Sony Xperia E3 review: Blue collar

Blue collar

GSMArena team, 26 October 2014.

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.

Reader comments

  • Krose
  • 06 Aug 2019
  • HDT

When I first got this phone I was disappointed at the fact that storage is only 1.75 GB. 1 GB is already used up by built in apps so storage is absolutely terrible. The camera works but it can be awful at times. Short WiFi range, battery life sucks. ...

  • Kamal
  • 05 Apr 2017
  • rA7

Good company is sony xperia

  • mes
  • 26 Oct 2016
  • LDn

i tried 64gb cat10 and worked