Flagship phone lacks firepower
We’ve had the Xperia Z3, Xperia Z4 and Xperia Z5 – so what has Sony called its latest Android smartphone? Xperia X. Yes, just X. We don’t yet know if there’ll be an X2, but there’s already an XA (which is cheaper) and an XA Ultra (which has a bigger screen).
The X is the new flagship model, even though – at a glance – you might mistake it for a Z5. Sony’s understated, squared-off styling is a distinctive antidote to Apple’s soap-bar iPhone 6s, even if its signature Lime Gold colour is just as sickly as it sounds (it comes in nice colours too). The side-mounted Home button/fingerprint sensor still works very well, and you might even be able to use it for more than just unlocking your phone, because Android Pay is finally available in the UK.
What’s interesting with the Xperia X is that Sony has taken a ‘just enough’ approach. The processor isn’t the Snapdragon 820 processor used in rival top-end devices, but the slower 650. Despite this, in tests it kept up with the Z5 (which had a Snapdragon 810). We did notice occasional delays when loading heavy web pages, but this is a common failing among all but the very fastest Android phones. 3D games like Hearthstone ran without trouble. If you have a PlayStation 4, you can play games from it on the Xperia X while you’re at home – a setup that doesn’t rely on the phone’s processor.
The 5in screen, similarly, has a 1920x1080-pixel (Full HD) resolution that isn’t as sharp as many competitors. And yet it’s one of the best mobile displays we’ve ever seen, covering all but a fraction of the full sRGB colour range with immense brightness and contrast that never makes it look over-saturated. Perhaps because it doesn’t try too hard, the Xperia X lasted just over 12 hours of video playback before running out of charge, beating the Z5 and LG’s new G5, which have bigger batteries.
The 23-megapixel camera, on the other hand, could have tried a bit harder. Outdoor photos looked good at first glance, but detail was over-processed, undoing the benefit of all those pixels. Indoors, things got even grainier, leaving the similarly priced G5 looking far superior. True, the Xperia X is cheaper than Samsung’s S7, but with so little to get excited about, why wouldn’t it be?
VERDICT
We wanted to praise Sony for not just throwing features at this phone, but ended up wishing they had.
SPECIFICATIONS
5in 1920x1080-pixel screen • 23-megapixel rear camera • 13-megapixel front camera • 32GB flash storage • MicroSD card slot • 802.11ac Wi-Fi • Bluetooth 4.2 • 3G/4G • Android 6.0.1 • 143x69x7.7mm (HxWxD) • 152g • One-year warranty