Sony has been finding it difficult to post good smartphone sales numbers over the past couple of years. The Japanese tech-giant was even rumored to exit its ailing mobile business, but the company rubbished those reports.
The company went on to announce three new smartphones — the Xperia XA2, Xperia XA2 Ultra and Xperia L2 — at CES 2018 in Las Vegas to show that it is still in the game.
Now, the company has launched one of the three smartphones — the Xperia L2 — in India. The mid-range device has been launched for Rs 19,990 and will be available starting February 5.
Marketed as a selfie-centric smartphone, the Xperia L2 boasts of an 8MP wide-angle selfie camera as its biggest highlight.
The device is also one of the first mid-range Sony smartphones to feature a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner. Most Sony smartphones come with a side-mounted fingerprint sensor that's embedded into the Xperia power button that's placed on the right side of the device.
In terms of the design. the Xperia L2 features Sony's time-tested "loop surface" (Omni Balance) design language with thick bezels at the top and bottom, although the side bezels are razor thin. The device looks almost identical to earlier Xperia devices like the Xperia XA1 and Xperia XZ.
Also read: Sony's 2018 Xperia XZ Pro flagship is going to astound you
The specifications of the Sony Xperia L2 are also rather disappointing (at least on paper), considering the fact that it has been launched at Rs 19,990.
For once, the device lacks an 18:9 aspect ratio display, which is increasingly becoming the standard for smartphones both in the high-end and mid-range segments.
The Xperia L2 sports a 5.5-inch HD IPS display with 720x1280 pixel resolution and standard 16:9 aspect ratio. However, there's Sony's proprietary Image Enhance Technology and Corning Gorilla Glass protection to make up for the sub-par resolution.
Under the hood, the handset packs a low-end MediaTek MT6737T quad-core chipset that's coupled with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. There is also an option for expandable memory via a dedicated microSD card slot that supports cards up to 256GB.
As for the cameras, the Xperia L2 features a 13MP rear camera with an f/2.0 aperture and an 8MP wide-angle selfie camera with 120-degree field of view and f/2.4 aperture at the front. There's also a fingerprint scanner at the back of the device, just below the rear camera.
On the connectivity front, the device comes with 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, A-GPS, NFC connectivity and a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer.
The Xperia L2 is backed by a 3,300mAh battery which comes with Qnovo Adaptive Charging Technology, Sony's STAMINA mode and fast charging support. The device runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box and will be available in two color variants — Black and Gold.
