Sony Xperia 10 Plus: At First Glance
Sony has been doing a lot with the Xperia smartphone series since it commenced in 2012. Derived from the word “experience”, many smartphone users have made the “Xperia” brand their go-to.
From blazing speakers to great camera specifications, Sony does not disappoint. As with other devices in this series, we need to know just how much the Xperia 10 Plus matches up in the competitive smartphone market.
Released at the same time as the Sony Xperia 10, the Xperia 10 Plus is expected to offer more than just a higher price. Whether or not it matches up to your expectation, you’re about to find out in this review!
Sony Xperia 10 Plus: Design, Dimensions and Weight
When we talk about the design of the Sony Xperia 10 Plus, it’s a case of beauty in the eyes of the beholder. This phone has a plastic unibody and a fine metallic finish that give a total premium look.
If you’re looking for curves in a phone, you won’t find any here as this smartphone has no curves on its edges. What you get instead are finely squared edges.
Having a phone with such square edges, you’re probably wondering how this device feels in the hand. Well, the Sony Xperia 10 plus is a pretty tall smartphone with dimensions of 167 x 73 x 8.3 mm
With a dimension like that, you’ll most likely not be able to comfortably use this phone with just one hand. In fact, it is almost the length of a universal television remote!
Nonetheless, this is a pretty lightweight phone – weighing 180 g. In comparison, the Nokia 8.1 shares the same weight as the Xperia 10 plus but with a dimension of 154.8 x 75.76 x 7.97 mm.
Another high-end smartphone similar to the Xperia 10 Plus is the Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018) weighing 183g. Even though this Samsung phone seems long with 162.5 x 77 x 7.8 mm dimension, it is still not as long as the Xperia.
Asides it length that may keep protruding in your pockets, Sony Xperia 10 Plus is a comfortable device in the hand. As it’s common for smartphone manufacturers, the Sony Xperia 10 Plus has different color options.
There’s the black, gold, silver and my favorite – navy blue. The shiny, light-reflective metal surface of this phone makes every color variant desirable.
Moving on to the phone’s surface, this is an aspect that won’t so much impress you, especially with its price tag. Bezels on the side and lower end of the screen are small except for the top bezel which is quite thick.
For a 2019 smartphone, you would expect this phone should have a small bezel at the top. This is especially confusing when the selfie camera and notification LED are all you’ll find up there – it makes you wonder why it’s thick anyway.
Furthermore, there is nothing preventing this phone screen from being bezel-less. In fact, the Navigation keys below the phone are on-screen.
Perhaps that’s how Sony was able to achieve such slim bezels below.
On the lower end of this phone, there’s a dual speaker setup below. These speakers are blazing with great sound quality that makes watching videos and gaming fun even without a headphone.
Speaking of headphones, there’s the headphone jack at the top area of this phone. Not forgetting, there’s the USB Type-C charging port between the dual speakers.
On the left side of the Xperia 10 plus, you’ll see the SIM tray which can take up two nano-SIM cards and a microSD card. It’s good to see that you don’t have to sacrifice one SIM card for the microSD card like the usual trend.
However, for some funny reason, the phone goes off every time you take out the SIM tray. When it’s time to power on this phone, you’ll find the power button on the right side of the phone.
Just below that power button is the side-mounted fingerprint scanner. It’s good to have such a separate setup from the usual side fingerprint sensor that also doubles as the power button from recent smartphones like the Infinix Note 10.
It’s also not as typical as the rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. Just below the fingerprint sensor is the volume rocker.
When you turn over this phone, you’ll first notice the dual camera. This dual camera is horizontally positioned on the phone’s back and surrounded by a black camera bump.
Just above this camera setup is the LED flash. Following that, you get to know what brand this is with the SONY and XPERIA text logos.
All in all, this is a smartphone with interesting design features that may or may not be pleasing for some. Such features deserve an eight out of ten in this Sony Xperia 10 Plus review.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus: Display Features
There are many components that make up the display of a smartphone. Starting with display type, the IPS LCD is what you’ll find on the Xperia 10 plus.
This IPS LCD provides great viewing angles to a device. By viewing angles, I mean how the screen retains its clarity even when it’s tilted.
Next is the FHD+ (2520 x 1080) display resolution. This resolution makes the content look very sharp on this screen and the contrast is good.
One huge feature of the Sony Xperia 10 Plus that cannot be ignored is its aspect ratio. This phone’s display screen has a 21:9 aspect ratio.
This is far more than the 18:9 aspect ratio we often see in smartphones – perhaps that’s why it costs a bulk. Just in case the term is strange to you, the aspect ratio is the ratio of the width to the height of an image or screen.
To paint a broader picture, you know when you’re watching a video and there are some black edges that prevent you from viewing the whole thing? Well, that’s the aspect ratio!
In enjoying movies with this phone, Sony says you’ll see movies the way filmmakers intended. This is somewhat true since most movies are shot in that 21:9 aspect ratio.
With that said, you can be sure to enjoy a great cinematic experience on the Xperia 10 Plus. In addition to its viewing experience, this phone has 600 nits of brightness.
Nits of brightness are important because it tells you how bright this screen gets. 600 nits are pretty high and make this phone useable even outdoors.
When compared with other smartphones, this Xperia does better than the Samsung Galaxy A50 with 424 nits.
Moving on, the 6.5″ inch display size of this phone makes it difficult to use with one hand. However, you can activate the one-handed mode by tapping the home screen twice.
This mode makes it possible to move the whole display to one side of the phone for easy use. Also, this display size is a noticeable upgrade over the 6.0″ inch of its previous model – the Xperia 10.
In summary, these display features are pleasing and I will be rating it an eight in this Sony Xperia 10 Plus review.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus: Camera Features
Over the years, Sony is well known for being impressive in the camera department. On the Xperia 10 Plus, there’s the main 12 MP camera with a ƒ/1.75 aperture.
Another rear-facing camera is the 8 MP telephoto camera with its ƒ/2.4 aperture. For the selfie camera, there’s an 8 MP camera with ƒ/2.0 aperture.
When it comes to camera performance, photos taken with this phone camera are generally not spectacular in quality. This is particularly evident in low-light conditions.
The rear-facing cameras perform well in bright light, it however struggles in low light situations. To be exact, this main camera is good with details, but color accuracy is lacking.
As for the front-facing camera, it performs similarly to the main camera. This selfie camera does well in daylight with good color accuracy and fine details.
However, the front camera performs even worse than the main camera when it comes to low-light situations.
A major reason why this camera doesn’t do so well is as a result of the poor HDR (high dynamic range). The essence of HDR is to give pictures more color and detail no matter the light conditions of the environment.
In a word, even though the cameras in Sony Xperia 10 Plus are not great, they would still serve for those social media posts. With such average cameras, I will be rating Sony Xperia 10 Plus in this camera review an eight.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus: Battery Life and Talk Time
This 2019 Sony flagship smartphone is powered by a 3000mAh non-removable battery. Having a non-removable battery means you cannot replace this battery yourself, only the manufacturer can do that.
Away from that, 3000mAh is quite small for a 2019 smartphone. Comparatively, flagship phones from Redmi, Vivo, and Samsung offer a better battery of 4000 and 4500mAh.
For a phone at this price, the Sony Xperia 10 Plus could have impressive with at least a 4000mAh battery. All the same, this 3000mAh battery is an improvement over the 2700mAh battery of its younger sibbling – the Sony Xperia 10.
Moving on, let’s talk about the battery performance of the Xperia 10 Plus. On continuous web browsing, the Xperia 10 Plus lasts 10 hours 35 minutes.
This is not a lot when compared with the 3500mAh battery of the Nokia 8.1. The Nokia 8.1 lasts 12 hours 13 minutes on continuous web browsing.
A better performer than these two is the 4500mAh battery of the Samsung Galaxy A70. Specifically, Samsung Galaxy A70 lasts 13 hours 32 minutes.
As for the fast charging feature, the Sony Xperia 10 Plus charges from 0-31% in 30 minutes.
In essence, this phone will charge from 0-100% in one hour. Such a fast charging feature is impressive and far better than having to wait for two hours with most smartphones.
A Small battery and average fast charging are the main issues that make this battery very unimpressive. Having said that, Sony Xperia 10 Plus deserves a seven this battery review section.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus: Storage Options and Performance
The Xperia 10 Plus has an unsatisfactory storage size. To be exact, this smartphone comes with 64 GB of storage.
For a $700 smartphone, Sony didn’t do well by simply providing 64 GB. In addition to that, 50 GB is all you’ll get when you power this phone and this is because the operating system takes up 14 GB already.
This then presents the question of if 50 GB will be enough for your media files. Without a doubt, this is disappointing especially because we often see such a storage size on low-budget smartphones.
We expected that this phone would have at least 128 GB or 256 GB as we see in mid-range and high-end smartphones.
On a positive note, in addition to 64 GB onboard storage, the Xperia 10 Plus also has expandable storage with a microSD card.
Even though Sony provided small storage, you would expect that the storage expansion would be large right? Well, they didn’t do much here either!
The maximum expandable storage of the Xperia 10 Plus is 512 GB. When phones like the Motorola One Zoom and LG X Charge come with 1 TB and 2 TB respectively, you just find it hard to accept 512 GB from a $700 phone!
In a nutshell, Sony didn’t impress in the storage aspect of this smartphone. With that i mind, I am inclined to rate Sony Xperia 10 Plus a seven in this storage review section.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus: Security Features and Sensors
In a bid to provide impressive AI features, Sony included eleven sensors in the Xperia 10 Plus. These sensors include the accelerometer, ambient light, e-compass, fingerprint, hall, magnetometer, motion detector, proximity, step counter, and step detector sensors.
Starting from the least common sensor, the step counter and step detector sensors share similar names and functions as well. The step counter functions as a pedometer in the sense that it counts every step the phone user has taken.
As for the step detector, it sends a trigger in form of vibration whenever the phone user takes a step. These two sensors are useful for health apps.
It is also worth noting that these sensors do not work when you’re driving. Just in case you’re worried that the function of these sensors may cause a strain on the battery, both sensors are great battery optimizers.
Similar to the step counter and detector sensors is the motion sensor. This motion sensors functions as its name suggest by responding to the motion of the device.
Also, this sensor doesn’t exactly work alone, it functions with help from the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors.
Talking about accelerometer sensor, it does the job of turning the phone screen in the direction you want. This sensor is responsible for how the phone responds during auto-rotation.
Next is the proximity sensor, a very regular sensor we are used to in even low-end smartphones. The function of this sensor is to turn off the screen light whenever the screen gets close to your ears or eyes – mostly during phone calls.
In collaboration with the magnetometer sensor, the e-compass lets the phone know the orientation of the earth. This then communicates to the phone on which way is north, south, east, and west just as we see in digital maps.
The information provided by the e-compas sensor is useful in compass apps.
Moving on, the hall sensor is a feature that functions when your phone uses a flip case. Whenever the cover of that flip case opens, the hall sensor communicates to the phone to turn on the phone screen’s light.
Then there is the ambient light sensor that detects the present lighting environment of the phone. If this sensor realizes that there is sufficient light in that environment, it responds by reducing the screen brightness.
On the aspect of security features, the Xperia 10 Plus has a side-mounted fingerprint sensor. Even though it’s on the side, this is a very responsive fingerprint sensor.
An additional security feature is the facial recognition sensor. This sensor, with the help of the selfie camera, detects your face and responds by unlocking the smartphone.
It is important to mention that before you can use the face recognition feature, you must first register your face. The same is true for the fingerprint as well.
In a word, Sony packed a good deal of AI tech in this smartphone. It is therefore not far-fetched to rate Sony Xperia 10 Plus a nine in this section of the review.
Frequently Asked Questions
More battery juice and a larger display size are the noticeable differences between both phones. Specifically, the Xperia 10 Plus has a bigger screen size and a better battery performance.
No. This is not a water-resistant smartphone.
This is quite a long phone with a dimension of 167 x 73 x 8.3 mm and a display size of 6.5”.
Yes. Xperia 10 Plus can accommodate two SIM cards.
No. There is no wireless charging feature on this device.
Conclusion
In summary, Sony designed the Xperia 10 Plus with a focus on enjoying watching movies and gaming. However, we do know for a fact that a smartphone should offer more than these two.
This makes the Xperia 10 Plus difficult to recommend and it does not exactly match up to most smartphone needs. If you need a more comfortable device in your pockets at a lesser price, the Samsung Galaxy A9 2018 is an option.
Aside from being cheaper, the Samsung A9 has more storage and battery juice. Another smartphone worth considering is the Nokia 8.1 which is far cheaper than both the Xperia 10 plus and Samsung A9.
I hope you found this Sony Xperia 10 Plus review helpful. If you did, kindly click Yes to “Was this page Helpful?” below.
You could also share your thoughts with the “Leave a Comment” form found at the end of this page.
For more Smartphone reviews, visit our Smartphone Reviews page. You may also find our Smartphone Specs page very helpful.
