The Xperia X lineup puts an end to the long-standing experience that series of high-end smartphones, like its name suggests the Xperia X Performance, which we're about to review today is the most powerful of the x series, it comes with a Snapdragon 820 chipset, IP60 waterproofing and a brushed metal back, it's just the opposite of a big flashy phone, but it's every bit as premium as the best of its competitors and its predecessors.
So let's see what it has to offer. The new Xperia X line and follow the understated design language of its predecessors, but handling is now easier with a curved glass in a smaller frame which houses a smaller 5-inch display, the back is also slightly curved at the edges and the fact that is actually made of metal is another novelty for Sony.
Sony smartphones will have camera buttons on the side and the Xperia X performance has a snappy fingerprint reader too, embedded on the power button, the reader is not Always-on so you need to press the power button for it to scan your finger, but nevertheless unlocking the phone with it feels instantaneous.
The only thing on the opposite side of the phone is the SIM and micro SD card slot, which allows the Affordable storage expansion, the tray is really easy to open but the phone restarts every time you do that.
Sony have deliberately chosen a 5-inch screen size to ensure the Xperia X Performance is comfortable to hold, the screen is just 1080p and resolution and even though it's less than what most of its competitors offer, we find it to be more than enough for everyday use especially of this diagonal, the screen panel itself is vivid and is as bright as the Xperia Z5 screen but the contrast ratio is much higher thanks to the deeper blacks.
Software
The android build running on the X Performance is 6.0 marshmallow, it's very close to stock android with a few of Sony's own touches, for a start you can download many other new different themes, and there's a new suggested page which allows you to search for any of the installed apps on the phone and also offers you popular suggestions from Google play, small apps may be gone now along with the screen recorder feature, but Sony's trademark stamina mode is back after being absent for a while from Sony’s android marshmallow builds.
Finally there is a Sony own multimedia apps like album and music, the built in high res audio support allows you to play the highest possible quality digital audio and we'll also upscale low rest music tracks.
Sony's most powerful phone yet comes with a chart-topping Snapdragon 820 chipset, at first we were definitely put off by the fact that the phone only had 3GB of ram while all current android flagship carry 4.
Hardware, Battery and Performance
In our benchmarks though, the Xperia X Performance proved worthy of its name and scored about the same as its peers running the same chipset in all the CPU and GPU tests. In real-life uses the phone never felt leggy and never left us hanging, even better, the Qualcomm chip runs cool and the phone only got uncomfortably warm when we pushed it with certain graphics benchmarks.
The Xperia X Performance has a decent sized battery pack, though not as big as the batteries from some of its competitors. The phone supports quick charge 2.0 rather than the newer 3.0 Standard, but you can still top up 60% of your battery in just 30 minutes. One thing that really makes it stand out though, is the Canova adaptive technology - it minimizes cell damage during charging and extends the battery's lifespan. In our dedicated battery test, it achieved more than seven hours of web browsing and video playback, and top 20 hours of talk time, those are good numbers on their own and the result in the overall insurance rating - which is average for the segment.
Camera and image quality
Even though the cheaper Xperia X Performance has the exact same cameras Adam, the camera remains the next big highlight on the Xperia X Performance. You can wake up the camera and snap an image in 0.6 seconds, that's insanely fast, but doesn't include powering up the screen, so you're as good as blind folded while framing this instantaneous capture. Another new camera central feature is Sony’s predictive hybrid autofocus, as the name suggests it will try and predict your subject’s movement as it falls it around the frame, this even works in video. In our experience, the new system really manages to track its subjects but only if they move slowly.
Regarding image quality, the images taken by the 23 megapixel camera certainly have a number of positives, first you got very high levels of detail - higher than most of its competitors, the photos are also contrasting in nice and saturated, the white 24 millimeter reliance captures more in its frame than any of the competitors, the superior auto mode reliably chooses the best shooting preset for the particular scene, the camera shutter key is also a rarity these days.
Unfortunately, the camera has a few notable weak points too, the lens sharpness is less than stellar around the corners, and there is visible digital noise even in good light photos, we're also not huge fans of Sony's processing - which leaves sectors and vegetation looking funky at pixel level. The camera also struggles with dynamic range and often close the highlights when faced with contrast light. In low-light the 23 megapixel camera quickly loses its resolution advantage over its competitors and the limited dynamic range becomes even more apparent. the level of noises tolerable, so we were happy with the result when pixel beeping, as for the 13 megapixel front-facing camera, it's quite capable of producing nice selfies too, we're far from being fancy of any soft skin effects, but the regular selfies we took all look nice, the improved low-light capabilities of the front facing camera when we got nicely exposed photos even in the dark, unfortunately the cameras autofocus is a hit-and-miss in the dark.
Moving forward video recording is perhaps the least impressive part of the camera, it's beyond us why the camera lacks 4k video recording with this high-end ships on board and at this premium price. The result detailing full HD clips is average and expectedly not even close to 40 levels, twenties intelligence active steady shot video stabilization, however, is really something and works quite well to minimize camera shake even when shooting while walking.
Conclusion
The Xperia X Performance is the best phone to come out of Sony's labs so far this year and is the flagship of a brand new line of smartphones. Successful smartphone makers are more likely to stick to new refining of their products, while others have no choice but to reboot them from the ground up. With Sony’s Xperia X line of ,however, we're not quite sure which one of these two paths on his take, judging by the new name there are seemingly going after a reboot, get the small changes over the previous models suggest otherwise.
Aside from the latest chipset and the refined design, the X performance isn't even a clear-cut choice over Sony own Xperia Z5, as it has a smaller screen than the older phone and lacks 4k video recording. We certainly wouldn't go as far as calling the X Performance a step back, but it sure looks like a step aside, perhaps of the Xperia X lineup was marked as a spin-off of the z-series compact phones, the situation would have made more sense, as things then right now the Xperia X Performance is certainly no slouch in any respect, but it will be challenged to match its ambitious monitor and more importantly its ambitious price tag.
Share
& Comment
Tweet