Sony Xperia J review: Junior league

Good display but no Bravia

The Xperia J features a 4-inch LCD of FWVGA resolution (854 x 480 pixels), and pixel density of 245ppi. It's not a Reality display though, which means that it comes without the Mobile BRAVIA Engine. That may be a software tweak but it has its impact on photo browsing and video watching.

Auto brightness is not available either, meaning you will have to work harder to get the best out of a screen that otherwise offers more resolution than usual for the price range.

The Xperia J display

The on-screen images are reasonably crisp, with lively colors and quite impressive contrast. Viewing angles are quite poor though: the colors get washed out rather quickly and contrast is drastically deteriorating. The latter will be certainly appreciated by people who care about their privacy, but might make sharing your screen slightly harder.

Here's how the Sony Xperia J did in our dedicated display tests.

Display test	50% brightness			100% brightness
	Black, cd/m2	White, cd/m2	Contrast ratio	Black, cd/m2	White, cd/m2	Contrast ratio
Sony Xperia J	0.22	289	1290	0.41	562	1359
HTC Desire X	0.18	226	1273	0.33	421	1275
HTC Desire V	0.33	340	1027	0.48	506	1054
Sony Xperia tipo	-	-	-	0.75	561	751
HTC Desire C	0.23	186	814	0.5	360	723
HTC One X	0.15	200	1375	0.39	550	1410
Sony Xperia U	0.35	287	831	0.55	515	930
Samsung S7500 Galaxy Ace Plus	0.27	239	873	0.6	528	888

Contrast ratio

• Nokia 808 PureView
  4.698
• Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III
  3.419
• Samsung Omnia W
  3.301
• Samsung Galaxy S
  3.155
• Samsung Ativ S
  3.129
• Nokia N9
  3.069
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  2.970
• HTC One S
  2.901
• Samsung Galaxy S II
  2.832
• Huawei Ascend P1
  2.655
• Nokia Lumia 900
  2.562
• Apple iPhone 4S
  2.269
• HTC One X
  2.158
• Nokia N8
  2.144
• Apple iPhone 4
  2.016
• Sony Ericsson Xperia ray
  1.955
• Acer CloudMobile S500
  1.932
• HTC Desire X
  1.878
• HTC Windows Phone 8X
  1.873
• Sony Xperia U
  1.758
• LG Optimus G
  1.753
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1.691
• HTC One V
  1.685
• LG Optimus Vu
  1.680
• HTC Desire V
  1.646
• LG Optimus 3D
  1.542
• Nokia Asha 302
  1.537
• Sony Xperia J
  1.494
• Nokia Lumia 610
  1.432
• Gigabyte GSmart G1355
  1.361
• Sony Xperia miro
  1.324
• HTC Desire C
  1.300
• LG Optimus L7
  1.269
• Meizu MX
  1.221
• Samsung Galaxy Pocket
  1.180
• Sony Xperia tipo
  1.166
• Samsung Galaxy mini 2
  1.114

You can find more about our screen testing procedures here.

Handling the Xperia J

The Xperia J is neither impressively slim, nor does it boast some exceptional finish, but we found it to be quite comfortable to handle and the curved design is a statement on its own in the budget class. What we're not so happy about is the fingerprint-prone front and the low position of the capacitive keys.

The absence of a camera key is, sadly, becoming the norm, even for way more expensive smartphones. The non-hot-swappable memory card is an inconvenience as well.

The Xperia J held in hand