Liam is back with his Sony L3 Review. Sony has gone back to a more standard smartphone design for the Xperia L3 with its rounder finish. For the money its excellent value for an entry level device. It feels very comfortable in the hand even though the rear is a shiny polycarbonate surface it does offer some grip.
On the top of the phone there’s a headphone jack and its good to see that there are two microphones on the phone to help with call quality, as now standard on Sony phones there is the USB-C connection at the bottom of the phone along with the single speaker.The card tray is a combined Microsd (up to 512GB) and nano sim which is easily accessed from the side cover.
Sony has re-introduced the side-mounted fingerprint sensor and having used it for a while I found it a better alternative to the rear mounted fingerprint sensors on the side is also the power and volume rocker.
Screen.
On the front the screen has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 so that should prevent scratches and screen breakages the Xperia L3 has a large 5.7’’ HD+ screen with a 18:9 format so you do get a good lot of viewing area which is always a good thing to have.
Watching videos on Netflix and YouTube the screen was sharp and it gave decent detail when viewing but colours were a little bit washed out. In bright daylight conditions I found the screen not as bright as it could have been but for the money it did a good job.
The notification LED next to the front camera is quite handy so you don’t miss notifications
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 without any problem. Also included is an FM Radio but it will need headphones plugged into the phone as it uses them as the FM antenna.The Xperia L3 has only one main music speaker it performed well considering.
Camera
The camera setup is a dual 13 Mega Pixel (1/3.0 sensor size, Pixel Pitch 1.12 μm, F2.2 Lens) and a 2 Mega Pixel (1/5.0 sensor size, Pixel Pitch 1.75 μm, F2.4 Lens)
The updated camera app is very quick to launch and the layout of the settings is clear and easy to understand.In daylight conditions it took decent shots and while zooming the pictures didn’t introduce too much noise also included are modes Bokeh, Portrait Selfie which is an artistic selfie with Bokeh with other face effects and Panorama.
Lowlight and flash samples
In indoor conditions with less light I did find some detail is lost.
Video records 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 the coloring to be slightly off the actual colors and zooming does introduce some lost of detail. The front camera in outside light took good quality pictures while inside in dark conditions it took adequate selfies as it uses a screen flash.
Zoom samples.
Battery:-
The battery capacity in the Xperia L3 is good sized 3300mAh .There is also a feature that Sony call Xperia Adaptive Charging which checks your battery’s health when plugged in and adjusts the charge level to make sure battery isn’t overworked this increases the lifespan of the battery and there’s also USB power Delivery fast charging.
I found the battery able to handle at a day of heavy use no problem and there is a Battery saver mode which lets you squeeze more out of the battery as it reduces device performance and disables most background syncing.
Performance
The Xperia L3 runs Android Oreo 8.1 out of the box and will be upgraded to Pie soon, Sony has uses it own lightly skinned version of Android and the Homescreen app is nice and light.
As the phones runs the Mediatek MT6762 processor with 3GB RAM its not blazing fast, but it performed tasks adequately and overall the phone was quiet responsive. Internal memory is only 32GB so you will definitely need a memory card as installed apps (of which there isn’t too many) took up 12GB leaving you with only around 20GB.
Full Specs:- https://www.sonymobile.com/ie/products/phones/xperia-l3/specifications/
Available to buy.
From Eir:-
Eir Billpay from Free (with Free Sony MDR-XB550AP EXTRA BASS Headphones worth €59.99)
https://www.eir.ie/store/mobile/phones/bill-pay/sony-xperia-l3
Eir Prepay from €129.99
https://www.eir.ie/store/mobile/phones/prepay/sony-xperia-l3
From Sony Direct https://estore.sonymobile.com/ie/sony-xperia-l3-single-sim-black-uk-ie-315318/