Sony has been following a well defined strategy of segmenting its smartphones into two clear lines, the Xperia Z and the Xperia E. The Xperia E line targets a budget oriented market, while the Xperia Z represents the company’s flagship Android smartphones and tablets. Following the announcement of the Xperia Z3 in September, last year, Sony had launched the Xperia E3 smartphone. Less than six months later, the Japanese giant has announced the launch of a Xperia E4, an obvious successor to the Xperia E3.
Xperia E4 comes with a significantly thicker body than its predecessor. The display size has been ramped up from 4.5-inch to 5-inch, however, the size of the device has not increased significantly due to the smaller bezel size in the E4. The spotlight feature of the handset is its exceptionally long battery life, which is touted by the company to deliver two days of “active usage” on a single charge.
The specifications of the the Xperia E4 seem to target the mid-range market with Sony opting to go with a MediaTek MT6582 SoC on this device unlike the Snapdragon 400 SoC used in the Xperia E3. The Xperia E4 is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 processor coupled with a Mali-400MP2 GPU and 1GB of RAM. It has 8GB of internal storage, which can be further expanded up to 32GB via microSD card slot. The phone runs Android 4.4 KitKat and is backed by a 2,300 mAh battery.
Xperia E4 sports a 5-megapixel rear camera along with a 2-megapixel front camera. The device features a 5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 940x540, which has a rather low pixel density of 220pi. With many phones offering a much better pixel density such as the Motorola Moto G, the pricing of the device will play a pivotal role in deciding its market performance.
Talking about the connectivity, the Xperia E4, like most mid range devices will be available in a Dual SIM variant in certain markets. There will be no LTE support with a maximum downstream data speed of 21.1 Mbps and an upstream data speed of 5.76 Mbps on HSPA. The device will have Bluetooth 4.1 support. The phone is most likely to hit the shelves by the end of this month, but there has been no word on pricing yet.
Sony Xperia E4 specifications
- 5-inch LCD display with 960x540 pixel resolution and a pixel density of 220 PPI
- MediaTek MT6582 SoC with 1.3GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 and Mali-400MP2 GPU
- 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage further expandable up to 32GB via microSD
- 5MP rear camera with 2MP front-facing camera
- Android 4.4 KitKat
- 2,300 mAh battery
- 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 and microUSB 2.0
- Measures 137 x 74.6 x 10.5 mm and weighs 144 g
