games and popular Android apps. To check device’s performance I started five of those apps and then got back to home. Still the device was working very well and scope of running more new apps was still there. This shows that the M performance is great and you can definitely go with it.

The processor is having dual cores, clocked at 1GHz and added on Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus chipset. Snapdragon chipset is the best one available in the industry right now which not just offers better performance but also manage battery well. You can also install Snapdragon™ BatteryGuru app to increase battery life further.

The graphics performance was also great and few of the HD games performed well. Adreno 305 GPU is there inside to manage the graphics performance.

The only thing I didn’t liked was the internal storage capacity, its only 4GB and that too is used by the OS to keep its files and apps. RAM storage is 1GB which is there for the CPU and GPU. Users can expand the storage up to 32GB using microSD card which can solve the issue.

Accelerometer, proximity and compass sensors are there inside along with GPS. HTML5 browser is supported by the device which means you can browse websites in full width.

It runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean version which is older but still works fine as at least it isn’t the 4.0 ICS. Sony has added its own skin on top of the Android and it looks like any other Xperia device with this version of Android. If I talk about competition then there are other smartphones available at the same price tag but operates on Android 4.2. So Sony missed out a little bit in this section.

In most of the devices, issues with FM radio are reported by users which I think a problem of the firmware. If you face this problem then you can get your device’s firmware checked at nearest service centre.

Display

The display measures 4 inch diagonally which means using M is very comfortable with single hand. Reaching to corners without adjusting the grip was possible and I didn’t experience any trouble with that.

The resolution offered is just 480×854 pixels while few other smartphones in the same price range are offering 720p resolution. Resolution is low indeed but it will benefit you on the battery life. The display isn’t bad at all rather just an average but you’re going to like it if you haven’t used smartphones with HD or full HD resolution display.

In my case, I wasn’t impressed by the display quality as I’ve been using full HD resolution display smartphones like Xperia Z Ultra but still good as per the price of the device is concerned.

Connectivity

Xperia M C1904 supports up to 3G cellular network standards and you can access internet using the HSDPA network (if available). The maximum download speed users can get with HSDPA network is 21mbps according to official specs but in reality it manages to get at least 1mbps comfortably and higher if network reception is extremely well.

There is dual band Wi-Fi feature in the device offering DLNA, Wi-Fi direct and hotpost features. Bluetooth 4.0 is also there to extend data connectivity features. The best thing in M is that it got NFC feature too which is right now the fastest technology to transfer data between two NFC enabled devices. microUSB port is also there so that you can connect device with your computer via USB cable and the same functions as charging port.

Camera

The back features 5MP camera while there is VGA camera on front. Image quality I got with the rear camera was good if I compare to other devices having same 5MP camera. LED flash helped me to use the camera in low light conditions.

The camera interface is simple but not so impressive. Best thing I like was the touch focus. Specs claimed that rear camera was having image stabilization and I think the difference of having this feature was noticeable.

Battery Life

M is packed in with 1750mAh battery which helps device to run through a day without in need of charging back if used for general smartphone usage which means battery life is good.

Wrap up

Xperia M is a nice option to look for if your budget is low and you can expect above average quality features. In Indian market, there are lots of other manufacturers available like Micromax, Karbonn, Spice which offer their smartphones with similar specs and price tag but now I think users will go for Xperia M C1904 as it’s from Sony and everyone knows the difference it got in quality.