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Sony Xperia M on sale now, yours for £190

Sony's mid-range Xperia M is on sale now, and will set you back just £190 SIM-free. Not bad, considering it's got NFC tech onboard.

Joe Svetlik Reporter
Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
Joe Svetlik
2 min read

Sony's Xperia M is on sale now here in Blighty. In case you missed it, the M is a mid-range affair, quite stylish, but a lot easier on the wallet than Sony's flagship Xperia Z. It'll set you back just £189.99 SIM-free from Unlocked Mobiles. That's cheaper than the Lumia 625, and not much more than the bargain bin Lumia 520.

So what do you get for your cash? The 4-inch screen is the same size as the iPhone 5, but it's nowhere near as sharp, with a resolution of 480x800 pixels. The iPhone 5 has a resolution of 640x1,136 pixels, in comparison, which is quite a lot higher, as you can see. The ppi (pixels per inch) ratings of both phones bear this out, too -- the iPhone 5 is 326 ppi, while the Xperia M a lowly 245 ppi.

While the display might not be as clear and crisp as Apple's flagship, the Xperia M does have a few tricks up its sleeve -- like NFC, for example. This lets you pay for items by just touching your phone against a sensor, or share pictures between devices by tapping them together. You can also listen to music by tapping your phone against an NFC-equipped speaker. Here's a video dripping in dubstep to show you how it works.

Woom woom woom woom woom woom!

Inside, a 1GHz dual-core processor powers things, which pales in comparison to higher-powered mobiles, but should be fine for basic tasks. You'll only get 4GB of internal storage, and only 2GB of that can be used for apps. You can slap in a 64GB microSD card, but the Android Jelly Bean OS won't let you install apps on external storage devices. The 5-megapixel camera, and 0.3-megapixel front-facer are also a bit of a letdown.

Still, that price is pretty tempting. Will you give the M a look? Or could you do better for your money? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.