It’s the turn of the analysis of the Sony Xperia X Performance, on paper one of the best mobiles of 2016 for its high power, its spectacular camera, its water resistance or its original fingerprint reader.
Xperia X Series Top Of Range
No one misses that sales from Sony’s mobile division are far from desirable. The Japanese company became one of the biggest benchmarks in the sector more than a decade ago, but the arrival of smartphones caught the firm on foot changed. It suffered a lot with the launch of the iPhone and has been displaced over the years by Samsung and even by some manufacturers such as Huawei, Lenovo, ZTE, LG or Xiaomi, which have achieved a strong positioning in some markets.
However, even if it doesn’t make the top of the sales rankings and siren chants have even been heard about the sale of the mobile division, Sony remains one of the big ones. And that is noticeable for example at the level of innovation, for many one of the keys to the future because the Xperia family has to bet on features like playing PS4 on mobile that take advantage of all the know-how of the company.
Either way today we’re up against the analysis of Xperia X Performance, a mobile that promises spectacular performance and sits within Sony’s high-end alongside the Xperia Z5 Premium released a few months ago with which it bears a lot of similarities but hides more of a difference.
Sony has divided this new Xperia X family into three models with fairly differentiated features: the most basic is the Xperia XA, a device to battle premium mid-range mobiles, the Xperia X, a fairly balanced mobile in every respect, and this Xperia X Performance that we started to examine in detail.
A very familiar design
The design of the Sony Xperia X Performance doesn’t aspire to surprise anyone, which will surely arouse as many criticism as praise. The Japanese brand is one of the most immobilized in this section – together with Apple – for its determined commitment to the OmniBalance design that most Xperia family devices boast about.
What exactly is the OmniBalance design? Sony’s mobile division coined this term almost a luster to describe a style that focuses on creating balance and symmetry in all directions. A minimalist style that has since fallen in love with thousands of enthusiasts but which in turn arouses many criticisms for the poor evolution between the different generations.
In this case the dimensions of the Xperia X Performance seem somewhat upgradeable if we put it face to face against the rest of flagships, as it is one of the most bulky despite having one of the smallest screens.
Figures aside, however, the feelings with the phone in hand are very good. The terminal is pleasing to the eye and the touch thanks to a glass-made front that gives it a distinctive style while the back is made of brushed metal that promises to be much stronger than the competitive alarnatives.
At the design level the differences between the Xperia X Performance and Xperia X are of little significant, although the model we analyzed in these lines is a few centimeters thicker and a few grams heavier than its younger brother.
We speak for your position of a mobile with 2.5D screen glass with a determined commitment to curves as you would expect from a device with the price of X Performance, although unfortunately we have a bulging frames both on the sides and, above all, up and down the screen.
Metal bezels maintain the premium feel of the terminal at all times. On the left side we find the easily accessible slot – no tool is needed – to insert the nanoSIM and a microSD card with which we will expand the memory of the device.
On the opposite side we find a power/lock button that plays the fingerprint reader, very small but accurate and fast, next to the volume controls in a somewhat strange position – too low – and a specific button for the camera that we will talk about later.
The edges keep that style clean from Sony terminals: at the top we find the jack for the headphones and at the bottom the microUSB port to charge the phone.
The Sony logo disappears from the elegant back on which the Xperia seal sends, although we found no reference to the specific model of this terminal. In the upper left corner is the main camera – protected by a metal ring- and the LED flash.
In short, we are faced with a rather elegant minimalist design, in the same line as what we are used to seeing on other devices of the Xperia family. You’ll fall in love with Sony enthusiasts, but you may be able to gradually know those who have had Apple or Samsung’s flagships in their hands.
The good news is that we are IP68 certified, which means that the Xperia X Performance has dust protection and is submersible in the water as you can see in our video analysis.
Screen with high luminosity
The screen of the Sony Xperia X Performance consists of a 5-inch LCD IPS panel that offers a Full HD resolution (1,920 x 1080 pixels) that will gradually sound to the most demanding users as more and more devices are betting on the QHD and, in fact, we already have on the market a Sony mobile with 4K screen.
Of course, numbers aren’t everything when it comes to talking about a mobile screen. And to be fair that of the X Performance comes to the outstanding for its great luminosity that allows to work with the mobile both indoors and outdoors, even on the sunniest summer days.
In fact, in the tests carried out by our ComputerBild colleagues the terminal surpassed 600 nits leaving behind the Xperia X and, by the way, to mobiles as iconic as the iPhone 6 Plus. However, it doesn’t reach the levels we’ve seen on the spectacular LG G5 or Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
What this new Sony mobile also stands out is in contrast, which has a positive impact when it comes to playing multimedia content such as series or movies.
On the other hand the color temperature is simply correct, although perhaps tends to underline the reddish tones, something that can be easily solved through manual calibration in the phone settings.
Something similar happens with the viewing angles in this X Performance that are well above most mid-range devices but fall a little behind what some of the best mobiles of 2016 offer.
And unfortunately we don’t have Always On technology to check notifications with the screen off, something that both the LG G5 and the Samsung Galaxy S7 can boast and that would have been a very interesting extra to raise the X Performance screen to the license plate.
High-end performance
The Performance label of this Xperia comes to a glimpse when you take a look at some specifications highlighting the powerful Snapdragon 820 processor that has become the undisputed king of the «flagships» for this 2016 and that has just debuted successor.
In this case the X Performance is accompanied by 3 GB of RAM, a measure that we understand enough for the vast majority of users but that stays a step below what the competitors offer.