Sony Xperia XA, Xperia X, & Xperia X Performance Hands-On (Video)
One of the surprises at MWC this year, Sony, instead of announcing a new high-end Z series phone, not only didn’t announce a new flagship phone, but they even told some reporters that the Z series is no more. At all.
Instead, Sony seems to be trying to go after the mid-tier market. Three new phones were announced and instead of the top of the line specs, they were given decent specs and a healthy dose of styling.
The Xperia X series as Sony is calling them consists of the XA, the X and the X Performance. All three have a 5” screen, and similar styling. They all come in the same four color choices of Lime Gold, Black, White, and Rose Gold, all three are running on Android 6.0.1, they all have a slightly curved class display (not quiet Galaxy Edge territory but a small curve that makes the screen feel a bit smoother than normal when swiping) and they all have a microSD card slot that doubles as a dual SIM card slot as well.
Sony Xperia XA
The XA, the lowest priced device, features a 5” 720P display running on a MediaTek octacore processor with 2GBs of RAM and 16GBs of internal storage.
On the front it has an 8MP wide angle camera, and on the back a 13MP camera with hybrid autofocus and object tracking and inside it is being powered by a 2300mah battery that Sony says will last 2 days thanks to their software trickery, but of course we’ll have to see in the review.
While the XA is definitely the lower tiered of the three devices, it does have one feature I love that the others don’t and that’s a pretty much bezel-less sides to the display. It’s pretty nice looking, not going to lie.
Sony Xperia X & Xperia X Performance
The other two X series devices are a bit more similar to each other in terms of specs. They both have the exact same 13MP wide angle front facing camera and the same 23MP rear facing camera with hybrid autofocus and predictive tracking which allows the camera to guess where the subject you are tracking is going to be and adjust the focus accordingly, which is pretty neat.
They also both have a 1080P 5” display, 3GBs of RAM, have quick charging built in, and they both have a fingerprint sensor on the power button.
The differences between them have to do with the processor, the X Performance has a Snapdragon 820 while the X has a Snapdragon 650, the Performance has a slightly larger battery at 2700mah vs the 2620mah of the X, and the X Performance is IP68 certified so it can be completely submerged in water up to a depth of 1.5 meters for up to 30 mins.
Pricing and Availability
There is still no pricing announced for any of these devices just yet, but I’d imagine they’d be a bit more competitively priced than the S7’s and G5’s of the world for sure.
Sony is clearly trying to back out of the race for top-tier flagship phones and instead focus on a few things that Sony has always done well. A great camera, simple UI, and show off what their aesthetic designers can do with a phone.
