Two new smartphones, the Nokia Lumia 520 and the Sony Xperia E, were recently launched in markets including India, in an effort to reach consumers on a budget. But with device is a better purchase?
Before a comparison is made, it should be noted that both devices are competitively priced. The Nokia Lumia 520 retails for $233.31 in the U.S. and Rs. 10,499 in India. The Sony Xperia E is priced at Rs. 9,990 in India.
Design
The Sony Xperia E has a slightly clunkier design than the stylish Nokia Lumia 520. Dimensions for the Sony Xperia E are 11.0 x 113.5 x 61.8 mm with a weight of 115.7 g and a 3.5-inch screen. In contrast, the Lumia 520's dimensions are 199.9 x 64 x 9.9 mm. It weighs 124 g and has a 4-inch display.
Display
The Sony Xperia E has a 320x480 display HVGA display, compared with the Lumia 520's 480x800p display with ClearBlack technology that makes for added clarity.
Processor
The Sony Xperia E falls behind in the processor department, being powered by a single core Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 processor with 1 GHz. In contrast, the Nokia Lumia 520 sports a Snapdragon S4 1 GHz dual-core processor. Both devices have 512 MB of RAM.
Camera and Battery Life
Neither device has a secondary front-facing camera. For the main camera, the Sony Xperia E comes with a 3.2-megapixel camera with 640x480 resolution and 4x digital zoom. The Lumia 520 has a 5-megapixel camera with 720p video recording. Though it does not have the PureView camera sensors you can find in the Lumia 920, the 5-megapixel camera is still fairly decent. The Xperia E has a 1530-mAh battery, compared with a 1,420-mAh battery for the Lumia 520.
Operating System
The Xperia E beats the Lumia 520 in this department, running on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean compared with the Lumia 520's Windows Phone 8 OS. This gives the Xperia E over 650,000 apps, compared with 150,000 apps for the Lumia 520.
And the winner is?
The Nokia Lumia 520. Despite a couple of setbacks, the Lumia 520 trumps the Sony Xperia E in design, display, processor and camera, making its slightly higher price point worthwhile. That said, some will be willing to look past these misgivings in order to take advantage of the slew of apps available on the Xperia E.
