Sony Xperia L4:-
With the Xperia L4 Sony has moved all its 2020 Xperia range into the 21:9 screen ratio, after using the phone for a few weeks its a great entry level phone. Having a 6.2’’ screen is great and even though its a bit longer (5mm) and a bit heavier (22g) than its predecessor the Xperia L3 the Xperia L4 is well worth the upgrade with a bigger and higher resolution screen, larger battery, more internal storage and a triple rear camera in nearly all areas its an definite improvement over the Xperia L3.
With the polycarbonate finish to the phone it does offer some good grip while your holding it and didnt leave too many fingerprints.
I found the side mounted fingerprint scanner performed without any problem and unlocked the phone with very good accuracy. Overall the phone felt very balanced while using it. On the right slide of the phone you have the volume control (zoom in camera mode), fingerprint scanner and power button. On the top of the phone there is a headphone jack and a microphone. On the left and handside you find the sim and microsd tray which can be removed without the need for any tools (Up to 512 GB supported) and on the bottom is the main microphone, USB-C port and speaker.The top bezel there is the earpiece a notification LED and a small teardrop for the front-facing camera.
In the box you get a quick start guide, a USB-C cable and a space saving charger (UCH-20).
Screen:-
The Xperia L4 Screen has a resolution of 1680x720 (HD+ LCD) with 295 ppi and is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass, I found it to be bright enough for most situations.
Its mainly Google apps thats can take over the full screen (take advantage of the space either side of the front camera) i.e. if your open Google Photos and zoom into a picture you can take full advantage of the screen real-estate) i would have preferred if the camera was in the bezel of the phone but after a while I didnt notice it.
Sony have brought their 21:9 Multi-Windows app to the Xperia L4 so you can make more use out of your screen by having two apps open at the same time and there’s a nice feature that it keeps your 3 most used Multi-screens pair listed, or you can create ones you want to be listed. Sony managed to squeeze in a notification Led in the tiny top bezel which is very handy to have.
I liked having chrome opened and watching a video on youtube. The Side Sense feature was still a bit of hit and miss whether it would work or not.
Camera:-
The Triple Camera setup on the Xperia L4 is
1 - A 5 MP 17mm ultra wide lens which captures 117 degree of view
2 - The Main Camera 13 Mp 26mm Wide angle lens
3 - A Depth camera, 2MP for Bokeh
The Camera app gives the user basic options to modify how they take photos and videos i.e. increase brightness and white balance, enable/disable flash the main option that you would change is the Scene Selection but the phone does a good job of deciding what is the environment that your taking the photo in.
In the mode option there is option for a Portrait Selfie and Panorama mode in the other Xperia’s there would be more options here like Google Lens, Slow Motion, AR effect and Slow Motion.
Its a pity that the Sony Album app is no longer supported Google Photos is now the standard photo app.
On the Front camera there is a portrait selfie Mode which will automatically give you a softer skin tone, enables a bokeh effect, brighten your eyes and you can also tweak your face shape and skin.
Photos Sample
Wide Angle Examples
Zoom Examples
Panorama Mode Examples
Outdoor daylight photos the Xperia L4 took decent shots and while zooming the pictures didn’t introduce too much noise. In conditions which have less/artificial light I did find the photos werent as sharp.
Indoor Example
The front camera in outside light took good quality pictures while inside in dark conditions it took adequate selfies.
Selfie Sample
In video mode you can record in Full HD and while outside videos shot in daylight recorded in good quality I found indoor videos with less light to be a little grainy but decent quality considering the phone.
https://youtu.be/aTEAGtJr814 YouTube Link for Sony Xperia L4 samples
Audio :-
As there’s a headphone jack on the phone you can use your own wired headphones and if they have in-line controls that worked for me.
The Xperia L4 has only one main music speaker but it did a decent job and even at the highest volume the sound didnt distort too much and packed a bit of punch.
Connecting via bluetooth for headphones was quick and worked without a hitch for me.
When making calls I didnt have any issues with people hearing me in noisy conditions and the earpiece volume was loud.
Battery:-
The battery capacity is a healthy 3580mAh and with Power Delivery (PD) fast Charging you can go from 0% to 50% in 34 minutes when using Sony UCH32C Charger.
The Xperia L4 has Adaptive Charging will keep the batteries lifespan long which is good as we tend to keep our phones longer these days.
Sony have also included a battery draining detection app, so it keeps an eye on your phone and will notify you if certain apps are draining the battery.
But if your stuck you can enable Battery Saver so you can squeeze more life out of your battery by reducing the phones performance and turning off background syncing.
I found the battery lasted a day no problem even when I was using a lot of battery heavy apps like YouTube.
Performance:-
The Xperia L4 runs on Android Pie, Under the hood its basically the same specs as the Xperia L3 with a MediaTek Helio P22 SoC and 3 GB of RAM but the internal memory has increased to 64GB. The phone was snappy enough but I did notice that when webpages were loading pictures in the Chrome Browser took a second to load and probably wouldn't handle games too well. Having 64GB internal memory is good, but getting a Microsd card would no harm to have some extra space.
It also includes NFC which is handy if you use virtual bank cards etc.
For a budget phone it would be hard to beat the Sony Xperia L4.
Full Specs:-
https://www.sonymobile.com/ie/products/phones/xperia-l4/specifications/
Available to buy:-
From Sony Direct https://www.sony.ie/electronics/smartphones/xperia-l4/buy?dtlinfo=wtb|product_details:xperia-l4#onli...
The Sony Xperia L4 is now available from Three
Prepay from 149€
And BillPay from 0€