Sony Xperia XA - small, smart, simple and reliable

Despite the small by modern standards displays, five-inch smartphones are constantly highly popular with consumers. They like fragile girls with a small palm. Demanded by people who want to get a convenient device for purely utilitarian purposes. This is the class of smartphones that Sony Xperia XA represents. This phone has received a non-standard for the brand’s products a frameless display, a modified layout of control elements. It is stylish and recognizable, and thanks to the use of simple materials it boasts an affordable price for its class.

Specifications

The table shows the main technical characteristics of the Sony Xperia XA.

CPU	HelioP10, 8x2000 MHz
GP	Mali860T-MP2
RAM / ROM	2/16 GB
Screen	5 inches, IPS matrix, 1280x720, 312 ppi
Mobile networks	GSM + WDCMA
Cameras	Front 8Mp Rear 13Mp, flash pulse
Battery	2300 mAh, QuickCharge 3.0
Special features	FM radio, NFC, DNLA, LTE, MU-MIMO WiFi, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.1 with the ability to connect sports trackers

The device weighs 135 g, is made in the case of plastic and metal, has dimensions (HxWxT) 144x67x8 mm.

Sony Xperia XA

The smartphone comes in two varieties.. The model with f3111 encoding works with one SIM card. More advanced f3112 Sony Xperia XA dual can offer the use of the services of two mobile operators at once. Cards are in standby mode and serviced by a single communication module. Options, when both SIM work in 4G networks, is not provided.

Design and materials

Frameless display in the performance of Sony - this is only ultra-thin side borders of the screen. Habitual lovers of brand products horizontal zones above and below remained unchanged. Sony Xperia XA is made in plastic case. The power frame is made of metal. On it - designer side plates made of plastic. This is the difference between the model and the ULTRA phablet, where the display frame is made only of anodized aluminum.

Important! Plastic pads on the frame of the Sony Xperia XA negatively evaluated by the owners of the device. They are frankly slippery and create insecurity when working with the phone.Maybe the manufacturer will eliminate this disadvantage in the following modifications or in some improved Sony Xperia XA plus model.

The Sony Xperia XA dual sim, as well as the f3111 single-symbol model, has a recognizable design. However, the use of plastic has its negative sides. The surface of the cover and lining of the smartphone frame is easy to scratch. Therefore, immediately it is recommended to buy a caseto preserve the original state of the Sony Xperia XA.

And one more negative feature of the surfaces of the phone show the reviews of the owners. A fashionable frameless display protected by glass with rounded edges has poor oleophobic coating. Fingerprints quickly accumulate. They collect dust, and as a result the screen looks unaesthetic. Buying a smartphone Sony Xperia XA, you need to prepare for the need to constantly wipe the front panel.

The device can be purchased in one of four options for body color. Black, white, gold lime and rose gold are offered. In the same shade, the rear panel, frame and horizontal zones on the frontal part are made. This makes the appearance of the smartphone neat, quite expensive and aristocratic.

Location of controls

Mechanical buttons control the smartphone located on the right side. Here at the bottom camera activator. Almost centered round metal power button. It is easy to touch, as it protrudes above the surface of the frame. Slightly lower volume rocker. Errors when you click, as evidenced by the reviews of the owners of the device, almost does not occur. Mainly due to the unique configuration of the power button.

In the upper area of ​​the left side, behind a removable flap, there are slots for installing SIM and SD cards. In the performance of Sony Xperia XA dual tray on the slide extends. SD card slot in all cases separate. The lid covering the compartment is installed in the recess of the frame. She leans back with a fingernail, no special tools are required.

Overview of Sony Xperia XA on the location of the elements on the ends of the body:

• Bottom center of the charger interface or for connecting a data communication cable, on the right is the main speaker grille and a microphone for talking;

• on top of the jack for wired headphones and microphone hole block noise suppression.

The upper horizontal area above the display placed the SONY logo in the center. To the right of him is the front camera optics.To the left is a large window of the LED event status notification. Mesh conversational sound emitter is thin and narrow, it is almost not noticeable.

The rear plastic cover, which imitates metal, has in the upper left corner a large optics eye of the main camera with a flash LED located under it. In the visual center is the name of the XPERIA series. A slightly higher visible logo designating the location of the NFC sensor antenna.

Screen

Sony Xperia XA got a five-inch IPS screen. It is covered with a protective glass with rounded edges.

1. The geometric dimensions of the screen are 61x110 mm.
2. The resolution is 1280x720.
3. The pixel density is 293 per inch.

Characteristics in numerical terms may seem quite modest. However, a small display area allows you to receive bright, detailed image. Individual pixels can not be seen with the naked eye.

The brightness of the backlight is adjustable from 3.6 to 550 cd per square meter. there is adaptive adjustment function depending on the readings of the light sensor.

Important! The system changes the brightness does not work in the full range. The minimum automatic adjustment is 4.7 cd per sq.m.This approach is due to the manufacturer reviews of owners of other models of Sony. Too low backlight brightness at the technical minimum caused discomfort when reading or watching movies in the dark.

The measured display contrast is 970: 1, and the average approximate gamma index is 2.63. This is much higher than the recommended value in 2.2. As a result, the colors when displayed on the Sony Xperia XA display do not match the real. Users who do not like the balance of shades when displaying pictures on the screen can choose one of the pre-set image enhancement modes. Offered:

• without treatment;
• Mobile Brava Engine2 for video processing and photos;
• maximum saturation and contrast mode for working in sunlight.

The smartphone Sony Xperia XA has the ability to adjust the display characteristics of each of the color channels. This allows you to calibrate the display with sufficient accuracy to obtain the most authentic shades.

Hardware platform

Small and stylish, Sony Xperia XA is built on a fairly powerful processor platform. The SoC Helio P10 from MediaTech is selected as the main module.Performed on 28 nm process technology, the chip has 8 cores with 64-bit architecture, operating at a frequency of 2 GHz. For the miscalculation of graphics used GP MaliT860 MP2. Common hardware platform completely similar to Sony Xperia XA ultra installed in the phablet. However, in a model with a five-inch screen, the processor unit has to process significantly smaller amounts of data.

The Sony Xperia XA has impressive performance results. Its technical characteristics in numerical terms do not allow to predict records. However, five inches of the display, 2 GB of RAM give a small smartphone the opportunity to reach out in synthetic tests to models equipped with Snapdragon 650 class processors.. Features Sony Xperia XA with head enough for any modern problems.

1. WoT shows 61 frames per second at maximum graphics settings.
2. Modern Combat 5 renders a stable frame rate of 30 frames per second.

Important! In the test Bonsai Benchmark Xperia XA bypasses its older model, the Sony Xperia X, built on the Snapdragon 650. Overtaking the frame rate by 8 frames means a 13.5% advantage.

Using plastic for the back cover means the inevitable uneven distribution of heat and a decrease in heat sink.Pictures of the smartphone in infrared radiation confirm this assumption. During the ten-minute CPU load body warmed to 41 degrees Celsius at ambient temperature of 24. Moreover, the main heat center was clearly visible in the upper part of the back cover.

Autonomy

The 2300 mAh battery, which is installed in the Sony Xperia XA, is clearly not enough even for a five-inch display. Despite such a modest supply of energy, the phone shows acceptable work time intervals in different modes.

1. Reading when illuminated 40% of the maximum - about 10 hours.
2. HD quality video playback (720p), from the Internet, the included Wi-Fi module is about 8 hours.
3. Popular games with maximum graphics settings - 2 hours 30 minutes.

Intervals of work were measured with the power-saving services disabled. Even without them, Sony Xperia XA will surely live a full day, if not abusing watching videos and games. If you use branded services Stamina, it is easy to achieve acceptable indicators of autonomy for any user.

Cameras

The price of the Sony Xperia XA smartphone does not imply a record of megapixel cameras. However, the model offers many pleasant surprises. One of them - AR Effect mode allows you to add animations, text information and much more to your photos.

The front camera Sony Xperia XA has a 8MP sensor. She doesn't have a flash of her own. However, the pictures are quite high quality. For professionals will be useful setup modewhere you can change almost all the parameters of software and other processing.

Comments to the work of the main rear camera Sony Xperia XA users do not. The system allows you to make really high-quality photos. The camera turns out:

• almost uniform sharpness across the entire field of the frame;
• good detail long-range plans;
• excellent text detailing;
• correct white balance across the entire field of the frame;
• smooth sharpening as you remove the plan;
• detailed foregrounds.

According to experts, the main camera Sony Xperia XA turned out unexpectedly good. She has developed software firmware, fast focusing. The Clear Image protocol allows you to receive photos after digital scaling with almost no loss of quality.

Cameras (front and rear) shoot smooth video thanks to software stabilization system. Mode with a resolution of 4K is not provided. The maximum possible format for the main camera is 1920x1080 FullHD.

Is it worth spending money

The Sony Xperia XA is definitely worth buying. Smartphone is smart, quite autonomous, recognizable, conveniently lies in any hand. At the same time, it offers convenience in the form of individual slots for memory cards and SIM, as well as the unique style and quality of Sony. And while he has an unexpectedly good camera. No buyer can resist such a set of merits. And if you immediately buy a case, some minuses of the engineering solution of the model will be eliminated immediately.

Sony Xperia XA