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The Sony Xperia E1 comes with a new cool design and more power compared to the Xperia E. With a bigger screen and an affordable price, the E1 seems well prepared to steal the spotlight from its predecessor and become the new sensation amongst youths and why not, amongst all smartphone users who seek both quality and good pricing.
The Xperia E1 has a small, sporty design, weighing only 120g and measuring 118 x 62.4 x 12 mm, the smartphone is thicker than both the Xperia T (9.4mm) and the Xperia L (9.7mm). The device has a 4-inch capacitive display and robust plastic body that comes in three colors, black, white and purple. As I’ve said before, the smartphone is quite small, so its 800×480 resolution might be a snag, considering the device features a TFT touchscreen. The viewing angles aren’t great, the screen is quite reflective and the pixels are obvious (233 ppi pixel density).
Sony chose a Walkman-like design for its Xperia E1, so the device features a dedicated button at the top that will launch the Walkman app, allowing you to play and share music both locally and online. Plus, even if the xLOUD, ClearAudio+ and the ClearBass are not excusive E1 features, the sound quality is pretty good and the loudspeaker is said to output almost 100db.
Regarding the hardware, the Xperia E1 comes with Dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, Adreno 302 GPU and Qualcomm SM8210 chipset. But the device features only 512 MB RAM, its main disadvantage we might say, not that its built-in storage is any more impressive, only 2 GB of user-accessible storage out of the total 4GB. But the smartphone does feature a microSD slot that allows storage capacities expansion up to 32GB. Its battery is user-accessible, but not as good as other smartphones’, namely a Li-Ion 1700mAh. The OS is a bit outdated. The device runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, while other 2014 devices run more updated versions. On the plus side, the Sony Xperia E1 features dual SIM support, which is a great addition and which means that the phone can rival some of Samsung’s popular low and mid-ranged offerings.
The camera is also a bit outdated compared to other, better cameras featured by both 2014 and 2013 smartphones. A 3.15 MP fixed-focused camera is less than enough for a smartphone, not that it doesn’t take pretty good photos, but compared to a 8MP or even a 5MP camera it’s quite slack, plus, the device does not feature Flash LED. Another disadvantage is that it has no front-facing camera.
Other features
- SVGA video @ 30fps
- Wi-Fi b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
- GPS with A-GPS
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and -band UMTS support
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
- 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
It seems Sony didn’t want to make a smartphone that competes with the giants of the market like the Samsung or Apple devices. The company’s aim was to make a good yet cheap smartphone, offering a great Android experience and a pretty good battery life for less money. The fact that it doesn’t have the same outstanding features that other 2014 smartphones have doesn’t to mean the Xperia E1 is a complete fail. As its predecessor, the Xperia E, Sony’s latest smartphone is perfect for a first-time smartphone, especially because the phone is quite small and has a sporty design, and most of all, it’s focused on playing loud music. Overall, for the $200 it currently costs carrier-free (give or take), it’s not a bad phone. It offers a little bit of everything, without excelling at anything. We wouldn’t warmly recommend it, but picking it up isn’t a bad choice either.
