Sony’s new Xperia E4 smartphone pairs a large 5-inch screen with a sensibly sized battery, resulting in a phone which it claims won’t have to be charged every night. The 2300mAh battery should return 29 days in standby mode, or just over 12 hours of talk time. That’s feature phone territory.
Of course, in the real world things are very different – usage, signal strength, and settings can all impact battery performance – but Sony still says we’ll get two days out of the Xperia E4 before it needs recharging. There’s also Sony’s battery-extending Stamina Mode to make sure it doesn’t grind to a halt when you need the phone most.
Despite the big screen size, you’ll have to be prepared to compromise over the resolution, in return for the stunning battery life. It’s 960 x 540, rather than 720p or 1080p. Not terrible, but you may notice some pixelation when getting up close and personal with the IPS LCD display. The processor driving the E4 is a MediaTek MT6582. It’s a quad-core chip running at 1.3GHz with 1GB of RAM alongside, plus 8GB of internal storage space. There’s a MicroSD card slot to increase this number by 32GB.
There are two cameras. A 2-megapixel selfie cam above the screen, and a 5-megapixel, auto-focus rear camera. The latter has 1080p video recording, an HDR mode, LED flash, and various Sony imaging apps including a beautification and burst mode. Android 4.4.4 KitKat is installed, along with a new app called PartyShare, where a Wi-Fi Direct connection lets friends share music and photos through your phone. Finally, the Xperia E4 will connect to 3G HSPA+ networks.
Sony hasn’t confirmed where the Xperia E4 will go on sale, only that it will do so in mid-February. It’ll be sold in either black or white, and in a single SIM, or dual-SIM form.