Phone review: XPERIA E4

It is unusual these days when a new release of a mobile phone costing a ''reasonable'' amount of money can grab attention.

 

XPERIA E4

How much: $199 (on a $39 plan or prepaid)
From: Spark
What's else is in the box: Stereoheadset, USB cable and AC adapter

 

While the focus recently has been on high-end products coming from Samsung and Apple, Sony continues to release its Xperia phones and the new E4 is an attention-grabber.

Priced at less than $200 through the Spark network, the E4's design is slick.

There will be some people who find the phone slightly big, particularly those used to iPhones, but the price speaks for itself.

Battery life is a bugbear of many phone users.

In the past, Sony has provided high-end review phones with a longer battery life.

But in the case of the E4, when it says two days it really means two days.

I did not put the phone into the ultra stamina mode because time was of the essence.

Sony says ultra stamina mode can keep the phone running on its core functions for a week.

The hardest part about setting up the E4 was taking off the back cover to install the sim card.

Fortunately, someone finally read the instructions.

From then on, it was a breeze to install all the apps you would ever want to use.

Many of the most-used apps are pre-loaded.

Music is not a big part of my use of a mobile phone but I persevered this time and was rewarded by good sound quality.

The video quality was not something I can imagine younger users raving about, but for this user, it was fine.

The power button on the side of the phone can be a problem in a pocket, particularly as the phone can be prone to switching itself on at untimely moments.

Photos were taken, stored, edited and uploaded to personal storage apps.

The phone had 8GB of storage which was never going to be tested over 10 days' use.

The 5 megapixel rear camera came with some fancy attachments for tagging pictures.

This really is an impressive phone, in line with the other Sony releases in recent times.

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