The Sony Xperia J is the smaller and cheaper brother to James Bond's Xperia T,
but don't expect to find this handset mingling with scantily clad
women - the Xperia J is far more reserved, less flamboyant, happier to
stay out of the limelight and just get on with life without frenzied
car chases through the French Riviera.
There's a less flamboyant
price as well, with the Sony Xperia J setting you back a manageable
£175 (around $275/AU$265) SIM-free, or you can have it for free on
contracts starting at as little as £13 per month on a two year deal.
With that price the Xperia J is left fighting against the Orange San Diego, HTC Desire C, BlackBerry Curve 9320 and the slightly cheaper Sony Xperia Miro.
Looks wise the Sony Xperia J is very similar to the Xperia T, with both handsets taking design cues from the popular Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and Xperia Arc S.
The
iconic arched back of the Xperia J is the strongest nod to the past
Sony Ericsson handsets, and provides a unique design which we found
pleasing to the eye.
This also means that the Sony Xperia J sits
nicely in the palm, and at 124g we reckon it's pretty spot on in terms
of weight, with a perfect balance in the hand and its slender 124.3 x
61.2 x 9.2 mm chassis is certainly not overbearing.
It's
a sturdy handset, with a good build quality, and while the rear
plastic case is a little on the thin side, it's easy enough to remove,
unlike the one found on the Nokia Lumia 820.
On
the front you're greeted by a 4-inch display which is relatively
bright, but at 480x854 isn't too sharp, especially when you consider the
San Diego has a 600x1024 offering.
That's not to say it's a poor screen and Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich looks perfectly acceptable, with a single-core 1GHz processor and 512MB running the show.
Below
the display is a bezel housing back, home and menu keys, with Sony not
opting for on-screen controls, nor replacing the menu button with the
multi-tasking function Google recommends.
There's
also a front facing, VGA camera above the display while on the left
there's a microUSB port for charging and connecting the Xperia J to a
computer.
It's not a location we're fond of, as a charging port at the base of a handset makes it much easier to use when plugged in.
On
the right there's a power/lock key at the top, with a volume rocker
switch below. We found the power/lock key too small and difficult to
press, making it a chore to do the simple task of locking the Xperia J,
or waking the screen.
Up top there's just a centralised 3.5mm jack, which according to Nokia and its Lumia 920 makes it easier to slip a phone into your pocket when headphones are plugged in.
Round
the back of the Xperia J, the curved rear cover sports a slightly
rubberised finish, and while it's not quite as grippy as the Desire C,
we didn't feel like we were prone to dropping the handset.
You get a 5MP rear camera flanked by a single LED flash in the top left corner, while at the base there's a speaker grill.
Hit
the power/lock key and a ambient light will radiate out from the
silver strip of bezel on the base of the Xperia J – these lighting
touches are popular with Sony (and previously Sony Ericsson), and we
can trace them all the way back to the w850i with its pulsating orange menu button.
The Sony Xperia J is an attractive, solid and well appointed handset
set at a reasonable price which is sure to tempt some.
The Sony Xperia J runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, and while this isn't the latest version of Google's mobile operating system an upgrade to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is apparently on the cards.
As
we mentioned in the introduction there's a 1GHz single-core processor
and 512MB of RAM running the show, and if we're honest the Xperia J
really struggles to deliver a smooth Ice Cream Sandwich experience.
Sony
has sprinkled a light overlay onto Android for the Xperia J, but it
keeps things pretty pure, giving you a solid, if sluggish, user
interface.
Unlocking the phone, swiping through home screens and
opening the app tray are trouble free (most of the time), lulling you
into a full sense of security, but try and open an app and the Sony
Xperia J's lack of internal grunt comes to the fore.
Click a
simple application such as contacts or messaging and the Xperia J
takes a couple of seconds to open, with more intensive apps taking
even longer.
The camera is one of the big offenders here, as we
were left wondering if we'd even clicked the icon as the Xperia J took
a good three to four seconds to even give us a hint it was trying to
ope
The slow camera load up is also painfully apparently when you try to quick launch if from the lock screen.
Swipe
the opposite way as you would to unlock and the Xperia J jumps to your
homescreen for a few seconds before launching the camera app – this
confused us at first as we thought we'd unlocked the handset instead
of opening the camera.
We found if we tried to do anything too
quickly the Xperia J couldn't keep up, leading it to freeze for a couple
of seconds while it tried to process the fact we wanted to open the
gallery straight from the camera app after just snapping a photo.
Screen responsiveness wasn't always great either, with us taking a couple of attempts at times to get our prods to register.
We'd
advise you help the Xperia J out and keep the number of running apps
down to a minimum – luckily this is easy enough to manage by holding
the home key below the screen to get the Android multi- tasking menu
up.
You can then swipe horizontally across the apps you wish to
close, and hopefully saving that processor from being overburdened.
The
4-inch display is relatively clear for a handset in this price range
and while it's not going to win any awards it is at least serviceable
and gives you more space than the Sony Xperia Miro or HTC Desire C.
You're
given five homescreens to play with, with no option to add or remove
spares, and alongside the stock Android widgets Sony has also thrown in
some of its own including three Timescape social options.
Hold
down on an empty space and you'll bring up a menu offering widgets,
applications, folder, shortcuts, wallpapers and themes – allowing you
to quickly customise the Xperia J to your liking.
It's probably best to steer clear of too many data-intensive widgets on the Xperia J, as it may slow you down even more.
The
good old Android notification panel is present and correct; pull down
from the top of the screen to view your latest alerts, plus there's a
shortcut key to the settings menu.
Some may be disappointed to
find there are no quick settings available in this panel, allowing you
toggle things such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but a homescreen widget
goes some way to solving this.
Everything it pretty intuitive,
especially if you've used Android in the past, with no over-the-top
overlays, something Sony Ericsson was guilty of on a few of its
handsets.
As much as we like the way Ice Cream Sandwich has been
implemented on the Sony Xperia J the poor performance of the processor
means it's a frustrating experience. It leaves us longing for the Orange San Diego and its Intel 1.6GHz chip which manages to run Android (albeit Gingerbread) without issue.
Contacts
Contacts
are dealt with adequately on the Sony Xperia J, with the option to
sign into your Google, email and social media accounts and pull
through your contacts into the main application.
The contacts
app itself is pretty standard Android, with a list of all your friends
and a picture next to each of their names.
We found the Xperia J
to be pretty hit and miss when it came to automatically matching up
our chums with their relevant Facebook profiles, and the ones it did
mange to link up saw profile pictures not always pulled through.
This
led to us having to go through manually to link the ones it missed
and scratching our heads as to why it wasn't pulling through
everyone's picture.
Click
through onto a contact's details and you'll note that if you have
linked them with their Facebook profile the Xperia J has also pulled
through their birthday and relationship status onto the contact card –
handy if you're rubbish with dates or lazily on the pull.
There's
also a couple of additional tabs, photos and interests, which grabs
more information from the social network, allowing you to find out
even more about your new-found friend.
If you're a Twitter fan
then you won't be happy to learn that the Sony Xperia J does not cater
for the 140 -character social medium in its contacts app for linking
accounts together - #fail.
Adding a new friend to your contacts
list is the same simple Android routine – hit the icon next to the
search bar and you're taken to a form, allowing you to fill out a huge
range of data.
Calling
The phone app appears as a
separate icon on the Sony Xperia J, but in reality it's part of the
same app as contacts – hitting phone just opens up the application on a
different tab.
You're
greeted with a numerical keyboard which also has your latest calls
displayed above it, allowing you to quickly perform a call back.
Start
tapping out a number and you'll note the Xperia J comes equipped with
smart dial – offering up contact suggestions matching the digits you're
typing.
Obviously you can also call someone by opening up their contact card from your friend list and tap their number.
Once
in a call we found the quality to be perfectly acceptable, with
volume going loud enough to hear our friend even in noisy situations.
Audio
wasn't crystal clear, but we didn't experience any major issues, and
the Xperia J managed to hold signal well, meaning we didn't drop calls.
Even cheaper
smartphones these days are expected to offer a whole range of
messaging options and the Sony Xperia J is no exception.
Kicking
us off are the dual email clients: the Google-built Gmail app which
deals solely with the search giant's email offering, alongside the
standard Email app which can host multiple accounts.
There's
nothing different in the Gmail app, which offers the same experience
you find on every Android handset these days – a simple and intuitive
app which makes dealing with emails a breeze.
Over in the Email
app you can have multiple email accounts feeding into one universal
inbox, but if that all gets a bit too busy you can view each inbox
individually as well.
Slightly
annoyingly you can't zoom out fully on HTML emails to get an overview
of them, leaving you panning around feverishly to consume all the
wordy goodness.
Text messages are handled, unsurprisingly in the
messaging app, which offers up the traditional Android experience, with
a list of conversations with your various pals, and if there's a
photo associated with a contact that's pulled through here too.
We
found the text messaging app could be a bit slow to load at times,
especially when a new message arrived - the Xperia J took a second or
two to refresh the list to display the latest ramblings from our
friend.
These functions are nothing without a means of tapping out
replies, however the keyboard supplied on the Sony Xepria J isn't a
particularly pleasing one.
The keyboard is cramped even on the
4-inch display, and the poorly placed "hide keyboard" and "settings"
keys meant we were constantly hitting them instead of the symbols, comma
and full stop buttons.
Turning the Xperia J 90 degrees offered
little reprieve, as while the keys became better spaced, we still
found it difficult to accurately tap out our missives.
We also
found the board was slow to respond to our taps, which made tapping out
messages a laborious and frustrating chore – needless to say we
quickly sacked it off in favour of a third party option downloaded
from Google Play – SwiftKey 3 if you're asking.
As
far a social networking is concerned Sony has helpfully pre-installed
the official Facebook and Twitter apps on the Xperia J – something
we'd like every manufacturer to do, along with the Google+ app which
appears alongside the range of other Google offerings.
There's no
social media aggregator app on the Xperia J, with the Timescape app
found on Sony Ericssons ditched in favour of three homescreen widgets,
all bearing the Timescape brand.
You can choose from Feed,
Friends and Share – all of which are pretty self explanatory, and all
link into your Facebook and Twitter accounts to keep you up to date
with all the latest going- ons.
There's also the option to download more links from Google Play, including Foursquare, LinkedIn, Google+ and Flickr, if you really want to get on board.
Without
a dedicated app it's all quite limiting and we found ourselves opting
for the official apps over the widgets – but some may find them useful
and it's a nice option to have.
When it comes to surfing the web on the Sony Xperia J you're given the choice of two internet browsers out of the box.
There's
the stock Android browser and the now more commonly used Chrome
browser, both of which offer up a pretty similar web experience.
You
can rock tabbed browsing, sync Google bookmarks, save pages for
offline reading and request desktop sites on both, with the early
difference between the two appearing to be the colour – the Android
browser sports a dark skin, while Chrome offers a lighter style.
Mobile sites loaded in good time over both Wi-Fi and 3G, with the Xperia J rendering the pages in around three seconds.
The
same can't be said for full websites, with the added complexities of
the desktop version of TechRadar taking at least 30 seconds to finish
loading – although we were able to pan around after about 20 seconds.
This is some seriously disappointing performance and leaves the Xperia J languishing behind the HTC Desire C and Orange San Diego in terms of browser speed.
As
you may expect panning and zooming pages is equally as painful, with
the Xperia J juddering as you move through magnification levels, and a
less than smooth scroll action.
At least the 4-inch display
shows you a decent chunk of website at a time, and the auto text-reflow
feature makes reading articles much easier.
The
Xperia J's resolution may not be mind blowing, but words and images
appear sharp and crisp on the 480x854 display, which actually makes
for a manageable reading experience once you get past those load
times.
One advantage Chrome offers is its incognito function,
allowing all your online activities to go unrecorded, perfect if you
want to, erm, shop for a present.
The Sony Xperia J comes equipped with a rear facing 5MP camera and single LED flash, plus a VGA snapper round the front.
While
this is acceptable for the price bracket the Xperia J falls into,
better can be had for your money in the form of the 8MP-toting Orange San Diego – something you'll need to consider if image quality is a big factor for you.
As
we mentioned in the interface section, the camera app takes it sweet
time opening, with us having to wait several seconds before the Xperia
J was ready to start taking pictures – no instant shots available
here.
The camera app itself is a well designed, simple affair,
with large menu keys making it easy to hit the options you want – far
better than the offering on the San Diego and BlackBerry Curve 9320.
There's
a limited range of options, including a panorama setting and five
scene modes, while the flash can be toggled and a digital zoom is on
board to get you closer to the action.
The zoom is controlled by
the volume rocker key on the side of the Xperia J, but image quality
is dramatically decreased the further you go in, so use it sparingly.
Auto-focus
is in play on the Sony Xperia J, but at times it can take a second or
two to sort itself out, which can be fustrating if you're trying to
capture something quickly.
Tap to focus is also available, but
this is disabled if you opt turn on the "touch screen to capture"
function, if you don't fancy using the on-screen shutter key.
If
you want to fine tune the settings a little more you can mess around
with the exposure, white balance and metering levels, while
geo-tagging will also pin the location of your photo to the image
file.
Thanks to the auto-focus, the Xperia J does take a second or
two to snap the image and return back to the shooting mode once
you've hit the shutter key, which makes capturing shots in quick
session almost impossible.
Image
quality is acceptable at best, with the Sony Xperia J struggling to
cope with multiple light sources and areas of light and shadow in the
same image.
A lot of our shots looked grainy, and while we weren't
expecting sparkling quality from the Xperia J, it has to be said we
were disappointed with the results.
The Sony Xperia J
makes a decent attempt at providing a multimedia experience at a
reasonable price, with its 4-inch touchscreen and Google innards
providing solid foundations.
Sadly we found the Xperia J lacking
when it came to internal storage, with Sony only sticking in 4GB, with
just over 2GB of that actually available to use – the rest is filled
by the firmware.
Luckily there is a microSD card slot behind the
Xperia J's plastic rear cover, allowing you to expand the storage by
another 32GB – which should be plenty for the majority of you out there.
You'll
have to remove the battery to access it which is a bit of a pain, as
it means switching the handset on and off if you want to swap the card
out.
Getting media on and off the Sony Xperia J is easy enough:
plug into your computer, allow the drivers to automatically install and
you'll be dragging and dropping your content in no time.
There's
also Sony's PC Companion desktop software which you can download and
install on your machine, allowing you to sync content between phone
and computer, as well as back up and restore the Xperia J.
Music
Music
fans should feel at home with a Sony phone, as the company pioneered
the portable solution back in 80s with the original Walkman –
technology has come on a long way from them, but we still expect Sony to
deliver on one of its iconic traits.
The Japanese firm has dropped the Walkman brand which adorned phones such as the W995 and Mix Walkman, but the namesake app remains on the Xperia J.
Fire
up the Walkman app and it's all pretty straightforward; there's a 'my
music' panel allowing you view your tunes by tracks, album or artist,
and there's a playlist function allowing you to group certain songs
together.
The now playing tab provides you will all the typical
music controls, play/pause, skip, and scrub, while repeat and shuffle
are hidden away slightly in the menu panel – accessed by hitting the
menu soft key below the screen.
You can access the graphic
equaliser from the same menu, allowing you to fine-tune your listening
experience to best suit your style of music, and with a decent set of
headphones plugged in, the Xperia J provides pleasing playback.
Sony's
xLoud technology has also been stuffed into the Xperia J, which
boosts the volume of the internal speaker, without the same
insufferable level of distortion we've become accustomed to.
There's
a link to Sony's Music Unlimited app from within the Walkman
application, and the app has its own icon in the app list as well.
Music
Unlimited is Sony's answer to streaming services such as Pandora and
Spotifty, charging you £9.99 a month for unlimited listening, with the
option to save your tunes offline, so you're not without your
favourite beats when away from the internet.
It's up to you whether you plump for Music Unlimited over the other services available, but it will sync nicely if you own a PlayStation 3 or Sony Smart TV.
If
you fancy purchasing and downloading music so you actually own a
physical copy then Google now was its own service, available through Google Play.
Play
Music is similar to the likes of iTunes and 7Digital, offering up a
wide catalogue of songs, with singles setting you back between 79p and
£1.29, while albums can cost anything from £3.99 to £12.99.
Prices
are in keeping with rival music stores, and the Play Music store works
in very much the same way as the rest of Google Play, which means
you'll easily be able to navigate around.
There's an FM radio
app on board the Xperia J too, providing you with a simple way to
listen to radio stations. You can favourite a station allowing you to
jump straight to it.
A handy shortcut to the TrackID app also
features, which will tell you the name of the song which is currently
playing – rather useful if you ask us.
Video
With that
4-inch display the Sony Xperia J is a portable media player contender
and don't let the 480x854 resolution put you off.
Video playback
is smooth, colours bright and lines pretty well defined. It's not as
impressive as the HD displays we're treated to on the high-end phones
these days, but you could happily watch a movie on the Xperia J.
The
player itself is a very basic affair, offering you a play/pause button
and scrub controls and that's about it – which at least makes it idiot
proof.
While
Sony claims the Xperia J will happily play MP4, WMV, H.263 and .264
formats, we were unable to get any of our clips to play from our
microSD card.
The My Movies app gives you access to all the films
stored on the handset which weren't recorded with the on board camera,
which makes it a lot easier to find the video you want without having
to trawl through the Album app.
If like us you can't get your
files to play, you can always head over to Google Play where you can
rent and purchase movies, with rental prices ranging from £1.49 to
£3.49.
If you want to rent an HD version then you'll need to add
a quid on top of the price, and you'll need to shell out at least £7.99
if you want to purchase a film to keep.
Photos
All your
lovely photos are stored in the Album app, and Sony has implemented
its own design within this application, doing away with the folders
we're used to seeing in Android.
Instead the default view is a vertical list of image thumbnails in order of the date and time they were taken.
Using
the pinch and zoom technique you can adjust the size of the
thumbnails – and thus the number which appear on screen at any one
time. There is a short delay while the Xperia J catches up with the
new magnification level, but it's not a slow as some other areas of the
handset.
There's
a basic photo editor built into the album, which lets you crop,
rotate, remove red eye and add various effects and corrections to your
images.
It's not as fully featured as some third party offerings,
but for the casual snapper it's an easy to use tool which can improve
your pictures.
Battery life
The Sony Xperia J comes with a 1,750mAh battery which is pretty big for a phone in its price range – and it shows.
We
got an impressive amount of life out of the Xperia J during our time
using the handset, with it easily lasting a whole day, even with
moderately heavy usage.
If you were a lot more conservative you
could probably stretch battery life out to around three days between
chargers, and it meant we were never left panicking about where the
nearest source of power was.
Sony has included a power saver app
on the Xperia J, which lets you manage consumption even more,
possibly allowing you to eke out a few more days usage.
From
within the app you can set what functions you want it to throttle, such
as screen brightness, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and mobile data.
Connectivity
The
Sony Xperia J comes well equipped in the connectivity department with
3G and Wi-Fi b/g/n network options both on board, as well as the
option to use the handset as a Wi-Fi hotspot and share its web
connection with other devices.
The microUSB port on the left hand
side allows you to easily link up the Xperia J to a computer, while
Bluetooth 2.1 lets you pair the smartphone with your car, wireless
headphones or laptop.
A-GPS also makes an appearance, allowing
you to locate yourself and find the way home at 2am after a long session
down the pub.
The addition of a mircoSD card slot round the
back really helps, especially as there's a poor internal offering in
the Xperia J, but there's no NFC technology present.
If
you love to stream media you'll be pleased to learn the Sony Xperia J
is DLNA enabled, meaning you can wireless link it up to other DLNA
enabled devices such as TVs, game consoles and Hi-Fi systems.
Maps
The Sony
Xperia J comes equipped with the excellent Google Maps, the search
giant's free mapping solution which not only lets you explore the
world, but also provides you with directions, traffic updates and
turn-by-turn navigation.
Viewing maps on the Xperia J is easy
thanks to the 4-inch display, but the sluggish processor comes into
play again, as it takes a few seconds to load the map – even longer if
you have traffic updates turned on.
GPS
lock wasn't particularly quick either, with the Xperia J taking at
least five seconds to starting pin pointing our position, but once it
got a lock, it managed to hold on it and track us relatively well.
We
did experience a fair amount of juddering as we zoomed in and out of
the maps and there was a couple of seconds delay as we panned around
and waiting for new areas to load.
Apps
We it comes to
app selection you're spoilt for choice thanks to the Android operating
system and the presence of Google Play, giving you over 700,000 apps to
choose from.
In
terms of pre-installed applications Sony has furnished the Xperia J
with a few, with the obvious inclusion of the Google range all present
and correct including Maps, Gmail, Navigation and Google+.
As we
mentioned Facebook and Twitter have been helpfully loaded on, making
it quick and easy to jump onto your favourite social networks from the
word go.
The
Connected Devices app allows you to stream content to and from the
Sony Xperia J and other devices on the same wireless network, such as
TVs and computers.
The app automatically searches for compatible devices and you can then select the one you want and push your media to it.
Music
and Videos is a peculiar app. It's not your destination to download or
stream your favourite tunes or films; oh no, it's actually a social
aggregator of what your friends are listening to/watching.
You
can share you favourite tracks or YouTube clips via the application,
as well as gorge on what your friends like, but overall it all seemed
pretty pointless and we couldn't see ourselves using it… ever.
OfficeSuite
allows you to view various documents including Word, PDF, Excel and
Powerpoint. You can't create or edit documents on the fly though –
you'll need to spend £9.29 on the Pro version for that.
That said it's handy to have a viewer pre-installed on a device, especially if you download documents from the internet.
TrackID
is Sony's music recognition app which works in a similar way to the
likes of Shazam and SoundHound – play it a short clip of music and it
will work out what you're listening to.
Perfect when you're out
and hear a song but don't know what it is, and the integration with the
FM radio app on the Xperia J is a nice, and useful touch.
Smart Connect lets you program the Xperia J to turn certain settings on or off when you connect the handset to a peripheral.
For
example you can have the Xperia J turn on your alarm and set your
ringtone to silent when you plug in the charger, or open up the
Walkman app when you plug in a set of headphones.
There are
three preset options, but you can easily edit these and create your own
ones, with the ability to automatically post to Facebook or send a
text as well as open apps and toggle settings.
The Sony Xperia J is,
as the firm itself declared during its launch at IFA 2012, a
smartphone which "combines great style with affordability."
It may
not be a wizard on the inside, but overall it offers a respectable
smartphone experience at an attractive price point.
Photo Gallery :
We liked
We
are fans of the design of the Sony Xperia J, bringing back the look
from the old Sony Ericssons and updating it with a smooth, stylish
finish that sits nicely in the hand.
Battery life is also
impressive, as more and more smartphones struggle to get through a day
the Xperia J will happily chug through at least two, if not more with
careful use.
We disliked
The Xperia J is laggy, very
laggy. We felt like we were constantly waiting for the phone to catch
up with what we wanted it to do and this serverly detracted from the
user experience.
Typing out messages was also frustrating, with
the poorly designed keyboard reducing us to mistake after mistake and
leaving us sending messages which only half made sense.
The
camera isn't great either, and while we're aware the Xperia J is more
of a budget-centric handset, there is better on offer for the same
money.
Verdict
If we're honest, we were a little
disappointed with the Sony Xperia J. Sure, it looks great and will
last a few days on one charge, but the sluggishness of the Android
operating system makes us feel like we've gone back a few years.
We
wanted to love the Xperia J, but instead we were left frustrated with
flaws which we feel could have been easily addressed by Sony during
development.
If you're in the market for a sub-£200 phone then
we'd recommend you shop around, as there's a lot of choice out there and
at the end of the day your decision will come down to personal
preference.
You should certainly consider the Sony Xperia J, as
it has all the makings of a decent handset and you never know, if it
gets treated to a Jelly Bean upgrade, it might make all the
difference. Here's hoping.
