Sony Xperia L

Overview

One of the Best Smartphones by Sony

Design

Shades

Camera

Sony Xperia L is a very stylish phone but the performance of the phone is not very competitive in the smartphone market.

Sony Xperia L Design and Build Quality

The design of the phone gives it a very pretty look and you will definitely want to pick it up at the shop. However, the phone weighs 137 grams and the dimensions are 128.7 x 65 x 9.7 mm out of which the screen size is only 4.3 inch. The phone appears too large for its screen size. The phone has a very attractive concave back with an LED strip for notifications. The phone has a matte finish and it very solidly built. The battery of the phone will last you comfortably for about 28 hours with average calls, games, and video playback.

User Interface and Comfort to Use Sony Xperia L

The LCD screen of the phone has 854x480 resolution. Display is bright and clear but you will have to zoom in to read the text on web pages. The colour depth is quite good and most of the true colours are displayed. The viewing angle of the screen is very limited. The glass is very reflective and using it outdoors can be little difficult. The phone comes with a 1.7 GHz processor, which means that the phone is fast. The controls are easy to manage since most of them are software. The UI of the phone is Android Jellybean and it comes with a 1GB RAM. The touch response is very good and we enjoyed playing games on the phone. The phone is PlayStation certified which is good news for PS lovers.

Telephony and Phonebook

The phone has a very lively phonebook app. It has all the features that you want. You can add all your account including the exchange server. Facebook integration is smooth and all the updates come in the separate tab. The phone supports both 2G and 3G operations. The call quality is quite good in both microphone and loudspeaker mode.

Messaging and Emails

SMS, MMS, Email, Threaded view, and IM are the features available on the phone. The on screen keyboard is very comfortable to use. Gesture input feature lets you type the words faster.

Gallery, Photo Viewer and Video Player

The gallery of the phone is the old Sony gallery where everything is under album. The photos can be sorted according to date. Maps are stored in a separate album and there is an online tab, which synchronizes with Google and Facebook pictures. Features such as crop and rotate are available in the photo viewer. Video player of the phone plays all the formats easily except the AC3 format, which returns no sound. The video player app is named Movies on the phone.

Sony Xperia L Music Player and FM Radio

The music player on the phone is the standard Sony Walkman player. It has a my music section, where you can update your album art and music information like album, year released etc. You can also share your music information with other friends on Facebook who are also using Walkman player. There are many sound mode options such as Studio, Club or Concert, ClearAudio+, and a 5-band equalizer. The music quality of the phone is very good and you will enjoy the music on the phone tremendously. The FM radio comes with RDS support.

Sony Xperia L Camera and Image Quality

This phone is also called the camera phone by Sony. The rear camera is 8MP and has a very good performance. The camera app takes some time to open and then focus on the image but once you get going you will enjoy taking pictures from this phone. Even the low light images turn out to be quite decent. The front camera is a basic VGA camera.

Video Camera and Video Quality

The phone can record videos @30fps and can only do 720p. We had the same problem with the video recorder as we had with the camera. The recorded video quality is very much like an upscale video recording.

Sony Xperia L Connectivity Options

Connectivity options on the phone include Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi, 3G, GPRS, and Edge. The features work comfortably and we did not have any problems in connecting with other devices.

Organiser and other Utility Tools

Office Suite 6 viewer, Notes app, Calendar, Clock with multiple alarms, stopwatch, and world clock are the tools available on the device.

Web Browser and Applications

Google Chrome is the browser on the phone. Browser performance on the phone is dismal. The pages take a lot of time to load and are difficult to read. You can download many apps from the Play store. Apps on the phone include YouTube, Twitter, Google Talk, Facebook, Gmail, Google Play, Google Voice Search, Widgets, Play Now, and Multiple Instant Messaging.

Google Maps and GPS

GPS is quite good on the phone. It takes only about a minute to lock. You can also use A-GPS on the phone. The GPS works with Google maps which are quite handy.

Distinctive Features of Sony Xperia L

Google Now and Google Play are some of the features on the phone that gives the user more control over how they want the UI to behave. Since Google accounts can be synced to the desktop browser, it is even better.

Value for Money

The phone is priced at INR 19000 (approx., may vary) in the Indian market. The main drawback of the phone is its size and poor viewing angle. The price of the phone is little too much for a poor screen.