There are incredible additions to the smartphone market this year and most of the high-end phones are really innovative. The bad thing is that they mostly come at a price, that’s not affordable by all (most) of us, so there are lots of people who’d like to pay the half price for a decent quality phone that’ll work perfectly fine for them. That’s why there are phones like Xperia XA1 model by Sony, that has literally everything you need in a smartphone device, also works perfectly and quickly, has a powerful camera and lots of other features that will appeal to anyone and definitely comes at a reasonable price!
This XA1 has the typical and simple for Xperia series design, powerful hardware capacity, good working camera and does everything smoothly backed up by a decent battery life. Getting this phone for about $260, will save a huge amount and will offer what you’d basically expect for a price like this, which surely won’t disappoint you and make you later regret the decision of falling for it.
Design
One of the XA1’s best bits is just how narrow it is. There’s barely any extra space to the left and right of the display, only above and below it, which as a result, makes the phone literally a dream to handle. In the fashion of the Xperia series, it has a rectangular form and is not the thinnest out there but that doesn’t mean that it’s not 143g weight and feels like a feather.
The body makes the optical illusion that it’s full metal but the case is definitely not that. Most part of the body is made of plastic, while only the sides and edges are made of metal. This could mean that it will easily scratch on the plastic part and scrub and damage on the sides if it does experience impact to the ground, so you’d better get a protective case with the purchase of the phone.
Aside from most phones at this price range, it features a micro USB port and USB-C port for charging but lacks a fingerprint sensor, which is not that big of a deal but for a price of $260-300 most phones have such but you could still use a PIN code or a password.
The controls on this phone are pretty nice and could be found only on the right side. There’s a volume button, power one under it and a physical camera button at the bottom, so you could easily click it when you turn the phone sideways to take a “horizontal” photo. On the front, there are no buttons, they show up when you press the power button and the screen lights up.
Performance, screen, and camera
In terms of performance, the phone surely does what it has to do! The quick delivery’s assured by the Octa-core processor that’s clocked up at 2.3GHz with Mali-T880MP2 GPU. For a small phone like this, the processor works perfectly, although it’s not a top-notch one. Different from most phones, this one comes only at a 32GB internal storage version but could be upgraded with the micro SD up to 256GB, while the RAM is a 3GB non-upgradable one.
In terms of display quality, the biggest thing to cry about the XA1 is the screen resolution. All the low budget smartphones in this price range, like the Moto G5 and Honor 5X, have 1080p displays, but Sony decided to go out with a 720p panel.Otherwise, though, it’s a decent enough screen. Colours are less super-saturated here than on the more expensive Xperia XZ, without looking weak.
Like any good LCD panel, the image doesn’t look recessed behind the top layer of the display.Some users complain that they experience a strange lag while typing on the 5″ IPS LCD display but that could be ditched by changing the keyboard interface from Swiftkey (that’s used by Sony) to Google’s one. The battery life offered by the 2300mAh battery is fairly decent and its endurance is close to ordinary, which means that you have to charge it overnight.
Sure enough, the camera is pretty remarkable for the money in several respects. You’ll definitely get way more detail than the average mid-range 13-megapixel phone.The huge main 1/2.3in sensor clocks in at up to 23MP, while the secondary (front) camera, located on the front on the very left from the Sony logo on the top lid, is at 8MP quality and does a great job at taking selfies.
On the contrary, the night taken shots aren’t too exciting either as, like other Xperia handsets, the XA1 doesn’t have optical image stabilization. It’s the most effective way to improve the night photo quality of phone cameras, and this is sadly missing out here.
