Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
The M4 Aqua doesn’t look or feel like a mid-range smartphone. Indeed, you could easily confuse it with Sony’s flagship Xperia Z3 since it has the same styling and design traits. You do notice the plastic edging (rather than metal) when holding it and the glass rear cover doesn’t sit entirely flush with the edge at the top and bottom. Neither are big issues, though, and the phone pulls off the premium look at half the price extremely well.
With the M2 Aqua, Sony brought the dust- and waterproofing that was previously reserved for the high-end Z range to a cheaper smartphone. The M4 also has this feature and comes with an IP68 rating, which is the highest available.
We like the size of this phone and it’s comfortable to use in the hand. It’s also very thin and light for a midrange phone at 7.3mm and 136g.
This is Sony’s first smartphone to come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core (quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A53 and quad-core 1GHz Cortex-A53) 64-bit processor and there’s also 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot (up to 128GB).
Performance is good for a phone of the this price. As you can see from our benchmark scores (below), the Xperia M4 Aqua outpaces the pricier Samsung Galaxy A5 in three out of four benchmark tests, and beats the Huawei Honor 6 in the graphics departments with its lower resolution display. None of the results are particularly impressive, but we didn’t have any issues with its performance during testing.
The screen is a 5in IPS display with a 720p HD resolution. It’s a decent offering for a mid-range smartphone, with a pixel density of 294ppi. There’s good colour reproduction, brightness and viewing angles.
There aren’t any other features to mention such as wireless charging or a fingerprint scanner. Instead Sony has focused on photography, battery life and the waterproof design. There is NFC, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 on-board, though.
The battery is hidden away under the shiny exterior and you can’t access it. According to Sony, this should last for two days. Although there’s no wireless charging, keeping the M4 Aqua topped up is easier thanks to a waterproof USB port.
Cameras
Mid-range smartphones tend to scrimp on photography, but the M4 Aqua has a 13Mp rear-facing camera with Sony’s Exmor RS sensor and a 5Mp wide-angle lens snapper at the front for selfies. Sony is one of the few smartphone makers to still offer a dedicated physical button for the camera. You don’t get 13Mp as standard because the phone is set to shoot in 16:9 to match the screen – you’ll get 9Mp unless you switch to 4:3.
The M4 Aqua runs Android 5.0 Lollipop, which is the latest version, with Sony’s own user interface. This uses many stock Android elements such as the recent apps menu and drop-down notification bar. For the better, Sony has kept it’s little floating widgets, including a calculator that is accessible via recent apps. You can also select which Quick Settings you want, which is not a part of stock Lollipop.
During testing, we found the software to be smooth and we like the fact that Sony hasn’t gone mad with customisations. This means there’s little to talk about beyond the usual selection of nice wallpapers and widgets, although you can download Themes that change the look and feel of the interface if you want.
As per usual, Sony preloads its own apps such as Walkman and PlayStation, but you’ll have to opt for a Z2 or Z3 handset if you want features such as High-Res audio support. Things are a little more basic on the M4 Aqua. There are a number of preloaded apps, including Vine, AVG, OfficeSuite, Sketch, TV SideView.
Verdict
The Sony Xperia M4 Aqua is a solid mid-range smartphone. It offers flagship-like design, a great camera and a user-friendly Android Lollipop.