Sony Xperia M2 Aqua review: Cliff diver

Phonebook

The Sony Xperia M2 Aqua phonebook is integrated with the dialer using a tabbed interface - the Contacts, Phone, Favorites and Groups tabs can be side-swiped. The contact list has a dedicated search filed plus it offers and an alphabetical scroll bar.

Phonebook

You can sync with multiple accounts, including Exchange and Facebook, and you can selectively show or hide contacts from some accounts (as well as filter specific groups in an account), or set the phonebook to display only contacts with phone numbers or only contacts that are online.

Linking contacts is available, quick contact feature is here too.

Telephony

Calling on the Sony Xperia M2 Aqua is okay. It held onto signal just fine even in tight urban spaces and the sound coming from the speaker was loud enough. The clarity is only average on our side while the other line reported we came in fine enough.

The dialer support smart dialing.

Dialer

Loudspeaker is only average

The Sony Xperia M2 Aqua scored an Average on our loudspeaker test. The phone rings loud enough but the sound that came out of its speaker was disappointing and muffled. We guess the water-proofing took its toll here but it's not as bad as you can imagine. The Xperia M2 was not among the loudest ringers either.

You can find out more about our testing here.

Messaging and email, text input

Text messages and MMS use standard thread layout. Adding multimedia (photos, videos, sounds, etc.) will convert the message automatically into an MMS.

Messenger

Naturally, the Gmail client and the default Email apps are onboard. Gmail can sync only with (multiple) Google accounts, while the generic Email app can handle POP and IMAP and offers a Combined inbox.

Gmail and Email

As for text input, the Xperia M2 Aqua offers a customizable on-screen full QWERTY keyboard.

You can choose a different layout (keypad, QWERTY, QWERTY with extra symbols), add/remove the coma and period button, the smiley and voice input buttons and also enable things like bilingual word suggestions if you have more than one language enabled. Different keyboard skins are available too.

Keyboard

You can also try the so-called Gesture input if hitting those keys individually doesn't give you the desired typing speed. It's similar to Swype, and even if you've never used a Swype-like input before, you'll quickly get used to it.

Single-hand size keyboard is available too, but only in portrait orientation. If enabled, it squeezes the onscreen keyboard to the left or right side of the screen so it gets more comfortable for single handed text input.

Single-handed keyboard