Review of the Sony Xperia XA smartphone: modest charm. Sony Xperia XA - a new mid-range smartphone with thin frames Xperia x a

Accelerometer(or G-sensor) - sensor of the device’s position in space. As a main function, the accelerometer is used to automatically change the orientation of the image on the display (vertical or horizontal). Also, the G-sensor is used as a pedometer; it can control various functions of the device by turning or shaking.
Gyroscope- a sensor that measures rotation angles relative to a fixed coordinate system. Capable of measuring rotation angles in several planes simultaneously. A gyroscope together with an accelerometer allows you to accurately determine the position of the device in space. Devices that use only accelerometers have lower measurement accuracy, especially when moving quickly. Also, the capabilities of the gyroscope can be used in modern games for mobile devices.
Light sensor- a sensor that sets the optimal brightness and contrast values ​​for a given light level. The presence of a sensor allows you to increase the battery life of the device.
Proximity sensor- a sensor that detects when the device is close to your face during a call, turns off the backlight and locks the screen, preventing accidental clicks. The presence of a sensor allows you to increase the battery life of the device.
Geomagnetic sensor- a sensor for determining the direction of the world in which the device is directed. Tracks the orientation of the device in space relative to the magnetic poles of the Earth. The information received from the sensor is used in mapping programs for terrain orientation.
Atmospheric pressure sensor- sensor for precise measurement of atmospheric pressure. It is part of the GPS system, allows you to determine altitude above sea level and speed up location determination.
Touch ID- fingerprint identification sensor.

Accelerometer / Geomagnetic / Gyroscope / Light / Proximity

Satellite navigation:

GPS(Global Positioning System - global system positioning) - satellite system navigation, providing measurement of distance, time, speed and determining the location of objects anywhere on the Earth. The system is developed, implemented and operated by the US Department of Defense. The basic principle of using the system is to determine location by measuring distances to an object from points with known coordinates - satellites. The distance is calculated by the delay time of signal propagation from sending it by the satellite to receiving it by the antenna of the GPS receiver.
GLONASS(Global Navigation Satellite System) - Soviet and Russian satellite navigation system, developed by order of the USSR Ministry of Defense. The measurement principle is similar to the American system GPS navigation. GLONASS is designed for operational navigation and timing support for land, sea, air and space-based users. The main difference from the GPS system is that GLONASS satellites in their orbital motion do not have resonance (synchrony) with the rotation of the Earth, which provides them with greater stability.

We wrote about this smartphone in the news and, we talked about it on the radio and buzzed each other's ears in the editorial office. And finally he got to us, and we got to write a review about him. Go.

Sony Xperia XA is the junior model in the reborn Xperia family, for which the letter X has now been chosen. We have already written about the main device within the framework of the new concept - the mid-price smartphone Xperia X. It has on board a slightly smaller top level filling, but at the same time he shows off metal body, fingerprint scanner and other features of a flagship. XA is noticeably simpler: with the same diagonal (5 inches), the display here has a resolution of 1280 × 720 pixels, the system-on-chip is MediaTek Helio P10, the main camera is 13 megapixel, there is no fingerprint scanner, and the body is plastic. This is compensated by the low price - 22-23 thousand rubles, depending on the number of SIM cards used. In principle, almost everyone has released similar devices - the latest one you can remember is Huawei P9 lite, and earlier both Samsung and LG resorted to similar tactics.

But in this case, Sony decided not only to simplify its older model as much as possible and sell it cheaper, but also to package it beautifully - the Xperia XA is very different in design from the Xperia X / X Performance. And, I must say, for the better.

⇡ Specifications

⇡ Appearance and ergonomics

In some ways, the Sony Xperia XA resembles the Samsung Galaxy S6 / S7 edge, only “with a human face”, without curved edges and a display “floating” on them. But the effect is similar - the complete absence of frames around the screen makes the gadget visually light. The display is already small - five inches, and the fact that it doesn’t take up too much space to place it in the body seems to take us back to the days of small “one-handed” smartphones.

In addition, the Sony Xperia XA is made of plastic - this will certainly turn someone away from buying - we are already getting used to the fact that not only flagships are made of metal, but also devices in the low and mid-price categories. But the plastic case weighs less - the XA weighs only 138.8 grams. This, of course, is not this year’s absolute record holder Xiaomi Mi5 with its 118 grams, but in fact we are dealing with a very light and compact smartphone. By the way, as a result, it also seems thin and airy, as I noted above, but this is already an illusion: the body thickness is 7.9 millimeters - like the Xperia X and more than many competitors. But using the gadget is very pleasant - this is precisely why the public at MWC 2016 fell in love with it.

The Xperia XA is available in four colors: Graphite Black, White, signature Gold Lime, and the now-standard Rose Gold. We had, as you can see from the photographs, graphite black - and this is perhaps the least impressive design of the device.

Sony Xperia XA, top edge: mini-jack (3.5 mm) for headphones or a headset and a second microphone

The device is given additional charm by the recently branded round power button. This is another advantage of the Xperia XA, which grows out of its disadvantage - the inclusion of a round key was made possible by the absence of a fingerprint scanner, which is standard for Sony and is built into the gadget activation button. Because of it, the button turned out to be long, but here it is not - and the designers returned to the round key that was loved by many.

Sony Xperia XA is a new, affordable 5-inch Android smartphone that aims to win your attention with its efficient looks and futuristic display.

Sony Xperia XA Smartphone - Reviews

The Xperia XA is powered by the Helio P10 system chip, which is often used in even more affordable Chinese phones. It doesn't boast performance, an innovative camera, or super-long battery life. Apart from the unusual edge-to-edge inducing display, this is the most ordinary Android phone, which at first glance doesn’t really stand out.

Is this really true? And is it worth paying attention to the Sony Xperia XA?

Sony Xperia XA equipment

In the box you will find:

• Sony Xperia XA;
• Charger;
• Micro USB to USB cable;
• Manual.

Design

The edge-to-edge screen looks impressive and cool, and the design is sophisticated.

The Sony Xperia XA is quite a beautiful phone and the cool edge-to-edge screen is its main feature that makes it stand out from the competition. The smartphone tapers slightly towards the edges of the screen, which makes it more compact. In addition, this type of design makes the side rim almost invisible.

The smartphone comes in four fresh colors: white, black, lime gold and rose gold.

Frame and back cover The Xperia XA is made of plastic, but in our opinion, this is good, because unlike newfangled glass surfaces, it attracts fewer fingerprints.

Unfortunately, the Xperia XA doesn't have a fingerprint scanner. This option has become the de facto security standard for our phones, so it's a shame that Sony decided not to equip its XA with a fingerprint scanner.

In addition, this smartphone does not have any protection against water.

Xperia XA display

The five-inch 720 x 1280 pixel display on the Xperia XA isn't the worst, but there's a bit of pixelation visible at this resolution and as a result, images don't look perfectly sharp. In addition, the colors are cold and oversaturated, and not very well balanced.

But there are some good points, the display is quite bright and easy to read even in direct sunlight. Viewing angles are not bad either.

Interface and functionality

Like all Sony phones, Xperia XA is distinguished by its functionality and non-intrusive custom graphic design. The device runs on the top Android 6.0 Marshmallow, for now current version OS from Google.

The interface generally works smoothly when solving everyday tasks, but may freeze when loading new applications. A similar problem occurs when running heavy applications and games.

This Sony model's interface has some confusing features: the display unlocks by touching and sliding the animation on it sideways or up, but when you swipe up, the display displays a frame of the animation sliding to the side rather than up. Moving an app shortcut to the home bar is also a hassle: first you have to move the icon to a hard-to-reach area at the top of the screen before placing it on the home screen. Opening necessary applications, such as dialing and messaging options, takes some time, so for a second you have to see a blank screen.

The Sony Xperia XA smartphone has notification and vibration functions. True, it vibrates very strangely, this vibration is too intense, which is very annoying.

We're not big fans of Sony's on-screen keyboard; it uses a SwiftKey on-screen keyboard in its smartphones, which isn't as user-friendly as the keyboards found in Apple or Samsung. Typing takes more time, and typos are common.

On the plus side, the Xperia XA allows you to change settings via Sony's What's New app. In the application you will find original skins of various subjects and new styles of products adapted for Sony, namely video games and films. Very few of these themes are available for free download, however, paid ones cost only a few dollars.

Processor, performance and memory

The Xperia XA is powered by the budget MediaTek Helio P10 system chip. This is an octa-core chip with 8 low-power Cortex A53 cores and 2 GB random access memory LPDDR3.

In general, the smartphone is fast enough for everyday use, but more difficult tasks and large documents cause it to lag. Some applications, such as calling options and messaging, open with an annoying delay.

The benchmark showed that in most tests the Xperia XA lags behind the results of smartphones with Snapdragon processor 808, like the Nexus 5X.

The graphics in XA are handled by the Mali T-860 MP2 GPU, operating at speeds of up to 700 MHz. Again, this is not an ideal phone for gaming. However, most simple games work fine on the phone. In addition, it can run even more graphically demanding games, albeit at slightly lower than ideal frame rates.

The size of the built-in memory in the Sony Xperia XA is 16 GB, of which about 10 GB is available to the end user. Fortunately, you can expand this memory by adding microSD card.

Internet and connections

Of all the possible browsers, only Chrome is pre-installed on the Xperia XA, and this is quite enough. Chrome makes it easy to sync bookmarks across all your devices, and it has a user-friendly touch interface with maps and an always-helpful reminder to close open incognito tabs.

In Europe, the Xperia XA supports all major LTE 4G bands. In terms of other connections, the smartphone has WiFi B/g/N as well as Bluetooth 4, 1 and NFC support.

Cameras

Sony Xperia XA comes with a 13-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front camera. Its rear camera features an F/2.0 lens and a 1/3-inch sensor, which is smaller than many popular phones, located in the same price range.

There is a two-stage shutter button located in the lower right corner of the smartphone. If you press and hold it for a second, the camera application will launch, but the launch process itself is quite slow.

The application itself has options for auto photo (Superior Auto), manual photo, video and an effects section, which can be switched by swiping up and down on the screen. Interestingly, basic options such as HDR are only available in manual mode.

Image quality

It doesn't take an expert to see that photos taken with the camera on the Xperia XA smartphone come out bad.

Even in almost ideal conditions, with plenty of light, images are not obtained. best quality, since the smartphone camera is unable to capture shadows and highlights to create a properly balanced image. Details are fuzzy and generally not sharp. Of course, in low light conditions, things get even worse, with images often coming out blurry and details hard to see.

The built-in LED flash adds a cold, greenish tint to the image, so in the dark, when using a flash, the image quality becomes even worse.

Video quality

Considering all of the above, it's no surprise that the Xperia XA doesn't have 4K video recording capabilities. The device still records video at 1080p, 30fps with a bitrate of around 17Mbps.

Video quality on the Sony Xperia XA at ​​1080p is not very good. The colors are mostly rendered beautifully, but the emphasis is on the bottom edge. The video lacks dynamics and, in low light, the image brightness decreases at the edges. In addition, in the absence of stabilization, the video recording turns out to be shaky.

Sound quality

There is a small speaker at the bottom of the smartphone. The sound quality received through this speaker is below average: everything sounds too quiet, even at maximum volume, there is no depth in low frequencies, as well as sound clarity.

Call quality in Sony Xperia XA

Call quality on the Xperia XA is below average. The speaker transmits the sound of voices with some distortion and periodic extraneous noise. However, everything is not so scary, and you will still be able to understand the callers, although not particularly clearly. On the positive side, the speaker is quite loud.

The microphone in the XA is also weak. During testing, other subscribers heard us too quietly and not very clearly.

Battery life

Xperia smartphone The XA is equipped with a 2,300 mAh battery. At average intensity, the battery charge lasts for a day, but with more intensive use, you won’t have enough until the end of the working day, so it’s better to carry it with you Charger. It takes two hours to fully charge from 0 to 100%.

Bottom line

To sum it up, the Sony Xperia XA is nothing more than cute, inexpensive smartphone without any extraordinary characteristics.

Apart from its looks and decent performance, sufficient for most everyday tasks, this smartphone has nothing to brag about: the colors on the displays are oversaturated and not clear enough; when performing more difficult tasks, the smartphone freezes; The quality of the camera is also not good; time battery life below the average.

At $280, the Xperia XA has many strong competitors. Thus, the 5.2 inch Google Nexus 5X, 5.5 inch LG G4, sold at approximately the same price, have best characteristics than the Sony Xperia XA, so we wouldn't recommend this smartphone.

Sony Xperia XA is the youngest model new Xperia X series, with which the Japanese company begins a new round of its development. The smartphone belongs to the middle price segment, however, it has something to stand out from the background of its main competitors and other devices within the line. Since its release, many have noted that the appearance of the device is one of key features, and balanced specifications hardware allow you to cope with any everyday tasks.

Appearance

The first thing that catches your eye, and has already been noted above, is the absence of frames on the sides of the screen, however, against this background, the frames at the bottom and top may seem too big. The width of the smartphone is only 66.8 mm and this makes it one of the narrowest devices in the world among devices with 5-inch screens. Holding the Sony Xperia XA in your hands is a pleasure; you tightly grasp its body and reach it to any end of the screen without any problems.

The side frame is round and made of metal, but the back cover is still plastic, although you can’t tell this by touch. Another innovation was the use of 2.5D glass covering the screen, which also makes positive adjustments to the visual perception of the smartphone and convenience. Overall dimensions of the model: 143.6 x 66.8 x 7.9 mm and 138 grams.

There are four color options for the case: white, graphite black, gold lime and rose gold. It is important to note that the front side is now also painted in the color of the body.

On the top edge there is a headphone jack and an additional microphone, on the bottom we have a micro USB, the main microphone and speaker, on the left side there is a plug neatly hidden covering the slot for the tray with a SIM card and memory card, and on the right there is traditionally a power button (a round metal button, like the early Z-series), a volume key and camera button.

Display, hardware and software specifications

The Sony Xperia XA has a bright 5-inch screen with a resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels (HD 720p) with a pixel density of 294 ppi, which is a little disappointing. However, in reality, this resolution is more than enough, you can only see individual pixels with great difficulty and, without looking at the characteristics, it’s hard to believe that this is not a Full HD matrix, although it would still look more advantageous. With viewing angles and color reproduction, everything is excellent; among the improvements, it is worth noting the proprietary Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2 technology and super bright mode.

Sony actively cooperates with MediaTek and therefore it was decided to use the new MediaTek Helio P10 MT6755 chipset with an 8-core 64-bit processor (ARM Cortex-A53 cores) and ARM Mali-T860 MP2 video in Xperia XA. This chip is capable of providing excellent performance, both in games and in working with applications, especially considering the HD screen resolution, everything will work without problems. The RAM capacity is 2 GB, which has already become the standard for mid-range devices. Internal storage 16 GB but you can always expand it by installing a card microSD memory large volume up to 200 GB.

What exactly is puzzling is this lithium polymer battery with a capacity of 2300 mAh, because today the issue of autonomy is very acute. Although the manufacturer himself will assure that thanks to system optimization, improved STAMINA mode and energy-saving Android mode 6.0 smartphone will easily last you 2 days on a single charge in average use mode, and Qnovo Adaptive Charging technology will preserve the physical life of the battery.

Of course, the Xperia XA has all the modern wireless standards data transmission (Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, Wi-Fi), GPS, A-GPS and GLONASS and the communication module operates in GSM GPRS/EDGE (2G), UMTS HSPA+ (3G) and LTE 4G/Cat 4 frequencies. A total of models will be presented with one SIM card (Xperia XA F3111, F3113 and F3115) and a version with two active SIMs (Xperia XA Dual F3112 and F3116).

Cameras

Not a small accent Sony company highlights the capabilities of new products in the photo and notes slightly improved modules and processing algorithms. The main camera in the smartphone is a 13-megapixel 1/3-inch Sony IMX258 Exmor RS sensor with hybrid autofocus technology and quick launch cameras so that not a single moment is missed. The same technology is used in Xperia flagships Z5 and seeing it in the middle is at least pleasant.

To the delight of selfie lovers, a front-facing 8-megapixel Sony IMX219 Exmor R camera with a wide-angle lens (88 degrees), automatic focus, and HDR mode is used.

To say that I really liked the smartphone is an understatement! Appearance, ergonomics, case materials and assembly - everything is really up to par. Usage MediaTek chipset and an HD screen will allow you to reduce the price of the model, without losing the pleasure of everyday use of a frameless smartphone.

In contact with

Compared to its classmates, for example the Samsung Galaxy A3, the camera looks better. But when shooting in low light, the Sony is slightly inferior. It copes with applied tasks such as shooting text or tourist attractions during the daytime. And to fully replace a compact camera, there are more expensive smartphones. The same Xperia X, for example.

Secretive character

But with testing the performance of the Xperia XA, certain difficulties arose. It seems that Sony has blocked the ability to run Geekbench and a number of other benchmarks. We were able to fully run only the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited package, which measures performance in games. However, we already know what the MediaTek Helio P10 is – there are several models on the market that use this platform. Mostly, however, Chinese ones - like Oppo R9 or Meizu M3 Note. CPU uses 8 cores operating at a frequency of 2 GHz, and the Mali-T860MP2 chip is responsible for graphics acceleration. Regardless of what Xperia version XA you choose (with one or two SIM cards), the smartphone will have 2 gigabytes of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. In short, it will be difficult to do without a microSD card. But let me remind you that the Xperia XA Dual can simultaneously install two SIM cards and a memory card.