R3999 Sony Xperia E5 launches in South Africa in August

Did you know that Sony still sells smartphones? If not, you’d be forgiven. The last mobile it launched was back at IFA 2015 in the form of the Sony Xperia Z5 series. But the company’s now offering a more cost-efficient mobile to South Africa.

The Android Marshmallow-based Sony Xperia E5 is the basement dweller in the company’s lineup, but that basement has swelled alarmingly to the R4000 mark.

The phone, according to Sony Mobile’s Tsutomu Sato, is a “no-compromise approach to smartphone capability at this section of the market“. That’s a big claim, especially since the lower mid-range market is a hellish pit of too many choices for the consumer.

Related: Sony Xperia E3 review-in-brief: unflappable but uninteresting

Standing out is the real problem, but how does Sony do that?

It starts off with a 5.0-inch 720p screen, a MediaTek MT6735 brain and 1.5GB of RAM. Yep, we’re still dealing in halves. There’s also 16GB of internal storage (boosted by the 200GB microSD card you’ll likely have to buy), and a 2700mAh battery rounds off the package which Sony claims gives the user two days of battery life.

Apart from the latter claim, not a very sweat-inducing package then.

Camera-wise, we’re getting Sony’s mid-range snapping setup too, complete with a 13MP rear sensor, and a 5MP selfie camera. Both cameras have flash modules and Auto Scene Recognition, which knows when you’re taking a picture of your face, or a picture of a pizza and adjusts to make either look edible.

Sony also borrows from the LG G5’s camera software with a nifty “Share” button, that allows easy in-camera sharing to Facebook, Instagram and the like.

Cool. So what’s the damage?

Whether you want the Sony Xperia E5 in boring white or uninspiring graphite black, it’ll cost R3999. That, compared to the R3699 AG#HASHTAG, the larger but slower LG G4 Stylus, and the R2999 Xiaomi Redmi Note 2, looks a tad steep.

Either way, expect an August 2016 launch in South Africa.