Sony Xperia L1 review: Level one

Performance

The Sony Xperia L1 is powered by the MediaTek's MT6737T chip - a slightly improved version of the MT6737 with a slightly higher CPU clock. The CPU is a quad-core Cortex-A53 ticking at 1.45GHz, while the GPU is Mali-T720MP.

The MT6737 is as basic a chipset as they come these days with dated GPU, though it still comes with Open GL ES3.1 support. And this chips seems to be a popular choice for entry level handsets lately - it was put in charge of the Nokia 3, Moto E4, Moto C, Galaxy J2 Prime, Huawei Y3 and Y5, and the Meizu M5c.

As usual, we kick off our benchmark routine with some Geekbench. The Xperia L1 has an edge over the rest of the MT6737 pack with its slightly higher clock, and thus it outperforms its competitors in both single and multi-core operations. Its quad-core CPU is no match for the octa-core Meizu smartphones (M5, M5s, M5 Note) though.

Note: You can hover with your mouse on the benchmark results for details on the tested devices.

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Meizu M5 Note
  683
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  658
• Sony Xperia L1
  655
• Nokia 5
  653
• Meizu M5s
  610
• Meizu M5
  592
• Meizu M5c
  565
• Nokia 3
  557

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Nokia 5
  2731
• Meizu M5 Note
  2690
• Meizu M5s
  2480
• Meizu M5
  2428
• Sony Xperia L1
  1775
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  1670
• Nokia 3
  1487
• Meizu M5c
  1213

The Sony Xperia L1 uses a Mali-T720MP2 GPU (MP2 means dual-core). The Meizu M5c and Nokia 3 have the same Mali-T720 GPU, but only with one graphic core. The Redmi 4a has Adreno 308 as part of its Snapdragon 425.

The offscreen tests reveal the L1's superiority over the M5c and Nokia 3 thanks to the extra GPU core. The Mali-T720MP2 scores 50% better than the Adreno 308 too, but was some way off the Mali-T860MP2 in the upper Meizu M5 series.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Meizu M5 Note
  5.5
• Meizu M5
  5.2
• Meizu M5s
  4.5
• Sony Xperia L1
  4.1
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  2.8
• Meizu M5c
  2.2
• Nokia 3
  2.2

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Meizu M5 Note
  3.6
• Meizu M5
  3.4
• Meizu M5s
  2.9
• Sony Xperia L1
  2.6
• Meizu M5c
  1.4
• Nokia 3
  1.4

The onscreen give the Xperia L1 an even better chance to impress as it uses a 720p display, as opposed to some of its competitors. So for example, the L1 doesn't actually need the same GPU as the M5 Note to do just fine with games.

Indeed, the Xperia L1 did quite well in the onscreen benchmarks.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Meizu M5
  10
• Meizu M5s
  9.2
• Sony Xperia L1
  8.8
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  5.7
• Meizu M5 Note
  5.5
• Nokia 3
  4.5
• Meizu M5c
  4.4

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Meizu M5
  7.9
• Meizu M5s
  6.5
• Sony Xperia L1
  6.1
• Meizu M5 Note
  3.6
• Meizu M5c
  3.2
• Nokia 3
  3.2

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Meizu M5 Note
  5276
• Meizu M5
  4767
• Meizu M5s
  4646
• Sony Xperia L1
  4045
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  3335
• Meizu M5c
  2292
• Nokia 3
  2210

The compound AnTuTu and BaseMark tests saw two more decent scores from the Sony Xperia L1. The smartphone outperformed its competitors and wasn't far behind the Meizu M5 Note with its Helio P10 chip with twice the processor cores and GPU power.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Meizu M5 Note
  47806
• Meizu M5
  40831
• Meizu M5s
  39166
• Sony Xperia L1
  37813
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  36110
• Meizu M5c
  29001
• Nokia 3
  28441

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Nokia 5
  1055
• Meizu M5 Note
  944
• Meizu M5
  846
• Meizu M5s
  842
• Sony Xperia L1
  802
• Xiaomi Redmi 4a
  801
• Nokia 3
  620
• Meizu M5c
  522

The scores are in and the numbers look good. The Xperia L1 delivers on paper just as Sony promised on its promo materials. Even better, the phone doesn't heat up at all under full load, but given the number of CPU and GPU cores this was expected.

Using the Xperia L1 is slightly different, though. We experienced noticeable lag when scrolling through the user interface, and that's before we even began to fill the L1 with content. The gallery, Play Store, various games and apps weren't as quick to load as we hoped after seeing the decent benchmark performance. It's not too bad, and the L1 wouldn't freeze, but it's there; if you are coming from a more powerful phone, it might bother you. Then again, it's not like its competitors are doing much better either, so we guess less than stellar speeds are the norm at this price range.