Sony Xperia Xa1 Ultra After a Month Review

Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra detailed review

Bezel-less phones take become the trend lately, and believe it or non Sony has been with it this time. The visitor'southward Xperia XA branded smartphones have followed bezel-less form factors for a while, and this, the Xperia XA1 Ultra is the "biggest" of the lot. Information technology has a 6-inch almost bezel-less screen and Sony's top-terminate 23 megapixel rear photographic camera. In some means, the Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra has the specs downwardly right, but and then it as well has some glaring flaws.

Build and Design

Reviewers, me included, take often questioned Sony's insistence on sticking to its blocky Xperia designs. But if there'southward i phone where that worked, it's hither. The Xperia XA1 Ultra sports a nearly bezel-less screen, which looks quite striking thank you to the large size. The device is sturdily built with no untoward creaks. The sides are slightly curved, while the corners are sharp, giving the device a slab-like wait and experience.

The circular power button lies on the right side, with the book rocker above it. There'due south a dedicated photographic camera shutter button below these, while the dual-SIM slot lies on the left of the smartphone. There's besides a defended micro-SD slot alongside the SIM slots, while the USB Type-C port and mono-speaker is on the lesser of the device. The headphone jack is on the pinnacle.

Find that there's no fingerprint sensor on this phone, which at nearly Rs. 30,000 is certainly a misstep on Sony's role. While some may fence that a fingerprint sensor is not a necessity, just at this price Sony isn't targeting first time buyers. And a fingerprint sensor is i of those things that you go too used to, to forget.

Also, Sony'due south pattern is seamless and attractive, but the Xperia XA1 Ultra is not ergonomic past whatsoever stretch of imagination. The bezel-less pattern is somewhat wasted because of the two large glossy strips of plastic in a higher place and below the screen. Bezel-less displays are usually more than immersive, just Sony somewhat kills that with the thick strips on either side. Information technology also makes for a rather large form factor that is uncomfortable in your pocket, or to agree, and you can certainly not utilise this with i hand. Merely lack of ergonomics will perhaps be ignored past those looking for large-screen phones.

Display

Disallowment its flagship Xperia XZ Premium, Sony has never really been known to push the boundaries with display resolution. The company thinks 1080p is all you need, even on a 6-inch display, and Sony is probably right. While 367ppi pixel density sounds somewhat depression, the 1080p display on this device looks great.

To exist articulate, Sony's display isn't the most colourful and it doesn't accept AMOLED level contrast, but it brings a pleasant mix of everything. Colours are well balanced and contrast is high enough for things to looks adept. Barring Samsung's AMOLED panels, there are a few phones in this price range that can offer a meliorate brandish.

The screen is also scratch resistant and doesn't take to fingerprints easily, making it a pleasant experience overall. Auto brightness isn't totally seamless, but then that'due south true for almost every Android phone today.

Performance

This is where things start breaking downwards. The Xperia XA1 Ultra is powered by the Helio P20 chipset from MediaTek. To exist clear, Sony provides a decent experience here likewise, just it's not the fastest phone out there, and noticeably so.

The Xperia XA1 Ultra is smooth as long as swiping beyond screens and in-app performance is concerned, but it suffers from occasional stutters and lags that volition only increment over fourth dimension. For case, gaming performance is by and large smooth, but many in-game transitions and animations tend to exist a little inclement. Similarly, about apps will run smoothly, only they'll take slightly longer to load or the phone feels sticky when transitioning between app to app. If y'all're downloading multiple apps on the background, animations may go laggy also.

From a performance indicate of view, the Xperia XA1 Ultra doesn't qualify as fluid or smooth, which isn't especially new for a Sony smartphone. The visitor has evidently tried its all-time to optimise things out hither, and succeeded to some extent. It'south possible that the MediaTek Helio P20 is more than inclined towards thermal and battery efficiency than raw power. That said, we've seen more fluid performance even on cheaper phones running the Snapdragon 625.

Photographic camera

While Sony'southward competitors are touting dual-cameras, the company itself is focused on in-business firm technology. The Xperia XA1 Ultra sports Sony's 23MP camera on the dorsum with f/2.0 aperture and the IMX300 sensor. The pixel size lies at 1.1 micron, which again doesn't push the limits of low light performance. On the front is a 16MP sensor, which is difficult to miss thanks to the rather large module.

Note: We noticed patchy prototype quality on the Xperia XA1 Ultra at first. Later on informing Sony of the same, the company sent usa a replacement unit of measurement. The image quality on this new unit was indeed better.

The 2nd unit of the Xperia XA1 Ultra indeed performed better on the camera front. Images taken by the device capture decent corporeality of details, simply colour saturation is slightly higher than usual, which is a surprise coming from Sony. As well, we noticed a greenish tint on some photos, from time to fourth dimension. Lastly, depression calorie-free images are decent, but dissonance levels are college than ideal, reducing details.

Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra Prototype Samples

It'due south worth noting that the Xperia XA1 Ultra shoots photos in 20MP past default and in 16:9 aspect ratio. Yous can alter this to iv:iii and 23MP from the settings, and there are options for 12MP (in either attribute ratio). In that location'southward a manual mode for deeper control over photos, allowing y'all to customise white balance, shutter speed, focus and EV settings. The Xperia XA1 Ultra tin can shoot videos in FHD HDR.

If we were to choose between the 2 cameras, Sony has done a improve task with the front end shooter here. Barring a tendency to overexpose the whites, the camera does a decent task. Most importantly, Sony'southward front photographic camera keeps photos natural, rather than calculation beautify elements that smoothen skin tones and make photos expect unnatural.

Battery

There are a lot of compromises with the Xperia XA1 Ultra, and we can live with most of them. What we can't ignore though is the 2700 mAh battery on such a big course factor. That'south incredibly pocket-sized battery capacity past today's standards. Also, though battery chapters doesn't always decide battery life, the Xperia XA1 Ultra barely makes the cut.

The big screen does draw a lot of power, so even though the Helio P20 is efficient, overall bombardment life is not smashing. The Xperia XA1 Ultra lasted but over 8 hours on the PC Marking Work 2.0 battery test, which translates to nearly 10 hours of regular usage. That would go you past a work day, but 1 wonders whether that'southward sufficient from such a device. Big-screen phones have so far been known for long battery lives, and with Sony's form factor, a bigger bombardment was perhaps warranted.

On the other manus, the company has added its Qnovo Adaptive charging engineering to the phone, that tries to preserve the battery'due south overall life bicycle. MediaTek's Pump Express 2.0 fast charging engineering is also on board, and you tin charge the Xperia XA1 Ultra from nix to 100 in under an hour.

Bottomline

The Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra is one of the many big-screen options bachelor on the market today. It's hard to become past the fact that it doesn't have a fingerprint sensor, but even if that doesn't thing, the value proposition merely isn't enough. The Xperia XA1 Ultra is a dependable smartphone, but at these price points information technology's difficult to justify, which brings united states of america to the final aspect of this review.

How information technology compares

A Sony fan will perhaps be fine with a dependable smartphone fabricated past Sony. Nevertheless, with phones similar the Samsung Milky way C9 Pro, Galaxy C7 Pro and the much cheaper Xiaomi Mi Max 2, there'due south little to justify this device. The Xperia XA1 Ultra loses out to Samsung'southward phones in terms of display quality, performance and battery, while its camera prowess is decent at best. On the other hand, yous get a better photographic camera than the Mi Max 2 here, but the latter's cheaper toll tag, meliorate bombardment life and comparable display quality makes for a better value proposition.

While those phones would conform big-screen lovers, the Honor 8 Pro and slightly more expensive OnePlus five are far better smartphones (in all respects) than the Xperia XA1 Ultra.

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Source: https://www.digit.in/reviews/mobile-phones/sony-xperia-xa1-ultra-review-62437.html

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