Sony Xperia L1 review: Level one

Telephony

The Sony Xperia L1 unit we have is the single-SIM version (G3311). Dual-SIM versions are also available in some markets.

The call log is separated from the contacts, but there's a shortcut to those in the upper right corner. It can be filtered by missed, incoming and outgoing calls. Smart dial is supported too.

Dialer with smart dial • Phonebook • Favorites

Loudspeaker

There are no stereo speakers on the Xperia L1 - those are next to impossible to come by in this price bracket. Sony offers two different audio enhancements for the single speaker, which affect both the speaker loudness and audio quality. By default, the xLOUD option is turned on, and it boosts the speaker loudness by a lot. In fact, the speaker scored one of our all-time best scores, beaten only by the fellow Xperia XA Ultra. There was just minor sound distortion even at maximum volume and the output was crisp and deep enough.

The single bottom-firing speaker isn't pumping out that many decibels without the xLOUD setting, only posting an Average score.

Finally, opting for the ClearAudio will flatten the sound and ruin the quality, while the gain in loudness isn't big enough to make it worth it.

We suggest keeping the xLOUD turned on and forget everything else - Sony did well to turn it on by default.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Sony Xperia XZ Premium	62.9	65.2	71.6	Below Average
Xiaomi Redmi 4a	62.8	67.5	72.1	Average
Sony Xperia XA1	61.7	69.7	71.8	Average
Sony Xperia L1	64.7	70.4	72.3	Average
Sony Xperia L1 (ClearAudio)	68.5	72.2	72.8	Good
Meizu M5s	65.4	69.1	84.2	Good
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)	67.3	70.3	81.5	Very Good
Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra	68.3	71.6	81.0	Very Good
Meizu M5 Note	65.1	70.7	86.8	Very Good
Sony Xperia L1 (xLOUD)	91.5	74.3	83.2	Excellent
Sony Xperia XA Ultra	88.9	79.3	82.7	Excellent

Other apps

Sony has this neat app called What's New that will show you the hottest apps and multimedia today. It isn't limited to just the Google Play Store, and will display content from Sony's Theme store too.

What's New

There is a file manager, strictly speaking, but it's buried in the storage options in the Settings menu. It does allow basic copy and move actions, on multiple items too. However, you can't access it from the app drawer, all you get there is a shortcut to a downloads folder.

The Explorer is hidden deep in the Settings Menu

Sony's health-tracking app Lifelog doesn't come pre-installed, though all it takes to get it is a trip to the Play Store.