Sony Xperia XA Dual

The Sony Xperia XA features a bedazzling design. It has a slim and sleek body, and a 5.00-inch HD touchscreen with a resolution of 720×1280 pixels. As is the trend with Sony, the phone comes with powerful cameras – a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP selfie camera.

With an Octa-Core processor powering it, Sony Xperia XA runs on Android v6.0 (Marshmallow). It has 2 GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage, expandable up to 200GB via microSD card. And as the name suggests, Xperia XA supports dual SIM cards.

The phone comes packed with many useful sensors like the Ambient Light sensor, Proximity sensor, Accelerometer, and Compass. Priced at Rs. 16,500, this phone comes in four colour variants – White, Graphite Black, Lime Gold, and Rose Gold.

The Sony Xperia XA boasts of a slim, attractive, and compact design. Except for the right and left panels (made of aluminium), the phone has an overall plastic body. This is the reason why the Xperia XA is lightweight. It weighs only 137.4g and has dimensions of 143.6 x 66.8 x 7.9mm.

The phone features the so-called OmniBalance setup wherein the power button sits almost in the middle of the right panel. Unlike the latest models (of brands like Xiaomi and Huawei), Xperia XA lacks a Fingerprint Sensor. Just below the standby switch lies the volume button, and below that lies a physical two-stage camera shutter button. The shutter button is a welcome addition since it allows for quick access to the camera without having to unlock the phone and clicking on the camera app. On the left side, there’s a flap covering the microSD and nanoSIM slots. The back is non-removable. The bottom part of the phone houses the micro USB port. And on the top part hosts the 3.5mm audio jack.

As for the display, Sony Xperia XA has a 2.5D glass. Although the curved glass isn’t at par with that of Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, it is impressive for a phone of this range. The clean and neat design and the full-width notifications help the edge-to-edge display pop out. But the 5-inch 720p IPS LCD screen seems to be insufficient, considering that many phones in the same price range offer 1080p (for instance, Moto G4).

However, the display quality is fine and outdoors visibility is great as well. You can make alterations to the white-balance settings for a more comfortable viewing experience.

As always, Sony replaces the Qualcomm processor (a staple of most modern-day phones) with the MediaTek CPU. The device uses an Octa-Core (2 GHz, Quad core, Cortex A53 + 1 GHz, Quad core, Cortex A53) processor coupled with 2 GB RAM. It runs on  Android v6.0 (Marshmallow) and can be upgraded to Android v7.0 (Nougat). In AnTuTu test, Sony Xperia XA scored 47,959 (a standard mid-range score) which puts it at par with the Fairphone 2 and just slightly above the Nexus 5X.

For the most part, this combination of processor and memory can handle the necessary day-to-day tasks easily, without showing any glitches in the performance. However, for memory-intensive apps such as games, the performance may tend to get sluggish. So, if you aren’t into heavy-duty gaming, the Xperia XA should suffice.

The phone comes with a 13 MP rear camera with Exmor-RS sensor and an 8MP front camera, with Exmor-R sensor. Although cameras have always been one of the strongest points of Sony, the Xperia XA falls short of expectations on this front. The camera app loads quite slow and offers an unreliable and sluggish performance. Often, you might face problems with the shutter button.

While daylight shots through the rear camera are decent, vibrant, and capture plenty of details, the same cannot be said for low-light settings, thanks to the missing optical image stabilisation option. The camera offers various modes like HDR, Manual, Landscape, and Superior Auto mode (which allows you to point and shoot). Apart from this, it comes with Quick launch, Hybrid Auto-Focus, Auto-Scene Recognition, and 5x Clear Image Zoom.

Compared to the rear cam, the 8MP front camera is pretty good. It has Auto-Focus and a wide-angle lens of 88 degrees and supports 1080p video recording at 30fps. Captured shots are vivid.

Overall, the camera could have been much better.

Another weak link of the Sony Xperia XA is its battery. It has a non-removable 2300mAh battery, which proves to be grossly insufficient even for a phone of this size (5-inch screen). Even for normal-to-moderate usage (including calling, browsing, using social media apps and the camera), the battery percentage tends to drop down quickly. Just imagine what would happen to the battery if you were to play games on it! Sony did incorporate fast-charging in this model, but it still rounds up to no good.

It has connectivity options like Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Mobile Hotspot, Bluetooth v4.1, FM radio, micro USB 2.0, GPS with A-GPS and Glonass, and dual SIM.

To conclude, Sony Xperia XA dual isn’t something you should go for (unless there’s an offer you just cannot resist!). Coming from the house of Sony, this model greatly disappoints on several fronts – low-resolution screen, average camera performance, poor battery life being the most prominent ones.

Instead, you can opt for the Moto G4 that offers much better specs in the same price range, or you can shell out a few extra bucks and get the OnePlus 3 or even Sony Xperia M5.