Large and affordable. Sony Xperia C review

Information about the make, model, and alternative names of a particular device, if any.

Design

Information about the dimensions and weight of the device, presented in different units of measurement. Used materials, suggested colors, certificates.

SIM card

The SIM card is used in mobile devices to store data that certifies the authenticity of mobile service subscribers.

Mobile networks

A mobile network is a radio system that allows multiple mobile devices to communicate with each other.

Mobile technologies and data rates

Communication between devices in mobile networks is carried out through technologies that provide different data transfer rates.

Operating system

The operating system is the system software that manages and coordinates the operation of the hardware components in the device.

SoC (System on a Chip)

System on a chip (SoC) includes all the most important hardware components of a mobile device in one chip.

Built-in memory

Each mobile device has a built-in (non-removable) memory with a fixed amount.

Memory cards

Memory cards are used in mobile devices to increase the storage capacity for storing data.

Screen

The screen of a mobile device is characterized by its technology, resolution, pixel density, diagonal length, color depth, etc.

Sensors

Different sensors perform different quantitative measurements and convert physical indicators into signals that are recognized by the mobile device.

rear camera

The main camera of a mobile device is usually located on its rear panel and can be combined with one or more additional cameras.

Front-camera

Smartphones have one or more front cameras of various designs - a pop-up camera, a PTZ camera, a cutout or hole in the display, a camera under the display.

Audio

Information about the type of speakers and audio technologies supported by the device.

Radio

The radio of the mobile device is a built-in FM receiver.

Location determination

Information about navigation and location technologies supported by the device.

WiFi

Wi-Fi is a technology that provides wireless communication for short distance data transmission between different devices.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a standard for secure wireless data transfer between different types of devices over short distances.

USB

USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an industry standard that allows different electronic devices to communicate.

Headphone jack

This is an audio connector, which is also called an audio jack. The most widely used standard in mobile devices is the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Connecting devices

Information about other important connection technologies supported by the device.

Browser

A web browser is a software application for accessing and viewing information on the Internet.

Video file formats/codecs

Mobile devices support various video file formats and codecs, which store and encode/decode digital video data, respectively.

Battery

Mobile device batteries differ from each other in their capacity and technology. They provide the electrical charge they need to function.

Specific Absorption Rate (SAR)

SAR levels refer to the amount of electromagnetic radiation absorbed by the human body while using a mobile device.

Accelerometer(or G-sensor) - device position sensor in space. As a main function, the accelerometer is used to automatically change the orientation of the image on the display (vertical or horizontal). Also, the G-sensor is used as a pedometer, it can be controlled by various functions of the device by turning or shaking.
Gyroscope- a sensor that measures the angles of rotation relative to a fixed coordinate system. Able to measure rotation angles in several planes simultaneously. The gyroscope together with the accelerometer allows you to determine the position of the device in space with high accuracy. In devices that use only accelerometers, measurement accuracy is lower, especially when moving quickly. Also, the capabilities of the gyroscope can be used in modern games for mobile devices.
Light sensor- a sensor, thanks to which the optimal values ​​​​of brightness and contrast are set for a given level of illumination. The presence of the sensor allows you to increase the operating time of the device from the battery.
Proximity sensor- a sensor that detects when the device is close to the face during a call, turns off the backlight and locks the screen, preventing accidental pressing. The presence of the sensor allows you to increase the operating time of the device from the battery.
Geomagnetic sensor- a sensor for determining the direction of the world in which the device is directed. Tracks the orientation of the device in space relative to the Earth's magnetic poles. The information received from the sensor is used in mapping programs for orientation in the area.
Atmospheric pressure sensor- sensor for accurate measurement of atmospheric pressure. It is part of the GPS system, allows you to determine the height above sea level and speed up the location.
touch ID- Fingerprint identification sensor.

Accelerometer / Geomagnetic / Illumination / Proximity

Satellite navigation:

GPS(Global Positioning System - global positioning system) - a satellite navigation system that measures distance, time, speed and determines the location of objects anywhere on the Earth. The system was developed, implemented and operated by the US Department of Defense. The basic principle of using the system is to determine the location by measuring the distances to the object from points with known coordinates - satellites. The distance is calculated from the signal propagation delay time from sending it by the satellite to receiving it by the GPS receiver antenna.
GLONASS(Global Navigation Satellite System) - Soviet and Russian satellite navigation system, developed by order of the USSR Ministry of Defense. The measurement principle is similar to the American GPS navigation system. GLONASS is intended for operational navigation and time support for ground, sea, air and space-based users. The main difference from the GPS system is that GLONASS satellites in their orbital movement do not have resonance (synchronism) with the Earth's rotation, which provides them with greater stability.

In the modern world, all kinds of high-tech devices are updated amazingly often. This trend is typical for the Japanese company Sony. In particular, a few months ago, another novelty from this manufacturer appeared on the domestic market. It was the smartphone C2305. Being not a very complex device from a technical point of view, it fully meets the requirements of modern consumers and, at the same time, has a relatively low cost.

general description

The model is made of durable plastic. Only the on/off button and the camera rim are made of metal. The user can choose from phones of black, white and purple colors, which has already become a characteristic feature for the line called Xperia C. The developers covered the front panel with protective glass. It has a five-inch touch screen, a microphone, a speaker, and the left side of the Sony C2305 has been equipped with convenient buttons for activating the camera and power. On the opposite end there is only a microUSB port. The hole for connecting the cord is located at the bottom. The back of the device has a slightly concave shape. Here is the speaker, main camera and auto focus illumination.

In general, there are no unnecessary elements in the design of the novelty. The size of the model is 141.5x74.15 mm in height and width, respectively. At the same time, its thickness is only 8.88 mm, which is a pretty good indicator, which many users pay attention to.

Ergonomics

Stylish and at the same time elegant appearance makes the Sony C2305 more attractive. Reviews of the owners of the device indicate that it is very comfortable in the hand. Moreover, thanks to the matte surface of the back cover and rounded corners, the phone does not slip out of your hands even during a long conversation. Quite an interesting design decision, which gives the device neatness and elegance, many users call the side faces made of glossy plastic. We should also note the fact that a new design has been applied to the body of the model, thanks to which the back cover does not seem to exist. Because of this, opening a smartphone is not so easy.

Connection

Phone C2305 supports two SIM cards, switching between them is convenient and fast. In addition, when talking on one of them, the second is automatically turned off. The device supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, and navigation is carried out through the A-GPS system. As practice shows, reliable communication and fast exchange with paired devices occurs without failures of wireless technologies. The basic modification programs include the Google Talk application, with which you can send messages to the chat.

Display

As noted above, the model has a five-inch touchscreen monitor. Its resolution is 960x540. It is impossible to call such an indicator impressive, so there can be no question of ideal image quality - small details and fonts do not look quite even. Additional second-generation Schott glass provides good protection for the device from various external influences. The sensor is able to recognize up to five touches simultaneously, and its sensors quickly respond even to light pressure. Switching between applications, menu options, zooming and scrolling are smooth and fast.

Camera

The 8-megapixel rear camera is one of the main advantages of the Sony C2305. Its review is quite extensive. At the same time, thanks to the use of an Exmor RS high-sensitivity sensor, excellent image quality is provided even in not the best lighting conditions. The camera has a number of various settings and modes, which allows you to take photos with amazing detail, brightness, color reproduction and clarity. Quite an interesting and unique feature was "Self-portrait". Its essence lies in the fact that you just need to point the camera lens at yourself, after which the device itself will take an excellent picture using voice prompts. Among other things, the focus system also boasts the presence of several modes. A separate button on the body will allow you to photograph objects even when the smartphone is locked.

Performance

Model Sony C2305 has a processor with four cores, clocked at 1.2 GHz each. In addition, a good speed of operation of the device is provided by 1 GB of RAM. All programs, regardless of their size, start and run without delay. As for stationary memory, its size is only 4 GB, but if necessary, you can install an additional microSD card. For web surfing, the device is just perfect.

Menu and controls

Like many other modern modifications, the Sony C2305 smartphone operates on the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system. It should be noted that its interface is quite successfully adapted specifically for this device. The screen settings can be customized by the user. The menu provides access to the phone book, applications (standard and optional), message list, Internet browser and, of course, the Google Play application. Touch control buttons for switching between programs and returning to the home page are located at the bottom of the monitor. As for information regarding the current state of the phone, including network signal quality, wireless connection, current time, battery charge, and message notifications, it is displayed at the top.

autonomy

The Sony C2305 is powered by a built-in rechargeable battery with a capacity of 2390 mAh. Given the modest screen performance, which was discussed earlier, this volume is more than enough. A vivid confirmation of this can be called the fact that even with intensive use, the smartphone will be discharged only after a day. Moreover, the device has a special power-saving mode, which, when activated, automatically turns off all unnecessary applications that consume a lot of energy. This allows you to increase the operating time of the device by two to three times. In continuous talk mode, a full battery charge lasts approximately 10 hours, while in standby - 588 hours.

conclusions

Summing up, we should name the main advantages and disadvantages of the Sony C2305. The main advantages of the model, experts include a stylish look, a unique body design, an eight-megapixel camera, a processor and support for two SIM cards. As for the weaknesses of the device, this is a small display resolution and the frequent appearance of glare on a glossy surface in bright light. In general, for its price segment (in domestic stores you need to pay about 10 thousand rubles for a phone), the device can be safely called a pretty good choice. It is able to provide excellent communication quality and easily cope with a variety of tasks. Moreover, despite its relatively low cost, the phone has quite powerful characteristics that meet modern requirements for devices of this kind.

Japanese budget solution with a large screen and support for two SIM-cards based on the MediaTek chipset

We recently tested the LG G Pro Lite Dual smartphone, a mid-range A-class manufacturer with a huge screen and dual SIM support. Without going into details, we recall that that device belonged to the category of so-called "budget shovels" - smartphones that are much less advanced in terms of hardware (and, above all, in terms of screen quality) than their top-end large-diagonal counterparts, but at the same time also capable of providing the user the opportunity to enjoy the now fashionable screen size of 5 inches and above, and for much less money. Accordingly, the user, as usual, is given a choice: more expensive and better - or cheaper, but simpler. We have already tested enough of such simplified tablets: Samsung has Mega with screens of 5.8 and 6.3 inches, Huawei has Ascend Mate (6.1 inches), LG has G Pro Lite Dual (5.5 inches), and Now it's Sony's turn. The Japanese have released a model very similar in characteristics to the Xperia C, it costs about the same, so there will be something to compare it with.

Pictured: Sony Xperia C versus LG G Pro Lite Dual

Key Features of Sony Xperia C (Model C2305)

• SoC MediaTek MT6589, 1.2 GHz, 4 processor cores Cortex-A7
• GPU PowerVR SGX 544
• Operating system Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• Touch screen IPS, 5″, 960×540
• Random access memory (RAM) 1 GB, internal memory 4 GB
• MicroSD support up to 32 GB
• Communication GSM GPRS/EDGE 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
• Communication 3G UMTS HSDPA 900, 2100 MHz
• Data transmission HSDPA (42 Mbps), HSUPA (11.5 Mbps)
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (1 band), Wi-Fi hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct
• GPS/A-GPS
• Camera 8 MP Sony Exmor R
• Camera 0.3 MP (front)
• Lithium polymer battery 2390 mAh
• Dimensions 141.5×74.15×8.88 mm
• Weight 153 g

Appearance and usability

Externally, the Sony Xperia C smartphone should appeal to many: a non-slip, non-staining, matte and rough body continues the traditions of last year, laid down in the Sony Xperia Z and Xperia ZL models. More simplified in relation to the flagship Xperia ZL at that moment, it incorporated part of the design concept with flat mirror inserts on all four sides, which the creators called OmniBalance. In turn, the even simpler Sony Xperia C as a whole has now retained the shape and general appearance of that same Xperia ZL, but the panels on its sidewalls are no longer mirrored, but matte - such as the updated flagship Xperia Z1. But according to the general outlines, the shape of the “inflated” back cover, the heroine of today's review looks exactly like the very Xperia ZL. True, that back cover materials were slightly different: it was plastic with a soft-touch rubberized effect, and even the surface was textured with pimples. Here, the surface, although matte, is without textures, and besides, it is solid - it does not have a soft-touch effect.

The smartphone is quite large in size, which is partly explained by the large screen size. However, the side frames here are not too narrow, so the smartphone could well be smaller and sleeker. There are no special complaints about the thickness of the body, it is quite convenient and comfortable to hold the device in your hand. The mass also does not burden the hand too much - thanks to the rough surfaces, the smartphone as a whole is held quite securely in the fingers, as far as possible for such large gadgets. When compared with the same LG G Pro Lite Dual, it turns out the opposite: the Korean device has a very slippery smooth lacquered finish, sloping edges and a fair amount, so the smartphone is ready to slip out of hands at any moment. The Japanese model has less mass, less thickness, a rough coating, and even sharper edges allow fingers to catch on, so that the phone does not fall out of hand at a difficult moment - it is held securely.

The manufacturing materials, as already mentioned, are solid plastic, there is practically no metal here, with the exception of the camera rim and the round power button. The very structure of the body is unusual: here all this plastic “fur coat” is completely put on the skeleton, closely adjoining the screen itself, completely covering everything along with the sidewalls. That is, if you remove the plastic casing, then a bare, unsightly frame with a screen will remain in your hands - even the side buttons all remain on this removable cover, we saw something similar with the Sony Xperia Go. It is quite difficult to guess how exactly this casing is removed - the structure of the case is not familiar, no cracks, gaps are visible, just as the slightest ledge is not visible anywhere for hooking with a fingernail. In general, one cannot do without reading the instructions, which describe in detail the disassembly process.

Otherwise, there is nothing remarkable in the body of the Sony Xperia C: the power and volume keys are in their places on the right, in very close proximity to each other; the audio output jack (3.5 mm) is cut into the top end, Micro-USB is in the side, and at the bottom there is also a hole for attaching a lanyard to the hand - an invariable part of the image of almost any of Sony smartphones. There is also a separate hardware mechanical button on the right side, which is responsible for working with the camera. From the locked state, the button is not able to wake up the camera, so you will first have to unlock the device in the usual way, and then use this button for its intended purpose. If the screen is active, then the button can call the camera and take a picture right there - this is all regulated by the settings.

All the mechanical buttons on the sides are very thin, not too rigid, but still, due to the short travel and the small area of ​​the keys themselves, they are not the most comfortable. The Korean Samsung and LG, at least, their large and wide buttons are definitely more comfortable and tactilely pleasant.

Sony has not made hardware buttons under the screen, even touch ones, in their devices for a long time - they all moved to the screen in the form of Android 4.x software icons. So under the screen they left less space than usual, but it will still gain at least a centimeter in height. This place is not empty: not only is a neat microphone grill embedded here, but there is also Sony's signature horizontally elongated indicator light. The indicator, as usual, can adapt to the general background of the photo being viewed, the cover of the music album, changing its color, and also signal various events from the charging process to an incoming SMS message.

At the top there is exactly the same speaker grille as at the bottom - they are symmetrical, and next to it you can see the eyes of the sensors and the front camera. The glass at the display is absolutely flat, without sides, the oleophobic coating here, if any, is rather weak - the prints are quickly collected and poorly erased.

The landscape of the back cover is made up of several familiar elements: the main camera window, framed by a metal round rim, next to it you can see the eye of a single-section LED flash, and below it is glued a grille for sound output from the ringing speaker. The grille is partially on the bend, so the sound is practically not muffled by the surface on which the smartphone lies. The back surface here, by the way, is not completely flat, but slightly concave inward - this still shows echoes of the legendary Sony Arc design.

If you remove the back cover (and it is rather difficult to do this at first), then a familiar modern picture will be found under it: the battery is securely closed by a casing and is not accessible to the user. Above it, three slots were placed in the same plane: two for SIM cards, and one for a MicroSD memory card. SIM cards are used here in the Micro-SIM format, all cards are inserted and removed quite easily. By the way, unlike LG G Pro Lite Dual, hot swapping is supported here, that is, the smartphone does not need to be rebooted when replacing cards. There is another more noticeable difference: the Micro-USB connector here, unlike the LG device, supports the connection of external devices (OTG), such as a flash drive, or a mouse with a keyboard. Accordingly, the device can view films, music, photos and various documents directly from a flash drive connected to it, you just need to take care of purchasing an adapter.

And about colors: the Sony Xperia C smartphone, following a tradition that has taken root since last year, is again available in three familiar colors - black, white and purple. All three have the same rough, hard, non-glossy finish, with the dark fronts being black and the light ones being the same white as the back shroud. Regarding such an unusual choice in favor of purple, the developers say that this color was not chosen at all "from the ceiling." According to experts, there is a psychological background here: this color is, as it were, “balanced”, that is, it is obtained by “mixing” exciting red and cold blue shades.

Screen

The Sony Xperia C smartphone is equipped with a 62×110 mm IPS touch matrix with a diagonal of 127 mm (5 inches) and a resolution of 960×540 pixels. Note that Sony representatives said that the smartphone uses a TN-type matrix, but our tests disproved this. Such a parameter as the density of pixels per inch here is only 220 ppi, which is more than the LG G Pro Lite Dual (200 ppi), but still not enough for modern screens. Both smartphones have very low resolution for such a large screen area, and lose in this to competitors with a resolution of 720p. Accordingly, even here the picture is quite loose, the pixels are visible to the naked eye, the edges of small details and fonts do not always look even.

The thickness of the side frames from the edge of the screen to the edge of the case is at least 6 mm - fairly wide frames. The display brightness can be adjusted manually, and unlike the LG G Pro Lite Dual, here you can turn on automatic adjustment - the corresponding checkbox is in place. The multi-touch technology here allows you to simultaneously process up to 5 simultaneous touches (the Korean model has 10). The smartphone also has a proximity sensor that blocks the screen when you bring the smartphone to your ear.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the "Monitors" and "Projectors and TV" sections Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the test sample.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface, resistant to scratches. Judging by the reflection of objects, there is some kind of anti-glare filter, which, in terms of reducing the brightness of the reflection, is noticeably worse than that of Google Nexus 7 (2013). The surface of the matrix itself under the glass is slightly matte, so the screen reflects both direct light sources (by the outer surface) and diffused light (by the surface of the matrix), which reduces readability in conditions of strong ambient light. For clarity, here are photos in which a white surface is reflected in the off screens of three devices (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Oppo Find Muse R821, in the center - Sony Xperia C, then they can be distinguished by size):

The light gray screen surface of the Sony Xperia C speaks for itself. Reflection in the screen doubles, which suggests the presence of an air gap between the surface of the matrix and the outer glass. On the outer surface of the screen, apparently, there is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (ineffective, noticeably worse than Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed a little easier, and appear at a slower rate than in the case of ordinary glass.

With manual brightness control, its maximum value was about 440 cd/m², and the minimum was 40 cd/m². The maximum value is quite high, but, given the weak anti-reflective properties and the matte surface of the matrix, in bright daylight the image on the screen is unlikely to be clearly distinguishable. In complete darkness, the brightness can be lowered to a comfortable level. Automatic brightness control works according to the light sensor (it is located to the right of the front camera eye). In automatic mode, when the ambient light conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. In complete darkness in automatic mode, the brightness decreases to 60 cd / m² (it could have been lower), in an office lit by artificial light (about 400 lux), the brightness is set to 205-250 cd / m² (acceptable), in a brightly lit environment (corresponds to on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more) - rises to a maximum (as you would expect). As a result, this function works adequately. There is some backlight modulation, but its amplitude does not reach 100%, and the modulation frequency spectrum has a maximum of around 40 kHz, so the screen flicker cannot be visually seen and the presence of such modulation cannot affect the comfort of working with this device.

This screen uses an IPS type matrix. On microphotographs, if desired, you can see the typical IPS structure of subpixels in the form of parallel stripes:

At the same time, here is another micrograph with a lower resolution and with focus on the film covering the matrix:

Visible dots are artificially created surface defects that create the effect of a matte finish. The screen has good viewing angles without color inversion and without significant color shift even with large (within reasonable limits) deviations of the gaze from the perpendicular to the screen. For comparison, here are photographs in which the same images are displayed on the screens of the same three devices, while the brightness of the screens is set to approximately 200 cd / m². Perpendicular to the screens test picture:

It can be seen that the color reproduction is slightly different, but this is the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the photo. And the white box:

Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone. Now at an angle of about 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the color tone of the two smaller screens, including the Sony Xperia C, has changed markedly. Then a white box:

The brightness at an angle for all screens has decreased (at least 4 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), but in the case of the Sony Xperia C, the drop in brightness is greater than that of the Nexus 7. The black field, when deviated diagonally, is highlighted strongly and becomes purple or red. purple tint. The photos below show this (the brightness of the white areas in the perpendicular direction of the screens is the same!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is average, since there are several areas with increased black brightness along the edge of the screen:

Contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is normal - about 730:1. The gamma curve constructed from 32 points did not reveal a blockage either in the highlights or in the shadows, and the exponent of the approximating power function is 2.14, which is close to the standard value of 2.2, while the real gamma curve deviates little from the power dependence:

Color gamut close to sRGB:

Apparently, the matrix filters slightly mix the components to each other. The spectra confirm this:

As a result, visually the colors have a natural saturation. The balance of shades on the gray scale is good, since the color temperature is not much higher than the standard 6500 K, and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is less than 10, which is considered a good indicator for a consumer device. At the same time, the color temperature and ΔE change little from hue to hue, which has a positive effect on the visual assessment of the color balance. (The dark areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since the color balance does not matter much there, and the measurement error of color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

The screen has a fairly high maximum brightness, but the comfort of using it on a clear day outside is questionable, since the screen has weak anti-glare properties and a matte surface of the matrix under the outer glass. In complete darkness, the brightness can be lowered to a comfortable level, although from the point of view of energy saving, the minimum brightness is still a bit high. It is permissible to use the mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works more or less adequately. The advantages of the screen include the absence of flicker, coverage close to sRGB and good color balance. Further disadvantages: a weak oleophobic coating, low black stability to the deviation of the gaze from the perpendicular to the screen plane and the average uniformity of the black field. In terms of the combination of characteristics, the screen is not of high quality - a budget option on an IPS matrix.

Sound

In terms of sound, the smartphone is average. The speakers produce a fairly clear, but not very loud sound, especially when it comes to the sound in the headphones. The regular audio player, traditionally called Walkman, is rich in settings and additional software sound enhancements, such as a built-in equalizer with a lot of preset values ​​​​(you can set your own), Clear Phase, xLoud or virtual surround sound technologies. Management of most settings is available if the complex ClearAudio + function is turned off, otherwise all settings are left to the machine. In this case, this is especially true, since when using the comprehensive ClearAudio + package of improvements, the sound of the external speaker becomes noticeably louder and richer. However, during a telephone conversation, the voice of a familiar interlocutor, timbre and intonation always remain recognizable, the conversation is quite comfortable.

There is an FM radio as standard on the smartphone, and there is also a voice recorder. The radio works only with connected headphones that act as an antenna. The voice recorder is not able to record a conversation from the line with regular means. You can find it not in the list of installed applications, but in the so-called menu of small applications, which can be called up at any time by pressing the rightmost screen button.

The main, rear camera is equipped with an 8-megapixel Exmor R module. By default, the camera shoots in normal mode, in which the resolution is set to 8 megapixels, the pictures are obtained with a resolution of 3264 × 2448.

Sample photos with our comments are presented below.

	Sharpness in the foreground is good. Sharping is noticeable on the wires.
	Good sharpness in almost all plans and across the entire field of the frame.
	The tile merges already in the foreground.
	Sharpness even in the foreground is weak, to the far falls even more.
	The boundaries of objects are quite strongly damaged by noise.
	The text worked out well and is only slightly damaged.

The camera is budget in almost all respects. Sharpness is very weak. The noise is quite strong, and although the noise reduction copes well with them, the processing damages the details.

The camera shoots at fairly high ISO values, while shutter speeds of 1/25 second or more are already long for it. With good lighting, the camera sometimes takes good pictures, but they still don’t pull at 8 megapixels: blurry details, frequent blur zones, the appearance of which is due to a lack of resolution - all this most likely indicates the poor quality of the optics and its insufficient resolution.

Perhaps the camera is suitable for shooting documents. Probably, under certain conditions, you can get satisfactory results from ordinary shooting, but you should definitely not count on this.

The camera can shoot video at its maximum resolution of 1920 × 1080, does it without visible delays or artifacts in the image, there are several resolutions to choose from up to 1080p (for LG G Pro Lite Dual - 720p). At the same time, during video shooting, you can also take photos, both on the main camera module and on the front one. Sample test clips are shown below (Video: MPEG4 Video 1920×1080 30 fps 20102 Kbps; Audio: AAC 48 kHz stereo 128 Kbps).

• Movie #1 (29.6 MB, 1920x1080)
• Movie #2 (25.0 MB, 1920x1080)

Telephone part and communications

The smartphone works standardly in modern 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks; support for fourth generation networks (LTE) is not. The 5 GHz Wi-Fi band is not supported, and there is no support for NFC technology either. As a standard, you can organize a wireless point via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth channels, there is a Wi-Fi Direct mode. The navigation module supports GPS/A-GPS.

There were no freezes or spontaneous reboots / shutdowns during testing. When brought to the ear, the screen is blocked by the proximity sensor. The ambient light sensor controls the brightness level of the screen automatically. Sony's traditional longitudinal horizontal LED sensor for notification of incoming events is provided at the bottom under the screen.

The screen is large, so the drawing of letters and numbers on virtual keyboards is quite comfortable to control. The layout and layout of the keys is standard: switching languages ​​here is done by pressing a special button, there is no separate top row with numbers here, you need to switch layouts. It is possible to continuously write by sliding your finger across the screen from button to button.

Two SIM cards are supported here, the card form factor is Micro-SIM. The physical implementation of working with two SIM-cards is generally standard for this platform. There is only one radio module, so there can only be one active conversation, the second card becomes unavailable. In the settings, you can set priorities separately for calls and for data transfer by default for certain SIM cards. It is only necessary to remember that the slots are not equivalent in terms of data transmission: 3G can only implement one of the slots, the second one is limited to GPRS/EDGE. By the way, this is easy to check: just free both slots and poke one card from slot to slot. The Sony Xperia C supports hot-swapping, so the smartphone instantly displays the corresponding index on the screen: in the first slot “H” (HSPA), in the second the same SIM card will only show “E” (EDGE). Thus, for users who like to save money for the sake of using two different tariffs for calls and data transfer, it would be best to insert a card for working with the Internet in the first slot, and for voice communication in the second.

The menu also has additional settings for automatically switching card priorities over time, as well as quick organization of redirection from one card to another, which is convenient. But some users do not like the fact that everything here is already automated from the very beginning, so during the conversation you will not be asked to choose, as it happens on other phones, which card to call from: voice communication is set up through card number 1, which means that when dialing a number, everything calls you will make from it automatically.

OS and software

Sony Xperia C is currently running on the Google Android software platform version 4.2.2. On top of the standard OS interface, the company installed its own user interface, which significantly modifies and supplements the standard one. The main distinguishing feature of the program menu is ample opportunities for sorting, selecting and working with icons of installed applications. Here you can even set your own, arbitrary arrangement, or sort in several preset ways. The ability to create folders is supported.

In terms of pre-installed applications in Sony Xperia C, everything is almost the same as in other modern Sony devices. The set of pre-installed programs in the smartphones of the Japanese company does not change too noticeably from handset to handset. Several online services such as TrackID, Movies, PlayNow offer to choose, buy and immediately launch music, movies and games. Timescape collects information about the social activity of friends. There is a pre-installed file manager, there was also a QR code scanner and the popular note-taking program Evernote. Sony always preinstalls a useful program for a full backup and restore of both settings and other data.

Performance

The Sony Xperia C hardware platform is based on the MediaTek MT6589 single-chip system (SoC). The CPU here has 4 Cortex-A7 cores running at 1.2GHz. It is assisted in graphics processing by the PowerVR SGX 544 video processor. The device has 1 GB of RAM, nominally 4 GB of internal memory, and of these, only about 1.2 GB of free flash array is actually available to the user, the rest is occupied by the system itself and pre-installed applications . The smartphone supports memory cards up to 32 GB (but our SanDisk Ultra MicroSD XC I 64 GB test card was confidently recognized, this is shown in the screenshots). There is also the ability to connect external devices (USB Host, USB OTG) to the USB port - flash drives, mice or keyboards, this is another positive difference from LG G Pro Lite Dual, which does not have OTG support.

To get an idea of ​​the platform performance of the tested smartphone, let's run a standard set of tests.

For convenience, we have summarized all the results obtained by us when testing a smartphone in the latest versions of popular benchmarks in tables. Several other devices from different segments are usually added to the table, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry numbers). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison, it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” due to the fact that they once passed their “obstacle courses” on previous versions of test programs.

According to the data obtained during testing, the Sony Xperia C system with a quad-core processor, which is part of the MediaTek MT6589 SoC, demonstrated average performance, far from the most productive modern solutions, but also much higher than the LG G Pro Lite Dual, based on on an even more modest dual-core platform MediaTek MT6577.

Test results in MobileXPRT, as well as the latest versions of AnTuTu 4.x and GeekBench 3

The results of testing the graphics subsystem in the game test Epic Citadel

Video playback

To test the "omnivorous" when playing video (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Web. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern versions using processor cores alone. Also, do not expect everything from a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a single table.

¹ Audio in MX Video Player only played after switching to software decoding or Hardware+; The regular player does not have such a setting.

We did not find the MHL interface, as well as Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see "Methodology for testing video signal playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)"). Screen shots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped to determine the nature of the output frames of video files with various parameters: resolution (1280 by 720 (720p) and 1920 by 1080 (1080p)) and frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 fps) varied ). In tests, we used the MX Player video player in Hardware mode, as there were a lot of artifacts in Hardware+ mode. The test results are summarized in the table:

Note: If both columns Uniformity And Passes green ratings are set, this means that, most likely, when watching movies, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and dropping frames will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems with the playback of the respective files.

The intervals between frames (or groups of frames) alternate slightly unevenly, and in the case of files with 50 and 60 fps, some frames are always skipped. When playing video files with an aspect ratio of 16:9, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly on the border of the screen. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the extended range (that is, the range of 0-255), while most video files are encoded in the video brightness range of 16-235, so the white color of such video files on the screen of this smartphone is displayed as light light gray, and black color is like dark dark gray, which clearly does not improve image quality.

Battery Life

The capacity of the lithium-ion battery installed in the Sony Xperia C is not the largest, but quite worthy by modern standards of 2390 mAh. Accordingly, the results of testing the battery life of the device in the most common user scenarios turned out to be quite good.

Continuous reading in the FBReader program (with a standard, light theme) at the minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd / m²) lasted up to 18 hours until the battery was completely discharged, and with continuous viewing of YouTube videos in high quality (HQ) with that With the same brightness level through the home Wi-Fi network, the device lasted about 12.5 hours - excellent performance. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone lasted 8 hours.

Outcome

At the moment, the official cost of the Sony Xperia C is set in our market within 12 thousand rubles. For the same or even a little more money, they now offer the competing model LG G Pro Lite Dual. Based on the results of acquaintance with these devices, it turned out that in many respects the Japanese model turned out to be objectively preferable to the Korean one, in which they saved almost everything, up to the secret - they inserted a completely outdated and weak SoC.

But if you do not get attached to the most famous brands, now for a similar amount you can buy devices that are much more advanced in all technical characteristics, such as the flagship five-inch Alcatel OT Idol X or Fly Luminor IQ453. With them, for the same 12 thousand rubles, the user will receive not only more powerful and productive SoCs, but also much better screens with Full HD resolution.

pros:

• dual SIM support
• memory card support
• good battery life
• practical case
• large screen size

Minuses:

• non-removable battery
• low display resolution
• relatively high price