Sony Xperia X: First Impressions

PHUKET: Sony, few months after introducing it's Xperia X range of smartphones globally at the MWC 2016 conference, has finally launched the handsets in India.
As we said in the launch story, with Sony Xperia X, the Japanese company has focussed on its build, battery and camera over other things. It also demoed the new features that the smartphone boasts during the launch.We played with the handset for sometime and here are our first impressions.
Design and display
Smartphone design is an area where Sony has always been among the top players in the market ever since the company launched Xperia Z1. The Japanese multi-conglomerate company has this time as well played safe carrying a similar unified design profile from the Xperia Z5 series to the Xperia X series.
The mix of curved glass display and metal on the sides and back gave a premium look and feel to the Xperia X. Sony says that its designers have researched ‘premium materials, texture and carvature’ for the smartphones so it could deliver a good fit for the hands. With the Xperia X, the story is no different. Besides the premium look, it feels sturdy and might as well face a few casual drops as well.
In addition, since the device sports a 5-inch display, it is more compact than other flagship smartphones out there. This not only gives a firm grip as users are able to wrap their palms around the handsets, but also make it convenient to reach all four corners of the screen without much adjusting the grip.

The Sony Xperia X sports power button, volume buttons and a dedicated button to activate the camera or click the image is present on the right side of the handset. While there is a micro-USB port at the bottom, the headphone jack sits at the top, and the SIM/microSD card tray is on the left. Users won’t need a SIM ejector tool to pull out the tray. It is worth pointing out that pulling the tray outside or placing it back into the handset restarts the device automatically. The smartphone supports a nano-SIM and a micro-SIM. The micro-SIM slot can also house a microSD card.
There are two speakers at the front, one above the display and one below. Unlike few other smartphones, which show two speaker grills but have only one primary speaker inside, the Xperia X has two speakers at the front. We are personally a fan of front-facing speakers as the audio is directly thrown towards the user, making the content more engaging. The power button also acts as a fingerprint sensor and works almost every time.
Talking about the display of the Xperia X, the smartphone sports a 5-inch Full HD resolution Triluminos display. It is crisp and vibrant and also manages to go bright enough outdoors to become readable. However, the company could have brought QHD resolution onboard given the price tag. The 5-inch display and Full HD resolution also gives a pixel density of roughly 440ppi, making it easily viewable from different angles.

Performance and camera
The Sony Xperia X, being the flagship model in the series, features the hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 processor, clubbed with 3GB RAM and Adreno 510 GPU. Although, the processor is not at par with its more powerful sibling, the Snapdragon 820, it successfully handles the given task easily without any glitches. In our limited time with the smartphone, we tested heavy games and photo editing apps on the device. The handset was able to seamlessly run all of them.
We are still in the process to test the Sony Xperia X’s performance in varied conditions so it might be too soon to judge the handset’s CPU. The Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow operating system together with the Xperia UI also makes the device snappy and feature-rich. Stay tuned for out complete review.
The overall performance of the handset is also said to be enhanced due to the company’s native Qnovo adaptive charging technology. The technology is supposed to extend the battery life of the smartphone by two times. The device is backed by a 2620 mAh non-removable battery with Quick Charge 2.0 tech support.
Coming to the Sony Xperia X’s most boasted department, its camera, the device includes a 23MP rear camera with Exmor RS sensor, autofocus, and LED flash. It also has a 13MP front-facing camera with the same Exmore RS image sensor.
According to Sony, the smartphone can now launch the camera app, focus on the desired subject, and can click the image, all under 0.6 seconds. In our testing it performed as claimed. Users would simply have to long press the dedicated camera button to execute the process.
The smartphone also has an intelligent autofocus that results in sharper and clear images. In low light situations, Sony says it has made several under-the-hood improvements to enhance the images taken in low light. However, in real-life usage the cameras were disappointing.

The image shot at night tends to get over sharp, resulting in a more grainy shot. The camera user interface is neat and minimal except for what’s there in the ‘Superior Auto’ mode where almost 1/4th of the display is covered by an overflow window including the GPS location icon, small image preview, the shutter button, and the settings icon. In manual and video mode, the overflow window is not present and lets users view the full screen.
Sony says it has used its Predictive Hybrid Autofocus technology, which automatically guesses what subject to focus next, so that images taken at the nick of the time don’t have a blurry subject.
Verdict
Our initial impressions of the Sony Xperia X are mixed. While the company has received a thumbs up on the display, design, and features like fingerprint sensor, quick image capture and more, at the same time it has failed to impress us when it comes to low light photography and the processing power. As mentioned before, the handset could have also packed QHD resolution, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB RAM and more at the price of Rs 48,990. There are options like the LG G5, Samsung Galaxy S7 and more that offer much more on platter at around the same price segment. We are still in the process of reviewing the handset, so stay tuned to know if this smartphone is worth buying or not.
Watch the first impressions video here: