Sony Xperia 10 Review UK

Sony Xperia 10 Review: Overview & Price

So you are looking for the perfect Sony Xperia 10 review? Well, you have found it!

In this Sony Xperia 10 review, we go over everything you need to know about the Sony Xperia 10, from specs to design and everything in-between.

After this review you will be fully equipped with the knowledge you need to make an informed purchase decision, we over showcase the best Sony Xperia 10 contract deals.

The Sony Xperia 10 release date was earlier this year on the 25^th of February 2019.

The Sony Xperia 10 price is currently £229 here in the UK, this is by no means a smartphone that will break the bank. That being said the Sony Xperia 10 specs are still impressive.

This is one of the cheap Sony phones that offer fantastic value for money, especially for the Netflix lovers.

Here is some of what you can expect from this phone;

• Snapdragon 630 chipset
• Android 9.0
• 3GB RAM
• 64GB storage (expandable up to 512GB)
• 6-inch Full HD+ LCD display

Let’s take a closer look at what this phone has to offer…

Sony Xperia 10 Review: Design & Display

When it comes to the Sony Xperia 10 design, one of the first things we noticed when pulling it out of the box is that it has a thin sausage-like design.

Sony phones designs are typically boring, and this does little to change that.

The same small bezels are present here, but with the phone being so tall and slim, it makes the device extremely easy to hold in one hand.

To complement this the phone has a pretty nifty ‘One-Handed Mode’ too, but more on that later.

The Sony Xperia 10 mobile weighs 162g, making it rather lightweight considering the size of the phone, still heavy enough to feel premium in your hand too.

Now the phone is available in Black, Blue, Navy or Pink. We were lucky enough to get our hands on the Navy colour phone to conduct this Sony Xperia 10 review.

You may be wondering is the Sony Xperia 10 waterproof?

Unfortunately no, the Sony Xperia 10 is not waterproof. Meaning you will need to be extremely careful when using this phone round water or in bathroom.

This is to be expected at this price point, and we highly recommend investing in a case and screen protector in case you drop this device.

Thankfully the design is coated in Gorilla Glass 5, giving you some protection in case the worst does happen; this protection also makes the phone scratch resistant.

The Sony Xperia 10 design is a glass front with a metal rear, this gives the phone an eye-catching finish, but to be honest it does look rather boring.

Sony has decided to position their button rather awkwardly too, the power button, volume rocker and fingerprint scanner all sit along with the phones right-hand edge.

Surprisingly the fingerprint scanner is pretty convenient to press with your index finger, however, it is not the fastest scanner have seen in a mid-range smartphone.

Down at the bottom of the phone is where you will find the speaker; we did find that this is super easy to block with your hand when watching videos on YouTube.

Considering Sony is huge on their media experience, we thought they would have positioned the speaker differently.

At the top of the phone there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, meaning you will not need to invest into wireless speakers, this is awesome as the Xperia 10 supports High-Res Audio with DSEE HX and LDAC.

The Sony Xperia 10 display is a 6-inch Full HD+ LCD panel, with a huge 21:9 aspect ratio.

This aspect ratio means that the phone is way taller than your average smartphone, perfect for viewing media, gaming and more.

If you are big into watching movies on your phone, then you will love this device. Flipping the phone into landscape makes the phone give an almost cinematic view, with no distracting sidebars that cut off the content.

Sony even says that 70% of films on Netflix are specifically designed for the 21:9 aspect ratio, making this phone ideal for Netflix binges.

As well as a great media experience, even scrolling through social media and the news is a lot more comfortable than a phone with a smaller display.

The problem with this aspect ratio is that because it is so unique, it is very hard to find content that is designed for this tall of a display.

So when gaming you will find that there is black bars either side of the display, especially on some of the likes of PUBG, which really does hinder performance slightly and become annoying.

This becomes even more annoying on some social media platforms, for example, Instagram.

When viewing some Instagram stories you will find that it cuts some of the story off, which becomes increasingly frustrating.

When you find movies that are made for the 21:9 ratio it is incredible, however, there is a cost, and it is sacrificing some parts of everyday use such as social media and some games.

The Sony Xperia 10 main competitor is the Moto G7 Plus, and when comparing the display we could easily say we preferred the Sony Xperia 10 display to the G7 Plus.

This is solely down to the experience when watching movies, and the convenience of browsing through your Facebook feed on the Sony.

One thing to keep in mind is that the display is still an LCD, meaning you won’t get the super deep black and extremely punchy colours like you would on an AMOLED panel.

Brightness levels on the Sony Xperia 10 are great, making it easy to use this phone in direct sunlight, although of course this soaks up more of the phones battery.

Although this is an LCD display, we still found colours to look bright and punchy, and it has an incredible 457 pixels per inch, resulting in huge amounts of detail.

As a whole the Sony Xperia 10 display is impressive, however, it can be annoying when the black bars appear on the screen, so you will need to decide if the sacrifice is worth it.

Throughout this Sony Xperia 10 review, we found the display to be the most impressive, keeping us immersed in video for long periods without concerns.

Sony Xperia 10 Review: Performance

The Sony Xperia 10 mobile runs Android 9.0 Pie out of the box, meaning you get all of the latest and greatest features of the OS.

As most phone companies do, Sony has added a skin over the top of the stock Android, to make it unique.

The Sony skin has got better over time, however, it is still a million miles away to what stock Android really is.

Sony used to be known for the amount of bloatware they would install on the phone, clogging up the internal storage.

However, they now give you the choice when setting up your phone on which apps you would like to install, and which ones you would like to skip.

There is an app drawer, allowing you to keep all of your applications in one place, rather than scattered on your home screen.

The skin is customisable too; meaning if you wish you can create your own home screen.

See Related:

*Sony Xperia 5 Review*
*Sony Xperia 1 Review*
*Sony Xperia XZ3 Review*

One feature we love is ‘Side Sense’, this essentially lets you squeeze the phone, and it will bring up a selection of your most uses applications, giving you quick and instant access to your favourite ones, so you won’t need to crawl through your phone looking for Instagram anymore.

The phone uses AI tech here to remember which apps you use at what time of the day, so if you are using Snapchat in the morning, and Facebook at night, the phone remembers this and will display them from Side Sense accordingly.

When it comes to the Sony Xperia 10 specs, these are questionable.

The phone uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 630, which is quite dated now but nevertheless still half-decent. Couple this with 3GB of RAM that is rather disappointing.

When you compare the Moto G7 Play that has 4GB of RAM and a more powerful Snapdragon 636 CPU and is a cheaper phone.

The Sony Xperia 10 performance won’t blow your socks off, you will find that playing graphically demanding games results in fps drops and some lag and stutter here and there.

The phone is powerful enough to browse social media, and the UI effortlessly.

However, when it comes to play demanding games like Runescape and PUBG, we found it was a struggle and the phone got hot to the touch rather quickly.

The Sony Xperia 10 mobile does come with 64GB of internal storage, giving a decent amount of space to store music, photos and apps.

If this is not enough for you, adding a microSD is easy, and this means that you can get up to 512GB of internal storage on your phone instead.

Overall the Sony Xperia 10 performance is weak, and if you’re looking for a phone to play games on, we recommend opting for something with a little more horsepower.

Given that this is one of the cheap Sony phones we were not surprised that the performance aspect was lacking.

Sony Xperia 10 Review: Camera

The Sony Xperia 10 camera isn’t going to blow you away either.

The phone has a dual-camera set up with a 13-megapixel f/2.2 and a 5-megapixel-depth sensor designed to improve portrait and Bokeh shots.

When shooting in good light we found the camera to produce some awesome shots, ready for social media immediately.

We loved shooting in portrait mode as the depth sensor really helps to get some fantastic shots ready for Insta.

The 5-megapixel-depth sensor does well to blur the background, with great subject separation and plenty of detail.

One huge annoyance with the Sony Xperia 10 camera is that it has no OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) meaning that even the slightest of hand movements will result in your image being produced blurry.

When shooting in low light situations, the camera really does struggle. Couple this with the slow shutter speed, we found that images shot in low light would often be extremely blurry.

There is a noticeable lag and delay between pressing the shutter and the image being taken, which makes it near impossible to shoot a quality image at a moving subject.

The Sony Xperia 10 camera does give you the option to shoot in either the standard 16:9 format or the 21:9, meaning if you taking images simply to look at on your phone you should probably use the latter.

Although these images will not be suitable for social media, as you will find images shot in the 21:9 ratio get some of the image cut out when uploading to Instagram.

Around the front of the Sony Xperia 10 there is an 8-megapixel-selfie camera, this works well and is perfectly suited for taking shot to upload to social media.

Again this camera does struggle in low light situations, so if taking group selfies on this phone we do recommend making use out of the flash.

The Sony Xperia 10 allows you to shoot 4K video in the cinematic 21:9 ratio, which makes for some awesome footage of your pet.

Given how cheap the Sony Xperia 10 can be attained on a contract deal, we feel the camera makes the phone exceptional value for money.

As a whole, the Sony Xperia 10 isn’t the best, although the 4K video recorder is capable of shooting some awesome footage, which is stabilised too.

Sony Xperia 10 Review: Battery Life

The Sony Xperia 10 has a 2780mAh battery, which is smaller than we would have liked considering this is a Full HD+ LCD display.

This means that for the average user, you will get a full day of use.

However, for those that do like to watch movies and play games, you will find that the battery runs out at around 9-10 pm.

We don’t know why Sony did not opt for a bigger battery in this phone, especially because they designed the phone for watching movies.

We feel it is a huge compromise to need to keep the phone on around 50% brightness and not do the things the phone is designed to do because of battery.

We would have preferred the phone to be a little heavier if needed, but support a bigger battery cell.

The Sony Xperia 10 battery does have fast charging tech, so grabbing a quick 30% before work is not a problem and will take around 20 minutes, however, there is no wireless charging.

This is to be expected, as the phone does not have a glass back, and for the price of the phone we did not find this too disappointing.

Sony Xperia 10 Review: Summary

So should you spend your hard-earned cash on the Sony Xperia 10 mobile?

Well if you are looking for a smartphone that is capable of giving you an incredible media experience, then yes!

Throughout this Sony Xperia 10 review we found the camera and display to be the most impressive features.

Given the Sony Xperia 10 price, we were rather impressed with this phone. This is one of the cheap Sony phones that offer great value for money.

That being said the battery does lack, and if you are watching lots of movies and gaming then you will find that it barely makes it through the day.

The Sony Xperia 10 camera won’t blow you away either, with shutter lag resulting in extremely blurry shots.

Sony Xperia 10 6 Inch 21:9 Full HD+ display Android 9 UK SIM-Free Smartphone with 3GB RAM and 64GB Storage - Black 

The phone can record video in 4K, making for some awesome footage; this is also stabilised so you won’t need a tripod or a super steady hand.

The Sony Xperia 10 display is also impressive; with its 21:9 aspect ratio it really does give a cinematic view when matched with a compatible movie or game.

We do wish that the Sony Xperia 10 was waterproof, as it would have been nice not to worry about using it in the tub.

We recommend checking out our Moto G7 Plus review as well as the Sony Xperia 1 before making a decision on purchase, as this may be more suited to your needs.

We hope you have enjoyed our Sony Xperia 10 review, and feel free to check out the best Sony Xperia 10 deals at the top of the post and leave a comment.

Sony Xperia 10 Review: Full Specification

Launch: 2019, February

Body:

• Dimension: 155.7 x 68 x 8.4mm (6.13 x 2.68 x 0.33 in)
• Weight: 162g (5.71 oz)
• Sim: Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Hybrid Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

Display:

• Type: IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours
• Size: 6.0-inches, 84.1cm² (-79.4% screen-to-body ratio)
• Resolution: 1080 x 2520 pixels, 21:9 ratio (-457 ppi density)
• Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 5

Platform:

• OS: Android 9.0 (Pie)
• Chipset: Qualcomm SDM630 Snapdragon 630 (14nm)
• CPU: Octa-core 2.2 GHz Cortex-A53
• GPU: Adreno 508

Memory:

• Card slot: microSD, up to 1TB (uses shared SIM slot)
• Internal: 64GB, 3GB RAM

Camera:

• Primary:
  – 13MP, f/2.0, 27mm (wide), PDAF
  – 5MP, f/2.4, 22mm (wide), depth sensor
• Features: LED flash, HDR, panorama
• Video: 2160p@30fps, 1080p@30fps
• Single:
  – 8MP, f/2.0, 24mm (wide), 1.4″
• Features: LED flash, HDR, panorama
• Video: 2160p@30fps, 1080p@30fps

Sound:

• Loudspeaker:
• 3.5mm Jack: Yes
  – Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic

Comms:

• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, WiFi Direct, hotspot
• Bluetooth: 5.0, A2DP, LE, aptX HD
• GPS: Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS
• NFC: Yes
• Radio: FM radio
• USB: 2.0, Type-C reversible connector; USB Host

Features:

• Sensors: Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, proximity, compass

Battery:

• Non-removeable Li-Ion 2870mAh battery
• Charging: Fast battery charging 18W (Quick Charge 3.0)

Misc:

• Colours: Black, Navy, Silver, Pink
• Price: As seen in above post

Tests:

• Performance: Basemark OS ||: 1579 / Basemark OS || 2.0: 1463  / Basemark X: 14176
• Camera: Photo / Video
• Loudspeaker: Voice 68dB / Noise 73dB / Ring 87dB
• Battery Life: Endurance rating 65h