Sony Xperia SL review: The NXT one

A refresh, instead of a proper upgrade. A replacement model rather than a successor. Is the Sony Xperia SL aiming too low? Many will probably say so, but you can't blame Sony for trying to extend the life of a pretty solid smartphone and one of its best-received handsets.

The Sony Xperia SL might not tempt anyone already owning the Xperia S to upgrade, but then again that's where the Xperia T steps in. The new Sony smartphone takes the path of the Arc S and tries to give a once successful flagship better chances to survive in the mid-range.

The Xperia SL finds itself in the middle of an extremely fierce battle. It's squeezed between the affordable dual-core NovaThor-powered droids and the flagships from the beginning of the year, which have undergone several price-cuts and are ready to conquer new territories.

The question is whether the Sony Xperia SL has what it takes to survive in these conditions. A look at its main strengths and weaknesses should help us with the answer.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support
• 3G with 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 4.3" 16M-color capacitive LED-backlit LCD touchscreen of 720p resolution (720 x 1280 pixels) with Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine; Scratch-resistant glass
• Android OS v4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich
• Dual-core 1.7 GHz Scorpion CPU, 1 GB RAM, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 chipset
• 12 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geo-tagging, Multi Angle shot
• 1080p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound
• 1.3 MP front-facing camera, 720p video recording
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
• 32GB built-in storage
• microHDMI port, dedicated TV launcher
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Voice dialing
• Deep Facebook integration
• PlayStation Certified, access to the PS Store
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor

Main disadvantages

• More powerful chipsets can be had for the same price
• Display has sub-par viewing angles
• No microSD card slot