At MWC this week, Sony announced three new phones under the new X line up. Little did we know then that they were ushering in a new flagship line, seeing the death of their divisive Xperia Z flagship family. Let’s take a look at their new Xperia X line up for 2016.
The Sony Xperia X, XA & X Performance
As mentioned, Sony released 3 separate devices, all of which share similar industrial design and don’t stray too far from their previous offerings.
Firstly there is the Xperia XA – the baby of the bunch. Sporting a MediaTek Helio P10 processor, a 5″ IPS LCD 720p display, 2GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage, and a 13MP rear camera, the specification is decidedly upper-low end and is to be their entry-level offering.
Delivering a 2300 mAh battery which should be more than enough for the screen choice, we suspect that at a price point of around £240 (converted from Euro price) this might well be seen as a great first device.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6hllDE7VJg
The Sony Xperia X is their standard offering for 2016 and ups the ante over its smaller sibling by featuring a Snapdragon 650 processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB or 64GB storage options, a 23MP phase detection auto-focus camera with a 13MP front facing camera, whilst maintaining the same size display but delivering a 1080p resolution.
Additionally, the X will see the return of the fingerprint scanner, a slight boost in battery at 2620 mAh, and also adds a dual SIM card solution. The Xperia X will run you around £475 (converted from Euro pricing).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtUBeFiWi8Q
Finally, we get to the papa bear, the Sony Xperia X Performance. Not the most catchy of names, but it sure lives up to it.
The Xperia X Performance is essentially the Xperia X, but with everybody’s new favourite mobile processor, the Snapdragon 820, powering the device. The same 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, 5″ 1080p display, dual SIM option, and camera setup are found on the X Performance. There is however again, another slight bump in the battery to a 2700 mAh unit.
The lack of any pricing information for this device and the subsequent leaks that this device might only be available in Asian markets, is a bit of a disappointment, but it’s still nice to see this level of device on offer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRwBDRtRfQ8
Each of Sony’s devices are interesting in their own right. It’s interesting that we see a return to a 720p display for the lower end devices when 1080p seemed to be becoming the standard, even at that level. It’s equally of interest that their flagship exhibits nothing higher than a 1080p display, in light of the fact their last premium device, the Xperia Z5 Premium, sported a 4K display!
The devices are available in a number of colours; White, Graphite Black, Lime Gold (whatever that is!) and Rose Gold, and we can expect that we’ll hear more about these devices as we get closer to the Summer 2016 releases.
