I've been looking around for a dual sim phone, more as a spare and for traveling overseas, and was looking at this model as well. There's actually two categories - one would be the "less popular" brands and the other would be the "popular brands".
For the less popular brands e.g. Lenovo, Huawei, Alcatel and Acer - I think for the amount of money for the Xperia C, you can get a flagship or close-to-flagship model already, sharper screen resolution, more RAM (in some cases, not all), sleeker design (e.g. the Alcatel One Touch Idol X) and also more internal storage and in some cases better camera (well, at the very least, higher megapixel count). For the quad-core entry models that match the specs of the Xperia C, the price for these models would be almost half, for example Lenovo A706 and Huawei G525, ha ha.
For the popular brands, the Xperia C would compete with the Galaxy Quattro and HTC Desire 600 base on price range, the Quattro is priced the same as the Xperia C, while Desire 600 costs RM200 more (Recommended Retail Price). The losing point for the Xperia C is the internal storage (a miserable 4GB) and the screen resolution (in terms of pixel density) loses out to the Desire 600 but tops the Galaxy Quattro. The Quattro also has the inferior camera of the bunch, 5MP.
So I'm still deciding between going for a dual sim phone in the "value for money" first category or the "popular brand peace of mind" second category, ha ha ha.
But if I do go for category two, then it would be Xperia C.
(Oh, I thought I share this, I got a salesperson to install Antutu benchmark on the Xperia C and the results were pretty decent. Tested the phone and it was pretty smooth, though there seems to be a tiny, slight lag when auto-rotating while playing a video...)
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For me the direct competion for Xperia C is Huawei G700 since both using the same SOC MediaTek 6889. Both priced closely depending which area and shop. Other then that both almost similar spec with G700 having bigger ram and XP C having better camera.