Sony Xperia E4

Sony Xperia E4 Live Pictures & Specs Show Up

We’ve been hearing rumors about the flagship 2015 Sony Xperia smartphones and tablets like the Xperia Z4, Xperia Z4 Tablet, Xperia Z4 Ultra and the Xperia Z4 Compact over the past few weeks, but very little was known about the low and mid-range Xperia smartphones for 2015. Finally we are starting to see leaks about the entry-level Xperia 2015 smartphones as well. A Polish website Teleguruseemed to have gotten their hands on a prototype Xperia E4 smartphone, with the model number E2105. The website has posted detailed photos of the smartphone and also revealed its key specifications.

The Xperia E4 was first seen on the Indonesian site Postel recently, but we didn’t know the final name of the device back then. According to Teleguru, the E4 smartphone will be Sony’s entry-level offering for next year and is expected to be priced around $200. That actually puts it in the same price bracket as the Xperia E1 and E1 dual launched this year. Even though the price is expected to remain similar, the specifications of the device seem to be quite impressive. The Xperia E4 apparently comes with a 5-inch LCD display with qHD 540 x 960 resolution display, Mediatek MT6582 1.3GHz quad-core processor with Mali-400MP4 GPU, 1GB RAM, and runs on Android 4.4.4 KitKat. Their sources reveal that the E4 is expected to launch with Android 4.4.4 KitKat at launch and will be updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop in the first half of next year. Teleguru ran an Antutu benchmark test on the prototype they had, and it managed to score a respectable 17857 points on the test. That is a pretty decent score for a low-end device but unfortunately falls short of what the Xperia E3 can manage. The website claims that they will be posting a full review of the device soon, as they spend more time with it over the next few days.

The live photos of the device do seem to show a radical departure from the design language of 2014 Xperia devices. The device may look like it is made out of polycarbonate, but Teleguru found that the material is actually something similar to ceramic and feels great in the hands. The pictures do make us wonder if Sony will be using this new design language on its other 2015 Xperia smartphones as well or if this is going to be limited to the Xperia E4. The Xperia E1 and E3 models have been ODM devices, so the E4 might very well be an ODM device as well. Rumors about the Xperia Z4 flagship seem to point to a similar omni-balance design as the Xperia Z3, so you should probably not get too excited with the updated design on the Xperia E4.

Sony had announced a few weeks back that it will not concentrate on the low-end and mid-range smartphone segment in the near future and would focus on the high-end segment instead as it isn’t making money with its smartphone division. But the presence of the Xperia E4 shows that the company may not actually be bidding farewell to the entry-level Android smartphone segment, at least for now.