Sony Xperia 10 IV review: One compromise too many
Sony’s Xperia 10 IV is a decent budget phone in a sea of great options. The nice 21:9 display, trademark Xperia aesthetic, and long battery life will impress some, but the middling camera quality and lagging performance makes this hard to recommend when compared to its competition.
Pros
- Sleek, durable design
- Vivid display
- Official IP68 rating
- Strong battery life
- Versatile triple camera setup…
Cons
- – …with middling picture quality
- – Below-average performance
- – Only 60Hz refresh rate
- – Expensive for what you get at £429
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Budget phones require compromise, but it must be compromised in the right places, so as to not ruin the phone. The Sony Xperia 10 IV is a textbook example of what happens when you choose to make some of the wrong compromises.
On the face of it, this has the makings of a good phone. But in a world where the Nothing phone (1), the Google Pixel 6a, and the 2022 iPhone SE exist, Sony has made one too many cutbacks to the Xperia formula that hurts the 10 IV against its competition.
I know the score and those first two paragraphs may have given away how I feel about this phone, but allow me to explain in a little more detail and if Sony is reading this (hi, by the way), provide some feedback about what can be done next time to be in with a better shot of budget supremacy.
Sony Xperia 10 IV price and configurations
The Sony Xperia 10 IV is available in four colors (black, white, mint, and lavendar), but with one configuration only: 6GB RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage for £429. There isn’t any official U.S. availability, but you can pick one up on Amazon for 380 right now.
This price puts it square in the sights of the iPhone SE and Google Pixel 6a, alongside the other competitors I mentioned above.
Sony Xperia 10 IV design
Sony’s Xperia phones have one particular aesthetic, and while the Xperia 10 IV sports a budget-friendly combination of glass and plastic, the refined, utilitarian persona makes a sleek impression.
The flat sides are coated in a soft-touch plastic that feels nice in the hand, the SIM tray is easily removed without the need of a pin, and the two buttons on the right edge (RIP dedicated camera shutter button) are well placed for your thumb to fall gracefully to. As for ports, you have two: a USB-C and a warmly welcomed 3.5mm headphone jack.
This long slab persona is most present when you break down the dimensions: 6.0 x 2.6 x 0.3 inches with a weight of 5.7 ounces. This is taller, but skinnier and lighter than the Pixel 6a (5.9 x 2.8 x 0.3 inches, 6.3 ounces), while the iPhone SE is far dinkier in all measurements (5.2 x 2.5 x 0.3 inches, 5.0 ounces).
Unlike the Xperia 1 IV, this longer form with half an inch cut off the top is easier to fit into smaller s, which is a welcome change of pace for me and my skinny jeans, and adds up to a pretty solid, refined design all round. Plus, there is IP68 water resistance — a rarity in phones at this price.
Sony Xperia 10 IV display
The display has always been a strong point of Sony’s smartphones, and the Xperia 10 IV is no different. In here, you’ll find a 6-inch OLED panel with 2520 x 1080-pixel resolution, and the company’s patented TRILUMINOS display tech for improved color and contrast. If refresh rate is a huge deal for you, look elsewhere as this display is limited to just 60Hz.
With that bad news out the way, the end result of the OLED is vivid color and impressive depth. Taking advantage of the display’s OLED benefits, the trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home emanated depth in darker scenes, making the brighter effects of Doctor Strange’s spells really glow.
Overall, the display makes for a nice viewing experience that lines up with other OLED displays you see at this price in terms of detail and popping color.
Sony Xperia 10 IV audio
A strong screen needs strong sound for listening on the go with no earbuds, but Sony drops the ball here with stereo speakers that are heavily compromised.
They are small, tinny, and are vulnerable to distortion at volumes over 60%. When put under intense pressure with bass-heavy, intense metalcore such as Avoid’s EP “The Burner”, everything turns into a crunched-up mess.
Fortunately, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack on here, so you can capitalize on some LDAC hi-res audio codec, plus Bluetooth 5.1 grants the best wireless headphones access to the company’s fantastic 360 Reality Audio for true spatial sound.
Sony präsentiert: Xperia 10 V
Sony Xperia 10 IV performance
Let’s get into some speeds and feeds. The Sony Xperia 10 IV packs a Snapdragon 695 5G chipset, alongside 6GB RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, which can be expanded by an additional 1TB via the microSD card slot.
Putting the phone through our usual paces, Sony’s budget slab hit a Geekbench 5 multi-core score of 1,354, whereas 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited testing sees the graphical prowess hit an overall score of just 1,205, with an average frame rate of a mere 7.2 fps.
Comparatively, the Pixel 6a storms ahead with a Geekbench score of 2,918 and a 3DMark frame rate of 42 fps, but the A15 Bionic in the iPhone SE just goes on a rampage with comparative scores of 4,482 and 50 fps, respectively.
I can appreciate that budget phones will rarely get the latest and greatest, but the jump to a Snapdragon 695 is too far of a step down when you take into account what the competition is running.
Ultimately, it unfortunately impacts day-to-day performance, as multitasking and anything more processor intensive than the average social media app is capable of slowing down the framerate to a crawl. If you have a basic smartphone workload, then this will be fine, but anything more and you’ll stress it out with the greatest of ease.
Sony Xperia 10 IV battery life and charging
With weaker internals and the beasty 5,000mAh battery that Sony has stuffed in the Xperia 10 IV, the longevity of this slab is mightily impressive.
Waking up at 8 a.m., I went through an entire day to 8 p.m. with the usual work/entertainment (emails, calls, social media, taking some quick pictures, Spotify by day, gaming and YouTube in my own time) with 25% of the battery still remaining.
And with fast charging support, you can charge to 80% in roughly 30 minutes, which helps stave off any battery life woes, though they will be few and far between thanks to the supreme stamina.
Sony Xperia 10 IV cameras
On the back, you have a triple camera setup consisting of a 12MP main sensor with f/1.8 aperture, an 8MP telephoto with f/2.2, and an 8MP ultrawide with f/2.2 aperture and a 120-degree lens.
Up front, there’s a 8MP selfie snapper with an f/2.0 aperture and to sum up this camera system in a few words, the Xperia 10 IV packs a versatile camera system that is good in most circumstances.
Details are crisp from the main rear camera and the color science offers a nice balanced picture, paired with an expressive contrast that makes each image really punchy in most lighting conditions.
The optical image stabilization (OIS) on the main lens does some heavy lifting for low-light photography, but this cannot overcome the slightly narrower pictures, which leads to noisy photos that lack detail.
How to hard reset Sony Xperia 10 Plus? In this tutorial, you can learn step by step how to hard reset your Sony Xperia 10 Plus and make it 100% clean.
You can delete all data on your SD card by navigating to Settings Battery and device care Storage SD card Format Format SD card.
If your Sony Xperia 10 Plus has any of these problems:
- Freezing,
- Overheating,
- Boot looping,
- Stop responding,
- Poor performance,
- Unexpected stucks,
- Apps keep crashing,
- Device is not opening,
- Suspicious device activity,
- Virus or malware infections,
- Randomly reboots or restarts,
- Shuts down without restarting,
Performing a hard reset process your Sony Xperia 10 Plus as pretty easy to solving these problems and help your phone running better.
Except from all these problems if you want purchasing or switching to a new device, it is essential to remove your personal information from your old device.
Performing a hard reset will be remove all data from your smartphone.
Soft reset, also known as soft reboot, is the restarting or rebooting of a device like a computer, smartphone or tablet. It closes all applications and clears any data in random access memory. Soft resetting is usually performed to repair malfunctioning applications.
- Google account
- System and app data
- Settings
- Downloaded apps
- Music
- Pictures
- All other user data
- Service provider apps and content
- The decryption key for files on the SD card (You will not be able to use encrypted files on the SD card after your reset your device to factory defaults.)
- Charge your device to at least 70%.
- Back up your data.
- Know your PIN, pattern, or password.
- Know Google Account username and password.
- Delete your Google account.
- Deactivate FRP(Factory Reset Protection)
Factory Reset Protection (FRP) is a security feature on Android devices. This screen is displayed on devices with FRP that was rolled out starting from Android 5.1 (Lollipop OS).
How to hard reset your Sony Xperia 10 Plus?
If your Sony Xperia 10 Plus is unresponsive and cannot be turned on or you can’t open your phone’s settings app, the preferred reset method should be a hard reset from the recovery mode.
You can access the recovery mode using its power and volume buttons.
Perform a hard reset by following the steps below:
- Power off your device and wait a few seconds.
- Press and hold Volume Up Power buttons together until recovery mode screen appears. (These button combinations can change on different modals.)
- When you see the Sony logo release the Power button, but keep holding Volume Up until the recovery mode screen comes.
- Leave all the buttons when Recovery Mode screen appears.
- Go to Wipe Data / Factory Reset option using Volume Down and press Power button to confirm it.
- Go to Yes –Delete All User Data using Volume Down and press Power button to continue.
- After the process finishes, go to Reboot System Now and press Power button.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus hard reset process is takes a few minutes.
The initial start-up of the smartphone will take longer than usual, so do not interfere with the device and wait for the formatting process is finished.
Now, you can follow the instructions on the screen to set up your phone and prepare it for use.
Leave us a comment to get more help.
How to hard reset your Sony Xperia Premium with Sony Xperia Companion?
Sony Xperia 10 Plus hard reset process is takes a few minutes.
The initial start-up of the smartphone will take longer than usual, so do not interfere with the device and wait for the formatting process is finished.
Now, you can follow the instructions on the screen to set up your phone and prepare it for use.
Leave us a comment to get more help.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus review
Ever thought, “I wish my phone had more consideration for the anamorphic cinema format. It’s like no-one even considers James Cameron when they design these things”?
Us neither, but Sony seems to think it’s the way forwards. The Sony Xperia 10 Plus has a very, very (very) tall screen that almost matches the aspect ratios favoured by the flashiest of blockbuster movies, designed to be seen on the biggest of screens.
A phone is never going to have the biggest of screens. At a certain point, it stops being a phone. But, yes, the Xperia 10 Plus is better primed to show off CGI-fests than just about anything else out there.
We’re well up for celebrating something different, and the Sony Xperia 10 Plus is just that. That the Honor 10 gets you more for similar money, and the Moto G7 Plus higher quality for less, is hard to ignore when you hit the checkout, though.
Design: Deep s required
Sony has made some of the longest phones for a while now. But the experience of using the Xperia 10 Plus is not what you might expect.
The Sony Xperia 10 Plus is less wide than a Moto G7. It’s no hulk, until you try to fit it in a and realise it sticks out of every pair of trousers you own.
This is, in part, because the phone does not use a notch or a trendier-in-2019 punch hole. But there’s also a good chunk of blank space above the display. Borders are only trim on the other sides.
Reaching the top of the screen to drag down the notifications bar is a real stretch. You probably won’t instantly fall in love with using a phone of this shape. But most of you will, at worst, grow to tolerate it in a day or two.
The Sony Xperia 10 Plus’s build is also surprisingly low-key. Its back is plastic. The only metal part is a panel of aluminium on the bottom, where the charge socket lives.
Plastic phones are fine. But put the Sony Xperia 10 Plus next to the glass and metal Moto G7 Plus or Honor 10 and it seems a bit, well, basic. It’s not water resistant either, but most phones at the price aren’t. And with 64GB storage it only has half the space of the Honor 10. Honor is the outlier here. 128GB £300-odd phones don’t turn up every day.
Most other bits are different, rather than worse or better, than the competition. The Sony Xperia 10 Plus has a side-loaded fingerprint scanner. It’s not the fastest and doesn’t like wet fingers much, but is otherwise pretty reliable and works from standby.
Screen: just for flicks
The big Sony Xperia 10 Plus question: what is a 21:9 aspect screen actually useful for? Movies is the obvious answer.
Blockbusters like Captain Marvel will fill the screen end to end. No holes for notches, no black bars. Sony even keeps the curvature of the screen’s corners to a minimum.
Not every film is presented in anamorphic 2.39:1, which is pretty close to the Sony Xperia 10 Plus’s 21:9. Some are 16:9, some are even 4:3. And the display’s drawbacks become clearer when you start watching YouTube, or TV episodes.
Slap on an episode of Masterchef and you have to put up with great big black bars on the sides. And BBC iPlayer doesn’t even give you the option of chopping off some of Greg Wallace’s shiny pate instead to fill the display.
You’ll also find some movies that were 2.39:1 aspect in the cinema fiddled to a more TV-friendly aspect on some streaming services. Perhaps the Sony Xperia 10 Plus is too pure for this world.
And games? Most apps and games are so specced-out to deal with different screen sizes they breeze through the transition like one of those annoying people who clothes just seem to fit, every time. The benefit of the extra-long, or wide, screen is that console-like games have more room for their virtual gamepad controls.
Your thumbs can get out of the way of the action. But visually it’s not super-impressive, because the height of the image is similar to that of a phone with a much smaller inch count than the Sony Xperia 10 Plus’s 6.5 inches. 21:9 is, sometimes, a practical benefit. It’s not an immersive one, though.
The Sony Xperia 10 Plus is only as “good at gaming” as the Moto G7 Plus too, because they have the same Snapdragon 636 CPU. This is not a super-powerful processor. You can get better for the price, and there are trade-offs.
You can only play PUBG at the lowest graphics setting. Ark: Survival Evolve runs dismally until you take a fair bit of sheen off the visuals. In a cheaper phone these don’t feel like significant sacrifices. The Sony Xperia 10 Plus is still miles off a “flagship” price, but £350 isn’t cheap if you ask us.
Software: tall order
The software is better than the cheaper Xperia L3’s, though. You get Android 9 and a newer version of Sony’s custom interface. It is much closer to Android as Google intended.
There’s an app drawer arranged in one single vertical feed, just like a Google Pixel 3 XL. And it has a gesture-based soft key system rather than three separate soft keys. Flick up from the soft key bar and the recent apps screen pops up. Flick right and the Sony Xperia 10 Plus heads to your last-used app. Give it a tap and the phone zaps to the homescreen.
Sony Xperia 10 iv.5 Months Later (HARD TRUTH!)
This interface does have the odd moment of micro lag. Certain elements might not pop up on screen for a half-second. Occasionally the keyboard takes a moment to appear. It’s not enough to get on your nerves, but does make Sony Xperia 10 Plus seem at best mid-range.
Camera and battery: mid-range mixed bag
There is some extra stuff going on in the phone’s camera, thankfully. The Sony Xperia 10 Plus has a standard 12-megapixel camera and a rear 8-megapixel one with a 2x zoom. As it’s a lower-quality, lower-res sensor, the extra detail on offer from the zoom isn’t mindblowing, but it does add an extra side to this camera.
And the main one? 12-megapixel phone sensors are some of the best in the world, but this is a rung below those. It’s still Sony hardware, the maker of the top models, but isn’t as high-spec as the Pixel 3 XL’s 12-megapixel sensor. No surprise there.
The Sony Xperia 10 Plus is a pretty good camera, with some clear hits and misses. It’s great at brightening up night shots, but those photos don’t have the detail of a phone of the next league up.
Detail during the day is strong, but it tends to overexpose some scenes and can leave other bits darker-looking than the rest. It’s because the Sony Xperia 10 Plus doesn’t have the smartest dynamic range processing around. This camera is solid, but it’d be even better with smarter software.
If the Sony Xperia 10 Plus camera performs just slightly worse than it looks on paper, given it has some of the same core specs as a top-tier phone, the battery is the opposite. It has a 3000mAh unit. That seems pretty piddly for a phone with a screen out to take on your local multiplex.
However, with real-world use its longevity is perfectly good, outstripping even the UK version of the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus we looked at recently. On normal days we might end up with about 35% charge by bed time. Even on heavier days we haven’t seen the 15% low battery alert pop up before about 11pm.
This isn’t a phone to buy if you want something that’ll last a full two days away from the plug. But it’s one of the better examples of quite how great some Qualcomm Snapdragon processors are at conserving energy these days. And, sure, Sony probably deserves some of the credit too.
How does it go again? “Now the world doesn’t move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for you may not be right for some.” And then something about jeans.
Whether you should buy the Sony Xperia 10 Plus depends almost solely on whether you’ll spend a lot of time watching cinema releases on your phone. Look ma, no black bars.
Most of us don’t do that daily, though, and life with a 21:9 screen is more mixed. You see, today’s normal phone screens strike a balance somewhere between the 16:9 of Friends re-runs and the 2.39:1 of the Marvel universe. We already had a sweet spot.
A so-so processor for the price and plastic build narrows the crowd who will find the Sony Xperia 10 Plus the phone they love the most at £350. It’s for the gang of cinephiles who don’t think the magic of film is lost on the small screen.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus Review
The Sony Xperia 10 Plus is a mid-range phone costing 429. However, it has one big quirk. Check out our review to find out.
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This content has not been updated since May 2019. For more recent tech advice for your business, why not take a look at the 2021’s top phones.
Sony’s new Xperia 10 Plus is a big phone – both literally and figuratively. It’s large, with a 6.5-inch screen, and boasts an unusual 21:9 aspect ratio – making the display three times taller than it is wide. It’s also a big phone for Sony, and we’ll come on to why in a minute. But for now, all you need to know is that while the Xperia 10 Plus is one of the most interesting phones of 2019, it remains far from perfect.
The Sony Xperia 10 Plus is one of the company’s two mid-range offerings from 2019, and costs 429. The other mid-range offering is its smaller brother, the Xperia 10.
Both phones are important for Sony. Its mobile division has been struggling for a while, and it needs these phones to strike a chord with consumers. So, will the Xperia 10 Plus perform?
Sadly, it probably won’t. The Xperia 10 Plus is an unusual phone, and that might put people off. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t without merit. There’s a lot to like about the Xperia 10 Plus, but unfortunately, it’s hampered by its biggest selling point – that 21:9 aspect ratio display.
In this review:
- Sony Xperia 10 Plus design – Everything you need to know about its ergonomics
- Sony Xperia 10 Plus screen – Can you really sell a phone on the screen alone?
- Sony Xperia 10 Plus performance – How speedy is this Sony?
- Sony Xperia 10 Plus cameras – Are the shots from Xperia 10 Plus good enough?
- Sony Xperia 10 Plus battery life – How long does it last?
- Sony Xperia 10 Plus cost and value for money – How does it compare to other phones on the market?
- Sony Xperia 10 Plus – The Verdict
Sony Xperia 10 Plus design
The Xperia 10 Plus, from a design point of view, is very unusual.
Its 6.5-inch, 21:9 aspect ratio display makes the phone simply too tall for one-handed use. In fact, it is (un)comfortably taller than even the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, a phone which we described as being “daunting” in size.
While Sony will protest that the Xperia 10’s tall-but-skinny design makes one-handed use viable, we just can’t imagine it feeling natural for most users.
However, we also found that we preferred the larger 10 Plus to the smaller 10. In a roundabout way, the 10 Plus’ extra size meant that we were more judicious with the way we used it. It wasn’t a phone that we could just pull out and send a quick message with – using it was a decidedly deliberate act. The smaller 10, on the other hand, was just tall enough to be irritating, though without being unusable.
As with the Xperia 10, though, the side-mounted fingerprint sensor, volume rocker, and power button on the Xperia 10 Plus are all located far too close to the bottom of the phone for easy use.
Fortunately, the Xperia 10 Plus does away with some of Sony’s long-held design themes. It has a blocky design, with almost sharp corners, and a large top bezel. However, the slim bottom and side bezels – along with the rounded, single piece case – are big improvements. Our review unit also came in a particularly nice navy blue, which almost turned to purple when reflecting light.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus screen
The screen is, without a doubt, the single most important aspect of the Xperia 10 Plus. It’s one of only three phones to use the 21:9 aspect ratio – the other two also being Sony phones – and it makes for some of the best gaming and video-watching experiences on the market.
It’s sharp, with a 1080×2520 resolution, although it isn’t quite as bright as we’d like. When watching a video or playing a game, you’ll wonder why more phones don’t use the 21:9 aspect ratio – it’s immersive in a way that other phones simply can’t be.
However, when you turn the phone back around to its normal portrait setting, you realise why most phones stick with a 16:9 or 18:9 aspect ratio.
While you can fit a lot of stuff onto the display, it can occasionally cause problems. Instagram, for example, will often start playing the video below the photo or video you’re trying to look at. That’s not Sony’s fault – the app simply isn’t optimized to work with this type of phone screen. But it is indicative of some of the quirks you’ll have to live with if you buy an Xperia 10 Plus.
The Xperia 10 Plus has an objectively good display that, on occasion, can blow you away. But, most of the time, it just doesn’t feel quite right.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus performance
The Sony Xperia 10 Plus uses a Snapdragon 636 processor with 4GB of Ram. In practice, this means that it won’t be troubling phones at the top end of the market – think Google Pixel 3 XL, and definitely iPhone XS – but it is more than enough for most people.
There is a slight delay in opening apps, but nothing unseemly. In fact, only the people used to the blistering speed of most flagship phones will notice anything untoward in the Xperia 10 Plus’ performance.
It can also run graphically-intensive games well enough, but it’s not a truly viable option for serious mobile gamers. The games do look good on the wide screen, though.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus cameras
Let’s start with the rear cameras. The Xperia 10 Plus has two of them, mounted at the top of the rear case – no weird middle-mounted lenses, as has been the case on Sony phones of old.
One of the rear cameras has a 12Mp wide-angle lens, which does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to taking photos. The other is an 8Mp telephoto lens, meant for zoomed-in shots.
The photos it takes are solid, if not spectacular. The cameras can struggle with the contrast between light and shadows, and the final pictures often look a bit muted. You can jazz this up with some Google Photos trickery, but you’ll never be able to truly escape the overall mediocrity of the Xperia 10 Plus’ rear cameras.
The front camera, though, is nowhere near as strong. The shots from its 8Mp lens, mounted high in the top right-hand corner of the phone, come out soft and lacking detail. It’s not a great camera, if we’re honest.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus battery life
The Xperia 10 Plus has a 3,000 mAh battery. For a phone of this size, that’s a little disappointing – especially when you consider the 5,000 mAh battery in the Moto g7 Power.
However, in practice, the Xperia 10 Plus has a perfectly usable battery life. You can typically expect the battery to last you a day of moderate use.
The phone does have an Ultra Stamina battery saving mode, which strips back features to the bare minimum in order to extend battery life. This requires a restart to activate, but will get you out of most tight spots.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus cost and value for money
Prior to the announcement of the Google Pixel 3a, we’d have said that the Xperia 10 Plus was pretty good value for money.
At 429, the Xperia 10 Plus isn’t bad value. It’s well built, has a decent range of features including a particularly strong screen, and is fast enough for most people.
However, we’d still be put off by the overall size of the phone. And, when the Pixel 3a costs less, has a better camera, provides similar performance, and feature fewer weird ergonomic issues, we’d get the Google phone.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus – The Verdict
The Xperia 10 Plus isn’t a bad phone. It’s quick, well built, and has a nice screen, and decent cameras. It’s a better effort from Sony compared to many of its recent phones.
But would we buy it? On balance, probably not. The sheer size of the phone – a direct result of the 21:9 aspect ratio – is enough to put us off. But, if Sony can get this same tech into a smaller, more orthodox phone, we’d be very interested.
Buy the Sony Xperia 10 Plus from Amazon
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