These two handsets run on different operating systems, but if aspect doesn’t interest you much, then you’ll take into consideration the hardware performance, camera resolution and battery life. This way, we came up with a list of specs and features that need to be analyzed in order to come up with a winner, which is Xperia M.
Displays and sizes
The Lumia 520 looks like other models from the same lineup, only that it has a removable back panel. The screen is IPS LCD, scratch resistant, sized at 4inches, and the supported resolution is 480x800pixels, which gives a pixel density of 233ppi. If you’re a woman with long nails, this screen allows you to operate easily on it. The Xperia M has the same screen size and resolution, but the display is TFT and supports 245ppi.
The Lumia 520 is shorter, measuring 119.9x64x9.9mm and it’s weighting 124grams, being 9grams heavier than the Xperia M, but which is 124mm in lengths, 62mm in width and has a thickness of 9.3mm. It has the volume, power and camera buttons located on the left side of the body.
Hardware and OS
Both phones are powered by a dual core processor with a clock speed of 1GHz, based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8227 chipset and coupled with an Adreno 305 GPU. However, the Xperia M is helped by the bigger RAM capacity – 1GB, which improves the hardware performance and the users can play games and access applications without complaining about the lag. The internal memory on this phone is only 4GB, but if you add a microSD card, you get up to 32GB. The Lumia 520 has 512MB of RAM and compensate with the internal storage capacity – 8GB, which can be expanded up to 64GB.
These smartphones have accelerometer and proximity sensors, and the Xperia M has also a compass sensor.
The Lumia 520 is running on Microsoft Windows Phone 8 OS, but you can upgrade it to v8.1, while the Xperia M comes with Android v4.1 (Jelly Bean) or v4.2.2, depending on the variant, but you can upgrade the OS to 4.3 (Jelly Bean).
Cameras
Both phones have 5MP back shooters with autofocus and geo tagging, but the Xperia M has in addition LED flash and other useful features such as HDR, touch focus, image stabilization or panorama. The video recording capability is at 720p@30fps for both phones, but only the Sony handset has another VGA camera on the front.
Batteries
Both of the models come with Li-Ion user replaceable batteries. The capacity of Lumia 520’s battery is 1430mAh and it keeps you busy talking with your friends on 3G for 9 hours and 40minutes. The Xperia M has a bigger battery of 1750mAh but which offers a similar lifetime.
Prices
Between the two phones, the Lumia 520 is the cheapest, costing only 102 dollars. The Xperia M is 47dollars more expensive.
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