The Xperia L4 is Sony’s take on a budget phone and for the sub £200 price it is a good offering. Having some of the same design cues as the Xperia 1 II and 10 II, yet it does not have that slightly old fashioned look to the screen that blights those two handsets, by avoiding the large bezels at the top and bottom. The overall effect is a much more pleasing and up-to-date look, with a narrow top bezel incorporating a teardrop notch, and a slightly deeper bottom one.
So, apart from looks what about the rest of the L4? Well, as expected for a budget handset, it has a 6.2” LCD screen, rather than the more expensive AMOLED one of its bigger brothers. This has a 79.5% screen to body ratio, lower 720p resolution and 295 ppi density – all pretty standard for a budget handset. With a plastic back and frame it weighs in at 178g, despite this use of plastic it still has a pretty solid and premium feel in the hand.
Standard budget priced specs inside
Inside it has a Helio P22 processor, which is a pretty good mid-range chipset that supports photography well. This is backed up by 3GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. Oddly, it ships with Android 9 (Pie) and Sony’s near vanilla skin on top, rather than the current Android 10.
On the sound front, there is a single speaker and a 3.5mm headphone jack as well as an FM radio. The L4 also has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and supports NFC. Finally, the battery is a 3580 mAh one with fast charging. Again, all pretty standard budget-priced specs.
Decent camera setup
The main camera array is a triple one, positioned vertically in a black pill shaped mount on the top left. This consists of a 13MP f/2.0, 26mm wide with PDAF, 5MP f/2.2, 17mm ultrawide and 2MP f/2.4 depth lens’. This can take 1080p video at 30 frames per second. Not a bad line-up for a budget-priced phone.
The selfie camera is positioned centrally in a teardrop notch. It is an 8MP f/2.0, 27mm wide lens that can also shoot 1080p video at 30 frames per second.
Holds its own in this price bracket
Available in Black and Blue the L4 is a decently specified and well-built handset for the price and holds its own pretty well against other handsets in this price bracket. Plus, you get the benefit of the Sony brand and a phone that is likely to last the test of time due to its more classical looks.
