Sony Xperia L2 hands-on Review
Sony Xperia L2 hands-on Review
Is Sony's new budget phone anything to get excited about?
Verdict
Key Specifications
- Review Price: £149.99
- 5.5-inch 720p screen
- MediaTek CPU
- 13MP camera
- USB-C
- 3300mAh battery
- Android 7.0
- 3GB RAM, 32GB storage
Sony Xperia L2 hands-on: Sony’s budget device for 2018
Alongside the Xperia XA2 and Xperia XA2 Ultra, Sony used CES 2018 in Vegas to announce the Xperia L2. This is a budget option that’ll likely come with a low price-tag and cheap contract options, but is there anything to get excited about?
Sony Xperia L2 price and release date
Sony hasn’t set a price for the Xperia L2, but it should hit shelves towards the end of January.
Sony Xperia L2 design and features
Like most of Sony’s phones, the Xperia L2 isn’t the best-looking device out there. It’s not ugly, but the thickness of the bezel above and below the display, along with the plastic body, does little to make it stand out.
It does have a fingerprint scanner on the back, which is not a given at the low end, but I wasn’t able to fully test it out to see how fast it was. With all the free space on the front, though, it does feel a bit weird that the fingerprint sensor couldn’t have been below the screen on the front.
There’s a 5.5-inch display with an HD 720p resolution that isn’t the sharpest, but it looks to be tuned well with nice colours and decent viewing angles. You can always count on Sony phones to have a nice screen regardless of price, and that continues here.
Under the plastic body is a basic MediaTek CPU and a surprising 3GB of RAM. Small amounts of RAM can often cause big problems on cheap phones, but that shouldn’t be the case here. Don’t expect the Xperia L2 to manage graphically intensive games, but it should be fine for basic day-to-day bits. There’s also 32GB storage and a microSD slot for expanding that.
Related: Best cheap phones
While the XA2 and XA2 Ultra ship with Android Oreo, the Xperia L2 is stuck with the older Android 7.0. This is a shame and shows that Sony is focusing more attention on its higher-end devices. Hopefully we’ll see an Oreo update at some point, but that wasn’t confirmed.
A 3300mAh battery should keep the phone running all day, while there’s a 13MP camera on the back. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the speed of the snapper, nor its autofocus, but these are the sacrifices you have to make at this price. Round the front there’s a 120-degree wide-angle 8MP selfie camera.
First impressions
If Sony prices the Xperia L2 right, it could be a decent first phone or a good choice if you just need something basic. The decent amount of RAM and storage is nice, but the camera might not be the best.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
