Introduction
The 10 Plus, along with the smaller 10, are the first two phones that will attempt to sell you on a 21:9 screen - Sony may want you to think the flagship Xperia 1 is the true ambassador of the crazy-tall aspect, but that one is months away and the 10s are here now.
This year it's the Xperia 1 at the top of Sony's smartphone lineup and the Xperia 10 and 10 Plus rank below it. It's the Xperia 10 Plus we'll be focusing on now - the midranger to replace the XA2 Plus/Ultra of yesteryear.
So, the Xperia 10 Plus has a 6.5-inch display with 1080x2520px on it - we've seen tall, but not that tall. The other bits aren't as striking - we'd even call them ordinary. The Snapdragon 636 chip is often seen in the segment, though perhaps on the lower end of it - a 710 wouldn't have been out of place on the 10 Plus. Battery capacity is on the low side of average too, but the RAM and storage numbers are about right, and the camera count is sensible, plus the configuration is even more so - there's a telephoto secondary module on the back, as opposed to a simple depth sensor.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus specs
- Body: Plastic unibody with "metallic finish"; Gorilla Glass 5 on front; 167 x 73 x 8.3 mm; 180 grams; Navy, Black, Silver, Gold color options.
- Display: 6.5" IPS; 21:9 aspect ratio; FullHD+ (1080x2520px).
- Rear cameras: Primary: 12MP (1/2.8"). Secondary: 8MP (1/4") 2x telephoto camera (only available for stills). Hybrid AF, SteadyShot, ISO 12800 for photos and 3200 for videos; 4K (16:9 or 21:9); SteadyShot.
- Front camera: 8MP (1/4"), ISO 3200 for photos and 1600 for video.
- Chipset: Snapdragon 636 chipset, octa-core processor (8x1.8 GHz Kryo 260), Adreno 509 GPU.
- Memory: 4GB/6GB (in China) of RAM + 64GB storage; Up to 512GB microSD card support.
- OS/Software: Android 9.0 Pie.
- Battery: 3,000mAh Li-Ion; Smart STAMINA, Battery Care.
- Connectivity: Dual-SIM/ Single-SIM options available (market dependant); Cat.12 LTE; USB 2.0 Type-C; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; GPS + GLONASS; Bluetooth 5.0; NFC; 3.5mm audio jack.
- Audio: Single bottom-firing speaker, DSEE HX, LDAC, Smart Amplifier.
- Misc: Side-mounted fingerprint reader.
Let's put off marveling at the phone's unusual proportions and say a few words about what's going to come inside the box.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus unboxing
That is, as far as we can tell. We did get a box, so it is technically an unboxing, though it's not strictly retail-grade contents we have here even if the box itself is final. We only got a basic charger (5V/1.5A) and a USB-A-to-C cable to go with it.
However, the Xperia 10 Plus supports Power Delivery, and Sony now makes a PD charger (which it didn't when it launched the PD-capable XZ3), so it could come in the box as well. We've also seen bundles containing headsets. As is typically the case with Sony phones, the retail package contents vary by market and even carrier, so it's worth checking with them beforehand.
Design and 360-degree spin
Sony is betting on cinema-wide displays this year, though the flip side of a 21:9 aspect in landscape is a 9:21 aspect in portrait orientation. So, the Xperia 10 Plus is one unusually tall smartphone. That's to be expected given the specs, of course, but seeing in person is striking anyway.
Perhaps even more striking is that for all its height, the 10 Plus is not entirely uncomfortable to handle. We're not saying you can reach the top of the display with one hand. Or even the top half of the display - not really, no, it's definitely a two-hands device, for most use cases. Having said that, for actual phone-related tasks - the forgotten by some act of having a voice conversation - the tall aspect works really well.
It does have a bit of a top-heavy feel, seeing as how a lot of the phone is away from you. The fact that there's a sizeable forehead also adds to it, if not necessarily in heft, then at least psychologically.
The top bezel does comfortably hold the usual stuff - without the need for notches or punch holes. The earpiece is here (not a secondary speaker, bummer) as well as the front-facing camera, plus the proximity and ambient light sensors. There's also an RGB notification LED, a feature headed for extinction.
The rest of the bezels are all equally thin, or thick, depending on how you look at it. They're not as minimal as the sides on a Galaxy S10, but then no one's expecting it from the midrange Xperia. What's important is that there's as much frame to the sides of the display as there is below it, which will please people with internet-grade OCDs, and there is not a lot of frame, which should please most anyone.
You're also likely to appreciate the well-placed fingerprint reader on the right, which is exactly where your right thumb goes when picking up the handset. Mind you, left-hand users will find that unlocking with your index finger is only a little less natural than the right thumb and works almost all the time.
There's the tiny caveat that the fingerprint reader is just that - it's not a power button and there's an actual power button above it. By all accounts, a legal misstep in the past meant that Sony couldn't offer the two-in-one combination of a side mounted power button and a fingerprint reader in the US, so for the models that featured such a configuration, Sony would just disable the fingerprint reader.
Separating the two is one solution with at least a couple of implications. On a positive note, Sonys in the US will now be able to have side-mounted fingerprint sensors, yay. On the flip side, however, there's the fact that in your mind you expect to be able to lock the phone by pressing where you pressed to unlock it, and it doesn't work. Even after a week of using the Xperia 10 Plus, we still found ourselves occasionally pressing the fingerprint reader, hoping it'll send the phone to standby, to no effect.
Moving on, there's a volume rocker below the fingerprint sensor. Much like the power button, we feel like this is too small and has short travel - they're both usable, it's just that they could have been a touch larger and clickier.
For the first time in ages, there's no dedicated two-stage shutter release button on a Sony flagship or midranger. That's to say, there isn't one on the Xperia 10 and 10 Plus, the Xperia 1 still gets to keep it. We're not too saddened by its demise, really - tapping on a screen has become the go-to method for picture-taking. For those times when you're wearing gloves, a double press on the power button will launch the camera app, while the volume rocker can be set as the shutter release, so you're covered for 99% of the use cases.
Since we're already doing the walkaround, let's mention the card slot situation - it's one of our favorite solutions for more than one reason. It doesn't need a pin, you just stick your fingernail and pry out the flap along with the SIM card tray attached to it. And then you realize that you can insert a couple of nano SIMs and a microSD - dedicated memory card slots are the best. The microSD card goes a separate slot, the push to insert, push to eject type.
The one bad bit in this whole thing is that the Xperia will invariably restart if you pull the card tray out and will do it once more when you put it back in. It's not great if all you wanted to do is replace the microSD card.
Down on the bottom you'll find the USB-C port - flanked by a grille on each side. Only one of these grilles hides a speaker, however, the other is just for the primary mic. Up top, there's another mic, for noise canceling purposes, and a 3.5mm jack for delivering noise into your ears through just about any set of headphones out there.
The back of the Xperia 10 Plus is made of plastic and it's got a 'metallic finish', Sony says. It's rather a unibody design with the rear curving into the edges and towards the Gorilla Glass 5 of the front. Sony has mostly pulled off the look, and some of the feel, too - it's not as premium as real metal, but just as slippery.
After generations of Xperias with cameras in the top left, recent Xperias have almost completely switched to central mounted ones, and the dual cam of the 10 Plus is in the middle too. The two cameras share a common window and the entire assembly sticks out by a good 1.5mm. It's hardly a big deal though as most cameras these days can't seem to fit in the slender bodies we've been told we want.
The Xperia 10 Plus measures 167x73x8.3mm, so yes, it's slim - it's slimmer than the XA2 Ultra/Plus (9.5/9.6mm around the waistline), and it's also slimmer than the current XZ3 flagship (9.9mm, though a lot curvier). That said, the Xperia 1 is that all-important 0.1mm thinner than the 10 Plus.
The two do weigh just as much, both tipping the scales at 180g. Which does sort of beg the question of how the 10 Plus with its plastic build and 3,000mAh battery is as heavy as the glass-aluminum 1 with a 3,330mAh cell? Anyway, we're not saying the Xperia 10 Plus is unreasonably heavy - in fact, it's right in the middle between the 176g Moto G7 Plus and the 183g Galaxy A9 (2018).
Pioneering the 21:9 aspect
The Xperia 10 Plus packs a 21:9 aspect display and it's one of the first phones with such extreme screen proportions - others have peaked at 19.5:9 and usually have at least some type of notch. Not the Xperia - the rectangular 6.5-inch LCD panel only has slightly rounded corners.
It's got a FullHD+ resolution of sorts - 2520x1080px, which works out to a density of 422ppi. We'll revisit this when the Xperia 1 comes around with its 21:9 '4K' display that's not strictly 4K on the long side, nor is it 2160p on the short one.
4x 9:21, so 36:21?
Anyway, back to the 10 Plus. In our testing, the phone posted a maximum brightness a little short of 600nits with the slider all the way to the right and we didn't see a boost with Adaptive brightness enabled. A fairly typical illumination of the blacks below 0.4nits means a good contrast a little over 1500:1. It's no OLED, but it's not a bad LCD either.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0.381 | 583 | 1530 | |
| 0.404 | 631 | 1562 | |
| 0.341 | 519 | 1522 | |
| 0 | 455 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 418 | ∞ | |
| 0.377 | 490 | 1300 | |
| 0.465 | 600 | 1290 | |
| 0 | 453 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 455 | ∞ | |
| 0.322 | 468 | 1453 | |
| 0 | 455 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 399 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 606 | ∞ | |
| 0.325 | 437 | 1345 | |
| 0.332 | 473 | 1425 | |
| 0.469 | 590 | 1258 | |
| 0 | 429 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 435 | ∞ | |
Minimum brightness is 5.9nits, so while it doesn't go as low as 2nits like some others do, it's still perfectly acceptable for use in very dark environments without poking your eyes out.
There are two tiers of color settings - 'Color gamut and contrast' and 'White balance'. The first one lets you choose between Standard and Super-vivid modes of color enhancement as well as letting you keep the enhancements off. 'White balance' then lets you choose between Warm, Standard, and Cool color temperatures or you can dial in your own RGB values with the sliders.
While none of the modes makes any claims for accuracy, we sort of expected 'Off' to be the 'sRGB mode'. Well, it's not - we got an average DeltaE of 6.1 and a maximum of 10.8 with whites heavily shifted towards blue. The out-of-the-box Standard setting gave us an average DeltaE of 6.6 and a maximum of 12.4, while in Super-vivid those values were 6.8 and 13.5 when comparing against multiple patterns from the sRGB color space. We tried the image enhancement modes against AdobeRGB and DCI-P3 targets but there was no match. Setting the White balance to 'Warm' didn't dramatically improve things, while 'Cool', predictably, was very blue.
The closest we got to a faithful representation of the sRGB color space was with the 'Color gamut and contrast' set to Off, and the RGB sliders at R255, G73, B0, but even that only got us an average DeltaE of 4.0 and a maximum of 8.0. There was a slight improvement in the whites too, but they remained distinctly bluish.
Display color settings
Sony Xperia 10 Plus battery life
There's a 3,000mAh battery inside the Xperia 10 Plus, a fairly small capacity for a recent phone with a screen this large. The Redmi Notes 6 and 7 have their usual 4,000mAh at their disposal and that's as much as the vivo V15 and Oppo F11 Pro have as well. The Galaxy A9 (2018), meanwhile, packs 3,800mAh worth of juice. Then again, the Moto G7 Plus has the same 3,000mAh capacity battery as the Xperia.
For what it's got under the hood, the Xperia 10 Plus does a very good job. We clocked 21 hours on a 3G voice call, ten and a half hours of surfing the web over Wi-Fi, and an hour more of looping videos offline. Adding in the standby draw, we arrived at an overall Endurance rating of 78 hours. Imagine what could have been done with some extra capacity.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSer App. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Sony Xperia 10 Plus for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
Fully charging the Xperia with the adapter we got bundled (5V/1.5A) took a less-sluggish-than-expected 2:12 hours and 30 minutes into it the battery indicator read 31%. We tested with an 18W Power Delivery charger (a Pixel one) and got a slightly better 40% at the half-hour mark and 1:50h for a full charge from flat - we gather those are the numbers you can expect if using the Sony 18W PD charger, should you happen to get one in the box or buy it separately.
Loudspeaker
The Xperia 10 Plus has a single loudspeaker down on the bottom - don't be fooled by the two grilles, the left one is just for the microphone, and the earpiece is just... an earpiece. There is no stereo setup here.
Having said that, the phone can be plenty loud - it scored an 'Excellent' mark in our loudspeaker loudness test. And while it does remain distortion-free at max volume, it's severely lacking in low-frequency reproduction - forget about the bass on the 10 Plus.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing |
Overall score | |
| 66.4 | 73.4 | 79.3 | Very Good | |
| 69.5 | 72.4 | 77.8 | Very Good | |
| 67.6 | 72.3 | 80.5 | Very Good | |
| 67.8 | 70.0 | 84.2 | Very Good | |
| 65.0 | 74.1 | 83.6 | Very Good | |
| 68.3 | 72.7 | 81.8 | Very Good | |
| 67.5 | 77.8 | 77.6 | Very Good | |
| 68.8 | 73.9 | 80.8 | Very Good | |
| 70.7 | 73.8 | 80.7 | Very Good | |
| 69.1 | 74.8 | 81.4 | Very Good | |
| 71.7 | 74.4 | 81.6 | Very Good | |
| 70.8 | 72.4 | 84.9 | Excellent | |
| 70.0 | 73.8 | 87.0 | Excellent | |
| 69.8 | 71.5 | 90.5 | Excellent | |
| 68.5 | 73.2 | 90.7 | Excellent | |
| 75.6 | 76.0 | 81.1 | Excellent |
Audio quality
The Sony Xperia 10 Plus delivered audio of excellent clarity with an active external amplifier with all of its readings as good as we’ve come to expect from smartphones these days. Degradation with headphones was rather minimal too - the spike in stereo crosstalk was about average, but none of the other readings were affected.
However, we found the Xperia 10 Plus lacking when it comes to maximum loudness - the phone was below average on both occasions, suggesting that it might have trouble driving high-impedance headphones to sufficient volume.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| +0.01, -0.08 | -92.4 | 88.5 | 0.0044 | 0.016 | -96.7 | |
| +0.06, -0.02 | -96.3 | 89.4 | 0.0043 | 0.020 | -57.8 | |
| +0.04, -0.00 | -93.3 | 93.2 | 0.0029 | 0.0077 | -93.8 | |
| +0.07, -0.01 | -92.9 | 93.2 | 0.015 | 0.076 | -68.8 | |
| +0.04, -0.04 | -90.7 | 90.7 | 0.0015 | 0.014 | -94.5 | |
| +0.05, -0.29 | -92.5 | 92.5 | 0.024 | 0.296 | -55.0 | |
| +0.02, -0.02 | -93.1 | 93.0 | 0.0039 | 0.0088 | -81.9 | |
| +0.64, -0.38 | -88.6 | 91.9 | 0.0069 | 0.606 | -50.6 | |
| +0.01, -0.04 | -92.3 | 92.4 | 0.0041 | 0.0085 | -80.7 | |
| +0.45, -0.54 | -92.2 | 92.8 | 0.0084 | 0.492 | -51.5 |
Sony Xperia 10 Plus frequency response
You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.
Vanilla Android Pie
The Xperia 10 Plus boots Android Pie, and it's a slightly more Google-ish variation than the one we saw on the Xperia XZ3 last year. What we mean is that now you can have the pill navigation (which Sony calls 'Swipe up on Home button') in addition to the classic nav bar. You can find the setting in the display menu, and enabling it makes the 10 Plus behave almost precisely like a Pixel phone.
Swipe up setting • Homescreen • App drawer • Folder view • Notification shade
There are unique Xperia bits on top, however - ones that are meant to help out with the tall aspect of the display and the extreme overall height, particularly on this larger 6.5-inch model (the 6-inch Xperia 10 non-Plus is naturally easier to operate). Chief among those is one-handed mode.
It's not a new thing, it's just that being able to shrink the UI and bring it closer gets a new meaning on a phone of the 10 Plus's proportions. A quick double tap on the Home button does just that and even makes the notification shade almost conveniently reachable with one hand - good luck with that on the full-screen UI.
One-handed mode
Then there's Side Sense - a custom drawer-like interface that can be triggered by tapping twice on a handle located on the side of the screen. You can move the handle up and down, adjust its size, and have it on either side or both sides. The menu itself is sort of a take on the Android Pie recent apps interface, which is notably missing from its intended location as a row in the app drawer.
Side sense on the XZ3, where it debuted, was a bit more powerful and for example, you could use it to take a picture when in the camera app. This functionality is gone now, but in all fairness, it's unlikely to be missed. You can, however, disable the handle from showing up over apps on a per-app basis.
Side sense
An inherent benefit of an extra long display is the ability to show more items in long lists - that includes boring stuff like the settings menu, and marginally more fun stuff like, say, Instagram.
Another good use for a 21:9 screen is showing two apps in two larger-than-average halves of the said screen - if only Google hadn't completely ruined the mechanics of going into multi-window with Pie.
There's a downside to the unusual aspect too, in that some apps may not be able to display properly in it. We ran into this with one of the benchmarks we do, but not the more common apps you're likely to use. Even so, the possibility for incompatibility is there.
Settings (almost all of them) • Instagram (1 extra row) • Multi- window • and in landscape • Incompatible app
Sony also notably handles its own multimedia display and playback. Album features both photo and video support, can connect to the cloud and local network services and is pretty good at organizing galleries and doing the occasional light edit on a shot.
The Music app is simple and well organized, without lacking any important features. All the while, it looks very appealing with large format album art (and automatic art download) and a flat design. It also features Google cloud integration. There are also various options to tweak sound including the DSEE HX up-scaler and the Automatic optimization which work with wired headphones. Others, like aptX HD, are compatible with Bluetooth devices.
Album app • Photo Editor • Music app • Audio settings
Synthetic benchmarks
The Xperia 10 Plus gets its computing power from a Snapdragon 636 chipset - a fairly popular solution in the midrange. However, for the 'super mid-range' that Sony wants to call the 10 Plus's market position, a 660 or even a 710 would have been a much better fit. It's not that the 636 is a bad SoC, there's just not much 'super' about it. The handset is equipped with 4GB of RAM for most of the world and 6GB in China. We have a non-China 4GB version for testing.
Starting out our benchmarking routing with GeekBench, we're witnessing a predictable performance from the Xperia with single-core results within single digits of competitors with the same internals. The 10 Plus is significantly more powerful under single-core loads than S630 phones (last year's XA2 Ultra and XA2 Plus) but lags behind Snapdragon 660 devices and the Kirin 710-packing Honor 8X. The Xiaomi Mi 8 SE excels in this test with its Snapdragon 710 posting a 40% higher score than the Xperia - now that's super midrange.
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 8 SE
1890 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
1650 - Nokia 7 plus
1634 - Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite
1628 - Meizu 15
1620 - Honor 8X
1618 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
1611 - Oppo F11 Pro
1560 - Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
1497 - vivo V11
1457 - Nokia 7.1
1344 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
1342 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
1340 - Motorola Moto G7 Plus
1334 - Motorola Moto G6 Plus
882 - Nokia 6 (2018)
882 - Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra
866 - Sony Xperia 10
848 - Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
839
A similar distribution of powers can be observed in the multi-core test only here the Oppo F11 Pro with its Mediatek Helio P70 takes the lead ahead of the S710-powered Mi 8 SE. The Xperia is again towards the lower end of the pack, though it is still a step up from last year's models, if that's the way you prefer to look at it.
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Oppo F11 Pro
6020 - Xiaomi Mi 8 SE
5908 - Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite
5894 - Nokia 7 plus
5893 - Meizu 15
5877 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
5763 - Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
5673 - Honor 8X
5651 - vivo V11
5535 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
5411 - Nokia 7.1
4975 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
4933 - Motorola Moto G7 Plus
4927 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
4780 - Nokia 6 (2018)
4225 - Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra
4198 - Motorola Moto G6 Plus
4160 - Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
4144 - Sony Xperia 10
3985
Over in Antutu, the Xperia 10 Plus posts one of the better scores for its chipset configuration, so that's got to count for something. It's still no match for the higher-end Snapdragons that can be found for the money.
AnTuTu 7
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 8 SE
170218 - Oppo F11 Pro
150218 - Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite
143257 - Nokia 7 plus
140820 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
140500 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
139075 - Honor 8X
137276 - Meizu 15
125444 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
120573 - Motorola Moto G7 Plus
117829 - Nokia 7.1
117175 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
115605 - Nokia 6 (2018)
90918 - Motorola Moto G6 Plus
90263 - Sony Xperia 10
89697 - Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra
89110 - Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
86374
Graphics performance is another area where the Xperia shows its weakness compared to better-equipped rivals. Thanks to the more it needs to render, it's even lagging behind last year's models with the 630 chipset in onscreen benchmarks. If you're into heavy gaming, you'd be better off looking for a Snapdragon 660 or 710 powered phone.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
23
15
15
15
15
15
14
14
14
12
10
10
10
10
9.9
9.8
9.7
9.6
9.5
7.1
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 8 SE
22 - Meizu 15
15 - Nokia 7 plus
14 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
14 - Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite
13 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
13 - Honor 8X
13 - vivo V11
12 - Oppo F11 Pro
12 - Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
11 - Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra
10 - Nokia 6 (2018)
10 - Nokia 7.1
9.7 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
9.7 - Motorola Moto G7 Plus
9.7 - Motorola Moto G6 Plus
9.3 - Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
9.1 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
8.4 - Sony Xperia 10
7.8 - Oppo F5
6.8
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 8 SE
13 - Nokia 7 plus
9.1 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
9.1 - Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite
9 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
9 - Meizu 15
8.8 - Oppo F11 Pro
8.5 - vivo V11
8.2 - Honor 8X
7.6 - Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
7.5 - Nokia 7.1
6.3 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
6.3 - Motorola Moto G7 Plus
6.3 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
6.3 - Motorola Moto G6 Plus
5.6 - Nokia 6 (2018)
5.6 - Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
5.5 - Sony Xperia 10
5.4 - Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra
5.4 - Oppo F5
4.2
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 8 SE
12 - Meizu 15
9.2 - Nokia 7 plus
8.6 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
8.3 - Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite
8 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
7.7 - vivo V11
7.4 - Oppo F11 Pro
7.4 - Honor 8X
6.7 - Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
6.5 - Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra
6 - Nokia 6 (2018)
6 - Nokia 7.1
5.9 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
5.9 - Motorola Moto G7 Plus
5.9 - Motorola Moto G6 Plus
5.2 - Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
5.1 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
5 - Sony Xperia 10
4.3 - Oppo F5
4
On a positive note, the Xperia 10 Plus showed no signs of overheating, only slightly warming up after repeated benchmark runs. Throttling wasn't an issue either and results only varied slightly between runs. Overall, the phone is a good daily performer, but there are better options for more demanding mobile gaming.
Dual camera on the back
The Xperia 10 Plus is packing a classic regular+tele camera combo unlike the smaller model which has a depth sensor in place of the tele. The Plus's main camera uses a 12MP 1/2.8" sensor with 1.25µm pixels behind an f/1.8 aperture, 27mm-equivalent focal length lens. The telephoto secondary cam has an 8MP 1/4" sensor with 1.12µm pixels paired with an f/2.4 aperture, 53mm-equivalent lens. It's a 2x zoom on paper, though not strictly so when you account for the lower resolution. Both cameras have phase detection autofocus.
The Xperia 10 Plus adopts the camera UI from the XZ3 with dedicated viewfinders for stills and video, and extra modes behind a mode button. In the stills mode viewfinder, you have settings for flash, self-timer, aspect, basic white balance, and exposure compensation. There's also a toggle to switch between front and read cameras, but you can do that more easily with a swipe on the screen.
A new addition compared to the XZ3's app is the 1x/2x toggle to switch between regular and tele cameras. Meanwhile, a remnant remains of the times when there was a physical shutter release button and consequently a right-side-up - the UI doesn't rotate accordingly if you tilt the phone to landscape to the right instead of to the left.
As usual, there's a Manual mode, where you get to tweak exposure parameters yourself. It's not the most full-featured - white balance, for example, can only be set to one of four presets, but not by light temperature. ISO range is 50-3200, so that's pretty good, while shutter speed can be set between 1/4000s and 1s. You can dial in exposure compensation in the -2/+2EV in 1/3EV increments and you can also focus manually, but there's no focus peaking.
Camera UI
Image quality
The Xperia 10 Plus's daylight images taken with the main camera have very pleasing colors and good detail levels for its 12MP resolution. However, dynamic range is quite limited and in its attempts to preserve the highlights, the Xperia has a pronounced tendency to underexpose.
Camera samples, regular camera
There's no option for HDR in the full auto photo mode, but you do get a toggle for that in manual mode. With HDR off, the shots turn out identical to those in auto mode, regardless of the recognized scene indicating that it doesn't bother applying Auto HDR in auto mode. The Backlit scene mode that it does engage isn't remotely that, evidenced not only by the photos but also the difference in processing time that actual HDR shots require on the Xperia 10.
With HDR turned on in manual mode, however, you do get significantly improved results in terms of dynamic range, with images viewed at fit to screen magnification having much better-developed shadows and highlights. However, there's also a substantial sharpness penalty with HDR shots being noticeably softer than non-HDR ones.
Manual mode: HDR off • HDR on • HDR off • HDR on • HDR off • HDR on • HDR off • HDR on
Moving on to the telephoto camera, we observe that in its 2x mode the Xperia still outputs 12MP shots despite having an 8MP tele camera. Predictably, then, per-pixel detail isn't stellar - there's obviously some upsampling going on. Even so, there are clear benefits to using the telephoto camera to bring distant detail closer - it has clearly resolved the real pattern of the blinds in the last photo below, which the regular cam failed to do (as would be the norm for a 12MP wide angle cam at this distance, for that matter).
Telephoto shots do come with a boost in saturation, compared to regular ones - not a deal-breaker, but we'd like to have more consistency between the two cameras.
Camera samples, telephoto camera
Low-light photos from the Xperia 10 Plus's main camera are no better than barely usable, exhibiting a general softness and lack of fine detail. The limited dynamic range is evident in these situations as well.
Camera samples, regular camera, low light
Telephoto low-light images are no better, with the overall softness becoming obvious even at fit-to-screen magnifications.
Camera samples, telephoto camera, low light
Once you're done looking at real-life samples, don't forget to head over to our Photo compare tool to check out how the Xperia 10 Plus deals with our studio charts.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus against the Galaxy A9 (2018) and the Moto G7 Plus in our Photo compare tool
With a couple of cameras on its back, it's only natural that the Xperia 10 Plus takes blurred background portraits. It does so in the dedicated Bokeh mode and uses the secondary camera for image capture and the primary one for depth detection. That means you get the better focal length for headshots, but also the inferior sensor/lens combo. Having said that, the portraits are still saved in 12MP, as opposed to 8MP.
Then there's the matter of just how picky the Xperia is about the distance to your subject, often simply replacing 'Move closer' with 'Move further away' in the on-screen instructions. If you do manage to get the distance right, the Xperia will do a good job with subject separation and background blur. However, simply because the telephoto camera isn't all that great to begin with, and then there's upsampling at play, portraits aren't as detailed as we'd like.
Bokeh samples, people
Bokeh samples, non-human subjects
8MP selfies
Selfies on the Xperia 10 Plus are handled by an 8MP camera with a 1/4" sensor and 1.12µm pixels - so same as the telephoto on the back? Not really, of course - this one has a much wider, 24mm-equivalent lens with an f/2.0 aperture.
The selfies are decent, but nothing more, which is okay for the Xperia 10 Plus perhaps, but not very encouraging for the Xperia 1 flagship that shares the same hardware. There's enough detail for an 8MP image, skin tones are nice, though overall color reproduction is a bit muted. And then in anything but ideal lighting things quickly turn sour with even reasonably well lit indoor scenes ending up soft and very noisy.
Selfie samples
There's a portrait selfie mode too, but the best bit about it perhaps that it blurs out the noise in the background. Subject detection isn't infallible and is especially bad with the spiky hair of this particular reviewer, though, in all fairness, it's no worse than your average fixed-focus single-cam implementation. The thing is though, the portrait mode introduces an extra level of softness in the subject as well, not just the background.
Portrait selfies
Video recording
The Xperia 10 Plus records video up to 4K resolution at 30fps, with 1080p resolution at 30 and 60fps available as well. There's also a 21:9 mode where you can record in the phone's native aspect at 3840x1644px.
Only the main camera is used for video capture and the 2x toggle that pops up when you select 1080p resolution is a bit misleading - it too comes out of the main camera, only it's a cropped view from it.
4K videos are encoded at around 56Mbps, which is a little higher than average. 1080p/60fps footage gets 30Mbps flat, while 1080p/30fps is treated to 17-17.5Mbps. Audio is recorded in stereo and gets a 156kbps bitrate regardless of video mode.
One issue immediately visible in the Xperia's videos (particularly in 4K, but also in 1080p/30fps and not so much in 1080p/60fps) is the presence of weird patterned artifacts in areas of solid color. It's really distracting and robs the 10 Plus of what could have been very high marks for video performance.
Because artifacts aside, 4K footage is nice and detailed, with pleasing colors and surprisingly good dynamic range, given our previous experience in stills. 1080p/30fps retains most of these positive impressions, and we'd have been inclined to call it one of the better examples of FullHD video, had it not been for the issues above.
1080p/60fps comes with the drop in sharpness which we've come to associate with higher frame rates on smartphone videos (there are exceptions, yes). Interestingly enough it also brings slightly duller colors.
Stabilization is available in both 1080p and 4K which is nice. That said, 1080p footage ends up smoother with particularly less jumpy pans. Stabilization in 4K is decent and if you keep your pan speed low, you shouldn't have any issues.
Here's a glimpse of how the Xperia 10 Plus compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.
Sony Xperia 10 Plus against the Galaxy A9 (2018) and the Moto G7 Plus in our Video compare tool
Competition
The Xperia 10 Plus is going to have a tough time on the free market. The Galaxy A9 (2018), for example, has dropped in price significantly since launch and now goes for less than the Xperia. The A9 is hard to recommend for its image quality but does have an ultra wide camera in addition to the regular and tele, plus a superior display, better battery life, more powerful chipset and more RAM. The Xperia has an extra-tall display to counter all that, plus Android Pie out of the box, while the A9's Pie is coming who knows when.
Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018) • Motorola Moto G7 Plus • Nokia 7 plus • Xiaomi Mi 9
The Moto G7 Plus, on the other hand, does have Pie, and a similar vanilla version of it to the Xperia's. It's got the same chipset and a display that performs on par with the one on the 10 Plus - so mostly similarities then. Well, the Xperia outlasts the Moto in most battery disciplines, but the G7 Plus has an altogether superior camera output, front and back, stills and video. And the best bit - the Moto is about a quarter cheaper.
Even more affordable is the Nokia 7 Plus - one of our favorite midrangers, regardless of the fact that it's a year old. Even so, it's got the more powerful Snapdragon 660 inside, longer battery life and a fast charger in the box, plus it's more premium-ly built than the Xperia. By now it's gotten the Pie update too, being an Android one device and all, so the Xperia doesn't have an edge on this either. The 10 Plus's display is brighter than the Nokia's so there's that, but the 7 Plus's photo and video quality is a notch up.
If, on the other hand, you're willing to spend a bit more, it's worth looking at the Xiaomi Mi 9 - it'll set you back to the tune of 20% more in Europe, but likely less so in Asia, where the Mi may even end up cheaper. The Mi 9 is a proper flagship with a Snapdragon 855 inside, the camera trifecta on the back, superior display, longer battery life... There's little in the Xperia's favor in this battle.
Verdict
We understand the rationale behind a 21:9 screen - the narrower body should be easier to reach across, while the elongated aspect still allows for a lot to be shown in one screen - especially for vertically scrolling apps. And it really works - once you've gotten used to the dimensions, you come to appreciate the benefits and look away when a legacy app refuses to stretch to the full height. But aside from the novel display aspect ratio, the Xperia 10 Plus doesn't stand out in any particular way.
Pros
- The extremely tall aspect of the display makes the 10 Plus stand out and is also a boon for movie watching, showing long lists or scrolling social network apps.
- The panel is bright, contrasty and good outdoors (but not very color accurate).
- Nice fingerprint reader experience, dedicated microSD slot.
- While not outstanding, battery life is good for the capacity and screen size.
- Vanilla Android 9.0 Pie.
Cons
- The very tall body could be awkward to handle, plus it's very slippery.
- Some apps do not play well with the 21:9 aspect.
- More powerful hardware can be had for the same or less money.
- Camera doesn't have a stellar dynamic range and HDR mode impact sharpness; low-light photos are subpar for the price range
- Selfied
- Selfies are unimpressive.
The Xperia 10 Plus is not a bad phone, anything but. It's just that there's more than one better option at the same price point, and also a lot of phones that are just as good if not better, and more affordable. It's tough to recommend at its launch price unless you're hell-bent on having one of the first 21:9 displays, be it for productivity or procrastination. Outside of this tight demographic, we don't see much appeal for the Xperia 10 Plus.
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