SONY XPERIA M2
Sony is adhering to the ideology of “why fix something if it isn’t broken” when it comes to the design of the Xperia M2. Their OmniBalance design, now in its second year of implementation, continues to serve Sony well as the M2 clearly stands out from the rest of the phones.
Unfortunately, its midrange positioning means that Sony has to do away with the expensive rear glass panel, and water and dust resistance features to keep within budget. The back is actually made of glossy polycarbonate will be covered in smudges within seconds of handling. Its micro-USB port for charging and data transfer is left exposed on the top left side of the device while the opposite side houses the microSD and micro-SIM card slots under a long plastic flap. As it comes only in 8GB model, we reckon the memory card slot will be put to good use for multimedia junkies.
Due to its 4.8-inch display, the M2 is rather tall and wide. The sides and corners are
rubberized though, which helps to offer a better grip of the phone. Like the Ascend G6 4G and G2 Mini, its display resolution is hardly spectacular at 960 x 540 pixels. It’s sufficient for most tasks, but sadly suffers from poor viewing angles.
Running under the hood is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core 1.2GHz processor and 1GB RAM. Sony has a similar approach as Motorola when it comes to the interface; there are minimal tweaks on the software aspect of the M2. What irked us was the fact that it ships with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean when the almost oneyear-old Moto X has already been updated to Android 4.4.2 KitKat.
The M2 is equipped with an 8-megapixel Exmor RS sensor that has a host of imaging tools such as AR effect, Timeshift Burst and Superior Auto. Unfortunately, photos taken in Superior Auto mode have low level of detail with visible artifacts. In line with HTC, Huawei and LG, the M2 is capable of supporting faster LTE CAT 4 speeds though, so it’s got that going for it.