Sony Xperia E3 review: Blue collar

Performance is par for the course

The Sony Xperia E3 is built upon the familiar combination of a Snapdragon 400 chipset and 1GB of RAM. The processor inside is a quad-core Cortex-A7 that's clocked at 1.2GHz and there's an Adreno 305 handling the graphics. We did notice some issues here and there but nothing major. Loading of apps was snappy overall. On the other hand when we had many apps opened up the Xperia E3 would be left with some 140MB of RAM available, although we didn't notice too many slowdowns.

Before we dive into the synthetic tests - the Sony Xperia E3 didn't cheat on any of the test and showed identical scores in our anti-cheat tests.

As always we'll start off with the CPU-focused and overall benchmarks we have on tap. GeekBench 3 and AnTuTu 5 both place the Sony Xperia E3 in the middle of the table. The Motorola Moto G trio of devices (first-gen, LTE and second-gen) were slightly faster than the Xperia E3. In AnTuTu 5 the Xperia E3 got a slightly better result. The Xperia E3 even managed to post similar performance to the Xperia M2 Aqua.

Basemark OS II shows an overall score and breaks down performance by many factors. We choose to show the overall score and the single and multi-core one. Again we see average performance from the Xperia E3 and it only ever achieved higher results in the multi-core test.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 616
  2125
• HTC Desire 816
  1510
• HTC Desire 510
  1471
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1175
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1171
• Motorola Moto G
  1120
• Sony Xperia E3
  1118
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1106
• Sony Xperia C
  1079
• Sony Xperia M2
  1074
• Motorola Moto E
  611
• Sony Xperia E1
  607

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 510
  20756
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  19016
• Sony Xperia E3
  18336
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  18245

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G
  559
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  526
• HTC Desire 816
  520
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  495
• HTC Desire 510
  491
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  452
• Sony Xperia E3
  417
• HTC Desire 616
  378
• Sony Xperia M2
  298
• Sony Xperia C
  200
• Motorola Moto E
  116

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 816
  1739
• HTC Desire 616
  1533
• HTC Desire 510
  1332
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1192
• Sony Xperia E3
  1171
• Sony Xperia M2
  1164
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1131
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1123
• Motorola Moto E
  1110

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 616
  12986
• HTC Desire 816
  7071
• Sony Xperia E3
  5697
• HTC Desire 510
  5484
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5012
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  5001
• Sony Xperia M2
  4927
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  4887
• Motorola Moto E
  2637

The Adreno 305 GPU inside the Xperia E3 managed pretty poor 1080p offscreen results in GFXBench's 2.7 T-Rex and 3.0 Manhattan tests, but it will actually never have to deal with such high resolutions. The onscreen results were okay and in line with its competition and even better on a few occassions.

Gaming benchmark Basemark X gives the Sony Xperia E3 a low score - half that of the Motorola Moto G. However, it needs to put less than half the pixels so actual gaming performance is bound to be on par.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 616
  8.7
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  6
• Sony Xperia E3
  5.9
• Sony Xperia M2
  5.9
• HTC Desire 816
  5.9
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5.8
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  5.8
• Motorola Moto G
  5.6
• HTC Desire 510
  5.3
• Motorola Moto E
  4.5
• Sony Xperia C
  2.8

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E3
  17.1
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  15.5
• HTC Desire 510
  15.5
• Sony Xperia M2
  15.4
• HTC Desire 616
  13.4
• Motorola Moto E
  11.2
• HTC Desire 816
  11
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  10.8
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  10.8
• Sony Xperia C
  7.3

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia M2
  1.9
• HTC Desire 510
  1.8
• Sony Xperia E3
  1.7
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1.7
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1.7
• HTC Desire 816
  1.7
• Motorola Moto E
  1.4

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E3
  8.3
• HTC Desire 510
  8.3
• Sony Xperia M2
  6.9
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  6.9
• Motorola Moto E
  4.9
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  4.1
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  4
• HTC Desire 816
  3.9

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  3142
• HTC Desire 510
  1906
• Sony Xperia E3
  1577
• HTC Desire 816
  1437

The Sony Xperia E3 pulled off an okay effort in the JavaScript benchmark Kraken 1.1 and a very good (for its class) HTML5 score in BrowserMark 2.1. These benchmarks evaluate the browsing performance of the smartphone.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• HTC Desire 816
  13564
• HTC Desire 510
  14171
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  15988
• Sony Xperia E3
  16059
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  16118
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  16129
• HTC Desire 616
  16953
• Motorola Moto E
  17213
• Sony Xperia M2
  18047

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1085
• Sony Xperia E3
  1044
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  911
• Sony Xperia M2
  903
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  883
• HTC Desire 510
  832
• Motorola Moto E
  784
• HTC Desire 816
  774
• HTC Desire 616
  683

The Snapdragon 400 is showing its age but is still a good option for a smartphone in the midrange and particularly when it only needs to deal with an FWVGA screen. It handles tasks okay and conserves enough battery for it to not be an issue. You won't be able to enjoy FullHD gaming or superb CPU or browsing performance but you won't be left waiting forever either.