Sony Xperia M

Available now
4th June 2013

The Sony Xperia M is the sixth Xperia handset announced this year, adding to what is now a very large and somewhat confusing array of Android smartphones being offered by this Japanese manufacturer.

In this case perhaps "M" stands for "midrange", as the Xperia M comes with a 4" 480 x 854 pixel display, a 5 megapixel primary camera with 720p video capture and 0.3 megapixel front-facing one, a 1GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM, a pretty small 4GB of flash storage plus a microSD slot, NFC support and an FM radio. The Xperia M doesn't support LTE data, but does support HSPA+ if your carrier offers it.

There are two versions available, the single-SIM Sony Xperia M and the dual-SIM Xperia M dual. For some reason, the single-SIM version only runs Android 4.1 out-of-the-box and the dual-SIM version runs Android 4.2. Both handsets come in Black, White and Purple colour schemes with a rather jolly Yellow version for the single-SIM variant only.

Inside is a 1750 mAh battery which is theoretically capable of powering both versions for about 18 days standby time and 9 hours talktime although real-world figures will be a lot less. The Xperia M measures 124 x 62 x 9.3mm and weighs 124 grams.

Of course, the Xperia M also supports WiFi, GPS and all the usual Android features, plus the typical Sony extras are here too. Overall the Xperia M is an attractive device which is at least a bit different looking from a Samsung or HTC.

People with long memories and an intimate knowledge of Sony's product range might recognise this as being a slightly upgraded version of the Xperia J which currently retails for about €210. We would expect the Xperia M therefore to retail for no more than €250 when it comes to market sometime during Q3 2013.