When you mention the Sony Xperia T3 in passing to a group of friends at the pub, not many people are likely to be able topicture the smartphone or even know about it. But don’t let that make you doubt this mid-range sibling to the Sony Xperia Z2 and Z3, this is an unfeted gem in Sony’s line-up which is well worth checking out.

It has one major claim to fame which, frankly doesn’t amount to much. Sony dub it “the slimmest 5.3 inch screen smartphone”, the Sony Xperia T3 is fairly new to the market, announced in June this year and released soon afterwards in July.

Design

When we received the Sony Xperia T3, we were told it’s “fashion focused” which basically means it’s aimed at women. I seriously disagree. It comes in black, white and purple and looks similar to most smartphones of its size in the market. So it can appeal to men and women, young and old.

The Sony Xperia T3 measures 150.7x77x7mm, weighs 148g, has a big old 5.3 inch screen (sorry, no Corning Gorilla glass here) and boasts a 1 280×720 pixel resolution with colours that aren’t quite as vivid as a Samsung Galaxy S5, but not so far off you’d notice.

Around the back is a not-so-smooth matte plastic cover which can’t be removed to access the battery.

There’s a single speaker at the bottom which is fairly low quality, so if you’re a fan of playing music and sound through a phone’s loudspeaker, you’ll want to hook it up to a portable or connect to a Bluetooth speaker.

And a word of warning, if you don’t put a cover on the Sony Xperia T3, you will have to deal with wiping the back often as the matte finish makes it prone to attracting oily finger print marks, dust and fibre particles that are not easy to wipe clean off.

The sides, bottom and top frames are all aluminium, with the microSD, mini SIM, power, volume and camera lens focus buttons on the right and the charging port on the left.

In terms of durability, the Sony Xperia T3 certainly impressed me. Some guy bumped into me at a shop and it fell out of my hand, hitting the tiled floor top-left corner first. Naturally, such a fall would most likely result in a few scratches but when I picked the Sony Xperia T3 up, it was blemish free, so it scores top marks there. If you’re expecting the water and dust resistance of the Z-series phones, however, you’ll be disappointed. Don’t take the Xperia T3 for a swim.

Software

The Sony Xperia T3 runs Android 4.4.2, which makes it more or less as up to date as it can be. In lock screen mode you get quick access to the camera and a swipe up or down unlocks it. A swipe to the far left in the apps tray reveals a manager that you can use to search for apps, access the Google Play and Sony Select app stores, uninstall and arrange the way your apps are displayed according to most used, your own order or alphabetically.

Sony’s own Walkman, Select, Socialife News (spelt exactly like), Album, Movies TrackID, Xperia Lounge and Care apps come preloaded. Although I hardly used most of them as I don’t really use a lot of entertainment apps that much, but if you’re a fan, you’ll love them.

The drop-down notification tray also has a quick access to settings you would probably use the most such as Bluetooth, WiFi, screen rotation, GPS and brightness.

Whenever you get a notification, are charging the phone or have a low battery, an LED light within the ear speaker will flash in either red, green or white. I think the ear speaker is a strange place to put a light in as it would be just fine if it was next to the front-facing camera lens as with most phones with LED notification lights.

Hardware

Performance-wise, you’re getting a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset and quad core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A7 processor which don’t really match up to the faster and cleverer electronics in more expensive phones on paper, but in practice you’ll barely notice the difference. They deliver good performance and the Sony Xperia T3 performs very well even with many apps open at the at same time.

On board memory measures in at 1GB RAM, which is OK for all but the most demanding of applications, but storage is a mere 8 GB. That’s enough to start with, but you’ll probably want to expand it with a 32GB microSD card.

Camera

I’ve come across some smartphones, such as the LG G70, where the old adage that “megapixels don’t matter” is very true. Big sensor numbers don’t necessarily translate into good photos. Fortunately, with the Sony Xperia T3, the 8MP camera there’s very little to fault and it actually feels undersold in terms of performance. Below the camera lens is the flash/torchlight.

To bring out the creative photographer in you, the different shooting modes including HDR, Timeshift Burst, AR effect, Creative effect and Sweep Panorama allow you to take photos the way you want to and play around with the final result.

Here’s one I took atop the Randords building in Braamfontein overlooking the Johannesburg CBD, in auto shooting mode. Bear in mind that this was taken behind huge glass walls, which is why there are reflections.

It’s hard to believe the front-facing is actually a 1MP camera and not higher because it delivers good quality suitable for selfies, here’s one I took of myself all dressed up.

I wouldn’t suggest using the zoom option however, as it gives dismal picture and video quality, so just get closer to whatever you’re capturing if you can.

 Battery life

The “but…” in this review’s heading is because of the Sony Xperia T3’s battery. For a good mid-range phone, its Li-Ion 2 500mAh battery is disappointing. According to Sony, it’s supposed to last up to 14 hours 47 minutes of talk time on 3G, but that wasn’t the case at all.

For the most part, moderns phones can at least make it through the working day – including commute – before they need topping up. but with the Sony Xperia T3, I didn’t even last until 8pm on a day of fairly normal use. By 6pm, I would have to plug it in, which wasn’t ideal because that’s when one really gets to use their phone to catch up on social and chats from through out the day. So I would either have to use while charging and still leave it on the charger for a couple of hours after bedtime (I wake up during the night or early morning to unplug) or just let it charge for a bit, unplug and use it again. It’s the main point of compromise as far as the phone goes and means that at the price, you’re probably better off with the very similarly priced Huawei P7.

Conclusion

The Sony Xperia T3 was my official introduction in the Sony Xperia range and it’s made enough of an impression to make me consider getting a Sony Xperia sometime in the future. The battery life and the fact that you can’t switch batteries is a let down, but you might consider that the camera quality and excellent design and screen offset that. I don’t think it’s too much of a deterring factor to not convince you to get it if you’re looking for a good mid-range Android – but it does make the decision a bit less clear cut. As does the fact that for the time being this is a Vodacom exclusive.

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Details

Price: Only available at Vodacom, R5 639 prepaid or R349 on contract
Display: 5.3 inch, 1 280×720 pixel resolution, IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with Triluminos display
Operating System: Android 4.4.2
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon Snapdragon 400 chipset, 1.4 GHz Cortex-A7 processor
Memory: 1GB RAM
Storage: 8GB expandable by up to 32GB with a microSD card
Battery: Non-removable Li-Ion 2500 mAh
Camera: 8MP rear facing with HDR, 1MP front-facing
Networking: 4G LTE, Dual Band, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and LTE
Dimensions: 146.3mmx74.6mmx8.9mm
Weight: 148g

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