Sony’s brand new low cost phablet – the Xperia C is now on sale across India as I type this. The device, which was officially launched on October 17 by Sony for R. 21,990 is actually available for much lesser across various online stores. Our in house price expert Pricebaba tells me that the device is available for a sub 20k price tag already. While I actually wanted to talk about Sony’s MediaTek association with this device, I might as well use this post to list the specifications and other details of the Xperia C now that I am talking about it. So this is what the spec sheet looks like on the Sony Xperia C.
To start with, it packs in the much (ab)used by local manufacturers MediaTek MT 6589 chipset under the hood. This chipset apart from housing a decently fast quad core CPU, also is home to the PowerVR SGX 544 graphics chipset that should ensure a smooth gaming and graphics experience. The 5 inch IPS display gets qHD (540*960 px) resolution which is not that great compared to immediate competition – but hey, this is a Sony and it is premium! As expected, there is 1 GB of RAM and 4 gb of onboard memory. Naturally, you would require micro SD cards to supplement this. The imaging department – is handled by an 8 megapixel camera that can comfortably shoot full HD videos and for low light junkies, the built in LED flash should keep them happy. All this hardware is powered by a rather capable sounding 2390 mAH battery that should help you use the handset for an entire day of nominal usage. Check out the detailed specifications here:
Those were the brief specifications of the Xperia C.
Now what interested me about the Xperia C is the chipset it uses under the hood. This phone uses the same MediaTek MT 6589 chip which my current main phone – the Micromax Canvas HD uses. MediaTek has been long identified as a supplier to Tier II manufacturers who make low cost, feature packed Android powered devices – mostly targeted at emerging markets like India and China. For a major player like Sony to adopt a MediaTek chipset can only signify two things – 1) The decision by Sony to try and become a volume player and 2) The coming of age of MediaTek. Until now, any device that didn’t have either a Qualcomm, Intel or an Nvidia chipset were considered a poor copy of the “originals”. Mediatek’s MT 6589 chipset has gone a long way to change that perception. In India especially, phones running any of the MediaTek 6589’s three variants did exceedingly well- so well that the biggies couldn’t help but notice. And it is this success of the 6589 that seem to have bought Sony in to the MediaTek fold as well.
The Xperia C specifically has quite a task at hand now. It is priced well over the Micromax Canvas HD which offers slightly better features for lesser money. Even the Canvas HD’s successor and a bunch of other handsets – the Xolo Q1000s for example are available for a much lesser price tag, sport the same chipset (the Xolo Q1000s has a faster, overclocked version of the 6589). But, Sony has the charisma of its huge brand name going for it. Also to be noticed is the fact that a few months down the line, the price of the Xperia C will drop down to Micromax’s levels. Now that would a great time to see how consumers decide. Will they go for the king of the mass market or choose to go with a huge brand that is Sony?
We will find out soon!
