Sony Xperia L3 - Ultimate buyers guide

Current [EU] Xperia L3 price | Current [US] Sony Xperia L3 price

Design

As you know Sony is not one to follow the usual smartphone trends. This is a gift and a curse for Sony fans like us. The gift is no notch. Just a 5.7" 720p 303 ppi IPS LCD display protected by gorilla glass 5.

The Curse. A considerable amount of forehead housing the earpiece and the 8mp wide angled selfie cam, and an even bigger chin.

The glass looking finish over the back over the subtly glittered surface actually looks really nice in daylight. The diamond cut bezels around the camera module is also a nice touch.

The Xperia L3's design is pretty old school but with that said that I am an old school kind of guy. I still like wired headphones. Yes the L3 has a headphone jack. Also, the Sony Xperia of 2019 have returned to the old school side mounted fingerprint reader that we saw a few years back.

The implementation of this actually looks pretty nice & it keeps the design arguably more ergonomic than last year's XZ3 and XZ2, just based off of the placement.

Also, this time around the fingerprint reader is not doubled up as a power button. Maybe this helps with the accuracy of the fingerprint reader. Or maybe it's just more cost effective, but actually, I prefer this as opposed to digging my thumb into the side of the phone. It's just a little more effortless.

This entry level 2019 Xperia does have a USB C port which I was happy to see. It's more convenient I think you'll agree. The volume rocker just below the fingerprint reader that I think is perfectly placed, Also a single downward firing speaker on this one.

It's important to remember this is the best from Sony 2019. Stay tuned to WhatGear for more on the midrange and flagship models in the future.

Usability

First and foremost the Xperia L3 might be one of the most comfortable Sony phones I've held for a long time. It has no sharp corners and nice round edges where the screen meets the bezels. The Xperia L3 at the time of this video is running on Android Oreo and Sony have done a good job of not filling the device with bloatware out of the box.

Powering the device performance is a Mediatek 6762 and 3GB of ram which is not bad. Would have been nice to have seen a Snapdragon 660 but hey that might have increased the price point...a bit. However it's more than powerful enough for top 5 social media apps and general smartphone apps.

That battery life is not bad either, with it's 3300mah battery which easily lasted me until the end of the day. It also has Sonys own adaptive charging that learns your charging patterns and as a result, doesn't kill your batteries life in the long run.

The Sony Xperia L3 actually surprised me with unlocking features. it's got face unlock feature as well a voice unlock, and the fingerprint reader is very snappy and rarely fails. I actually have all three on at the same time... So It is just whatever I feel like using at the time. It's nice to have options

The cameras are not bad given the price that this comes in at. The Xperia L3 has a dual camera setup. You've got 13mp primary and 2mp depth sensor. More on that later.

Sony has also thrown in some experimental stuff. Which is good to see. You've got high contrast text which just sharpens up your text characters. It's pretty cool.

The color correction which has a strange effect. And color inversion which inverts everything including photos and apps etc... Everything looks pretty horrible in this mode, but the menus look good. It is kind of like an unfinished dark mode.

I would have liked to of seen a proper dark mode but hey they're halfway there. Let me know what you think about dark mode there's a poll up in the top corner.

Quality

The LCD HD+ screen is quite good considering the price tag. There's not much color shift when off axis. When watching movies it's clarity is actually quite sharp and there's a definite pop in color when it comes to reds.

There is actually a setting to adjust your color balance...but to be honest I think most people won't need to mess with that.

As for its performance. I tested this out pretty heavily with some lengthy PubG sessions and it holds up well. Yes, I couldn't run it on the highest graphics settings, but it was a pretty seamless experience.

The sound quality is really not amazing. the single firing speaker is not going to blow your mind, but with that said.

headphone jack. Get yourself some Sony WH-1000XM3 and your good.

Awesome Features

The cameras. A couple of the great things about the Xperia L3 camera is it supports bokeh aka blurry background, on the back and front cameras. So that's pretty awesome.

Also within the camera app. There are a bunch of presets that will help you take good photos in all kinds of different conditions and the rear shooter supports HDR.

Even though this is entry level. Sony has still integrated NFC which means you can do contactless payments via your and pair NFC devices with one touch. You don't always see this on entry tier of devices. So that's pretty awesome too.

One of the most awesome features is its overall build quality.

It actually feels surprisingly premium for such an affordable device. Nothing feels cheap and actually when it comes to entry-level devices this one of the nicest I've ever seen in terms of build quality that I've tested. It feels so nice in the hand even the weight is spot on.