Sony is a company that has a strange dilemma. Their products are well-known for quality but they don't really generate a lot of buzz. They have been making good phones for a long time and their most renowned feature is the camera and its photographic features.
So, does this Sony Xperia M4 Aqua (E2353) live up to today's expectations?
The first thing that you will notice on all Sony phones of today is that they all use Android;
you will nonetheless not experience that Android feeling as you would on other phones.
Samsung tweaks it with TouchWiz; HTC has Sense UI; Oppo has ColorOS and so on. But to me,
Sony's Xperia UI feels the most polished among them all, especially when it is accompanied by a large variety of sound effects and ringtones that are fun to use and thankfully, not annoying.
Xperia UI feels very different from all the run-of-the-mill Android phones -- all the icons look very elegant and well-designed and I enjoy the smooth transition effects.
Also, a lot of modifications have been done to the basic Android apps, for instance the camera, photo album, music and movie apps, to the point that you will have to relearn to use them if you have come from another Android background.
The changes have definitely added more functions to the apps. You can also change the theme to give a facelift to the look and feel with an online theme store too (although Oppo has a better variety of selections to choose from).
This is perfect for kids to enjoy their photo shoots (judging from my kids anyway). The camera manual mode is also pretty robust and gives you quite a lot of control. But for lazy people, like me, one can stick with the convenient auto mode.
This phone is also water resistant (IP65/68), meaning that you can take it into a swimming pool and snap underwater pictures. You may fancy that kind of stunt photography, but this water-resistant feature also means that you will not have to be paranoid about dropping the device in the toilet (though this will pose another problem: smell).
Unfortunately, its 8GB internal storage is way too small for high-end games and large movie files, because 6.3GB has already been taken up before additional app installations. Luckily, you can add up to 128GB by sticking in a microSD card.
For people who like to go out and about and take a lot of photos, this is a solid choice to make.