Introduction
The Sony Xperia C4 is one odd member of the company's lineup. It's not very close to the flagship in terms of specs, yet it's ruling the phablet division with a 5.5-inch FullHD display. The T2 and T3 are both showing signs of age, not to mention they have less than half the pixels. Meanwhile the Z-series have been stuck at 5.2 inches for a while, leaving little options to those looking for a pixel-rich phablet.
The Xperia C4 builds on the proven concept of the C3 with the same 5MP front camera with an LED flash to please the narcissistic folk and allow shooting in less than ideal conditions at that (the frowned upon flash selfie at the club a prime example).
The Xperia C4 then goes on to add a few key improvements that position the smartphone firmly in the upper segment of the midrange. The 1080p display resolution is one we already mentioned, but there's also a higher count 13MP primary camera, for those that will buy the C4 not for the selfie capabilities.
More importantly the new phablet now comes with a powerful Mediatek MT6752 chipset to replace the modest Snapdragon 410 and the octa-core Cortex-A53 processor should provide plenty of oomph. Both the 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage are double those found inside the predecessor, and although neither is groundbreaking, they both state that the C4 means business, where the C3 had its mind set on play.
Sony has also shaved a few millimeters off the smartphone's height and the C4 is now top among the entire lineup in terms of screen-to-body ratio, even if the engineers could have trimmed the top bezel a bit more.
A little word of clarification - we have the dual-SIM version for review, but most of our findings apply equally to both, so we'll be dropping the Dual part of the name for most of the following pages.
Key features
- Available as Xperia C4 Dual with dual SIM support or Xperia C4, both with LTE support, cat. 4 LTE (150/50Mbps);
- 5.5" IPS LCD, 1080 x 1920 pixels, 401ppi
- Android 5.0 Lollipop with Xperia UI on top
- Mediatek MT6752 chipset with octa-core 1.7GHz Cortex-A53 processor, Mali-T760MP2 GPU and 2GB of RAM
- 13MP rear camera, single LED flash, 1080p video recording, hardware two-stage shutter release button
- 5MP wide-angle front-facing camera with LED flash and HD video recording
- 2.4GHz & 5GHz Wi-Fi a/b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.1; GPS/GLONASS; FM radio with RDS; USB On-The-Go; NFC
- 16GB of built-in storage, expandable via a dedicated microSD card slot
- Active noise cancellation with a secondary microphone
- 2,600mAh battery; STAMINA Power Saving Mode
Main disadvantages
- Battery somewhat low in capacity, non-removable too
- All-plastic build, the back easily accumulates smudges
So, while the Xperia C3 was a simple affordable phablet, keen to shoot selfies at night, the C4 is a properly equipped midrange device where the flashy front camera is only one of its virtues. It's also the only viable option in Sony's camp if you want a high-res large-diagonal smartphone.
Sony Xperia C4 press images
It's interesting to see Sony going for such thin bezels on the C4, and not on the flagship Z-series after getting repeatedly bashed for its typically wasteful use of footprint. Apparently it can be done.
We'll be looking at the Sony Xperia C4 in depth over the following pages, starting with unboxing and hardware overview.
Sharp 5.5-inch FullHD Display
Aside from the 5MP front camera with flash, the Xperia C4 is interesting in no small part because of its display. As it stands now it's the best specced phone Sony has to offer with a diagonal larger than 5.2 inches. One might argue that the Xperia Z Ultra may still hold that title, but at 6.4 inches it's clearly pushing the boundaries of what you can call a phone, even if the Snapdragon 800 could still pull its own weight.
Anyway, the Sony Xperia C4 comes with a 5.5-inch display with 1,080 x 1,920 pixels resolution and that's good for 401ppi density. It's got nice colors, though a bit subdued at the default setting, and the Super-vivid mode doesn't do all that much in terms of punch. You do get the option to tweak the white balance with RGB sliders but there are no presets.
Side viewing is a non-issue, and the inevitable contrast compression and minor drop in brightness don't get in the way of sharing the content on that fine display.
There aren't many options you can fiddle with on the display, but there is a glove mode.
Our microscope shot revealed the expected standard arrangement with equal numbers of red, green and blue pixels.
Our lab tests also revealed the Xperia C4's display to be plenty bright at the maximum setting, so much so that despite the averagely lit blacks, contrast is still high. What's nice to see for a change is the nearly linear slider for brightness adjustment, with the 50% percent setting equating to about 54% of actual maximum.
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| 0.3 | 347 | 1174 | 0.53 | 635 | 1192 | |
| 0.13 | 152 | 1207 | 0.56 | 642 | 1153 | |
| - | - | - | 0.65 | 562 | 867 | |
| - | - | - | 0.69 | 775 | 1127 | |
| 0.3 | 305 | 1001 | 0.52 | 536 | 1016 | |
| 0.31 | 290 | 931 | 0.59 | 551 | 937 | |
| 0.15 | 161 | 1063 | 0.51 | 542 | 1055 | |
| 0 | 175 | ∞ | 0 | 349 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 221 | ∞ | 0 | 517 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 142 | ∞ | 0 | 389 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 274 | ∞ | 0 | 529 | ∞ | |
| 0.18 | 235 | 1299 | 0.45 | 598 | 1327 | |
| 0.24 | 329 | 1345 | 0.62 | 806 | 1311 | |
| 0.17 | 176 | 1012 | 0.74 | 828 | 1115 | |
Not one to excel at sunlight legibility, the LCD tech inside the C4 still managed a decent score in our test.
Sunlight contrast ratio
Connectivity
The Sony Xperia C4 comes in single and dual SIM flavors. Both the versions offer quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA support. Cat.4 LTE support is also present, though only one of the SIM is graced with it in the C4 Dual model.
Local connectivity features dial-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n with Wi-Fi Direct and hotspot. There is also support for Bluetooth 4.1 with A2DP. Satellite navigation is also a given, with additional A-GPS and GLONASS support. The Xperia C4 also has an FM radio with RDS. It doesn't offer an IR port, but it does come with NFC.
There is a microUSB 2.0 port for charging and data connections. Media transfer mode is supported for accessing the phone's built-in memory and microSD card over the USB cable. USB OTG functionality is also present and it works fine should you decide to chain-link a mouse and a flash drive in a keyboard and connect the lot, if that's your thing.
The microUSB port doesn't have any TV-out functionality though, but if you own a compatible HDTV, you can output your phone's screen wirelessly via the Miracast protocol or Sony's Xperia Connectivity Throw option.
The app also lets you share your media over DLNA by creating a media server, as well as connect to a PlayStation DUALSHOCK 3 (or 4) wireless controller.
Battery life test
The Sony Xperia C4 comes with a 2,600mAh battery, which makes it a bit underpowered for a 5.5-inch FullHD device. That said, the Samsung Galaxy A7 did very well with its equal capacity, and so did the Vivo X5Max we reviewed only a couple of weeks ago with only 2,300mAh.
The harsh reality is, however, that the Xperia C4 is struggling to remain lit up for more than 7 hours. The web browsing test depletes the battery in a little over that, while the video playback longevity can't even make it to the 6-hour mark. However, you should have in mind that the smartphone's brightness at the typical 50% setting we carry out those tests at, is around 350 nits, which is nearly twice as high as some competitors.
The 3G talk time is only average, so the Xperia C4 can't redeem itself on that front, and it only leaves the efficient standby in its favor.
The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties.
[via GSMARENA]
