Sony Xperia M2 review – still hanging in there

Storage and Battery Life

However, bear in mind that you’ll probably need to use the microSD card slot if you’re planning on installing lots of apps, as despite having 8GB of storage, only around 5GB is available to the user. Once we’d installed all of our benchmark apps, for example, we’d almost reached full capacity, with hardly any room left to install app updates or take many photos.

One thing you won’t need to worry about, though, is battery life. In our continuous video playback test with the screen brightness set to 170cd/m2, the M2’s 2,330mAh battery managed an excellent 11h 43m, which is around 30 minutes longer than the Moto G. It even outlasts the Xperia M4 Aqua, which only lasted 10h 16m under the same conditions.

Camera

On the rear of the phone is an 8-megapixel camera. While we were pleased with the camera’s vibrant colours, every shot we took had noticeably blurry edges round certain objects, even when we specifically tapped the screen to help focus the camera. This is a shame, as it meant images looked perpetually hazy even in bright lighting conditions.

^ The sky was slightly overexposed, but colours were rich and accurate in our outdoor shots. The only problem was the lack of detail

^ Switching on HDR mode helped with the sky, but objects and buildings still looked quite fuzzy round the edges

There wasn’t a lot of detail present either, and this carried over to when we tried taking photos indoors as well. Even with our external lamp turned on, there was a fair amount of noise present and there was quite a lot of compression when we zoomed in to its native resolution. It only grew worse when we switched the lamp off, but turning on the flash did help improve the level of contrast somewhat. Either way, though, you’ll probably want to limit your camera usage to quick social media shots rather than use it for important family occasions.

Luckily, Sony’s camera app comes primed and ready with plenty of fun additional lens modes to help make up for its slightly poor quality. AR Effect, for instance, lets you insert virtual dinosaurs, party hats, fish, dragons and even Spider-Man characters into your scene, while Picture Effect lets you apply several different filters, including kaleidoscope and fisheye lens effects.

^ Even with our external lamp switched on, there was still a lot of noise present in our indoor test images

^ Colours looked more natural when we turned the lamp off, but there still wasn’t much detail

Conclusion

In a way, it’s not surprising the Xperia M2 has lasted this long. It’s well-made and has a great battery life, and its performance still just about holds up against the current budget greats. However, its small screen resolution is starting to look particularly outdated now and its camera is a bit of a disappointment. We’re also not big fans of its chunky, angular design and how it continually picks up mucky fingerprints.

More importantly, though, the M2’s price just isn’t as good value as the Moto G. The M2 is by no means a bad handset, but the Moto G continues to reign supreme. Buy Now from Amazon