SONY

Test: Xperia 10 Mark IV

Sony makes few phones these days, but it is easy to forget that, in addition to the high-end Xperia 1 and Xperia 5 series, they also have the mid-priced Xperia 10 series, which has also reached the fourth generation, brand IV. Or just Xperia 10 IV as Sony writes.

The Xperia 10 Mark IV is priced at half or less than the flagship models, and of course it has both similarities and differences. The most obvious similarity is the format. The screen is in 21:9 format, which is more elongated than phones from other manufacturers and, in addition, the selfie camera is not folded, but left in a strip above the screen. The two properties combined give Sony cell phones a very characteristic “letterbox format”. In any case, between generations, the black bezels on the top and bottom have shrunk so that the Xperia 10 mark IV is less long and narrow than before. Like the Xperia 5, it can claim to be a compact phone for those who like more flexible formats. The Xperia 10 Mark IV is actually slightly smaller than the Xperia 5 mark IV. But then the most important thing is that the phone is thin, because in height it is not very compact, and if you think that the biggest problem with a phone that is too big is that you can't reach the whole screen with your thumb, then you won't find it. the solution on the Sony Xperia 10 Mark IV, where the top of the screen is out of reach.

Plastic but waterproof...The fact that it is a mid-priced model can be seen in the construction, with plastic frame and back. However, the display doesn't have very thick bezels on the sides and the phone is waterproof, which mid-priced models usually aren't. The display's glass has also not been reduced, it is Gorilla Glass Victus type, which is extra resistant to shocks and scratches. The screen is also of the Oled type, which offers good blackness and lower battery consumption, but you lose some of the advantages that you can associate with Oled. For example, there is no forever on display function, which means the clock and notification icons are visible even when the screen is off. The screen also lacks a 120Hz refresh rate, but being 60Hz it still feels fast.

The chipset that powers the phone, the Snapdragon 695, is not super fast and also only a marginal improvement over last year's Xperia 10 mark III. On the other hand, it's not too slow either, and the phone performs on par with Samsung's Galaxy A53 for the same price, but noticeably slower than the Nothing Phone 1. You can tell the phone isn't top of the line. line model, but you rarely sit down and curse the poor cell phone response.

The memory card slot and 3.5mm jack are features that are often absent from flagship models but are present on the Xperia 10 mark IV. However, I miss stereo speakers. If I watch a movie through the phone's speaker, all the sound comes from a short side of the phone. The speaker sound is also not very good. The fingerprint reader is on the power button on the side.

No professional camera...Xperia 10 Mark IV uses Android 12 as the system. The Xperia 1 and 5 set themselves apart from other manufacturers with their professional applications for photography, video recording and music. You won't find them on the Xperia 10 Mark IV, however, and the apps Sony wants to install in addition to Google's seem like useless apps. However, you can choose not to install them during the installation process.

Most of all, I miss Sony's professional camera app. Sony's tracking autofocus might have its flaws, but here you'll find a simpler camera app and a simpler camera for that matter. The main camera is indeed 12 megapixels, just like the older brothers, but the photos of it aren't as good. In simpler lighting conditions, sunlight and ambient light, both sharpness and color reproduction are good, but above all in high-contrast conditions, the camera has issues with overexposure and underexposure.

It's a good thing that there's both a wide-angle camera and an optical zoom, even if they take pictures at a lower resolution. Optical zoom in particular provides sharper images of details from farther away. The wide-angle camera, on the other hand, is semi-baked at its best, and images are often blurry around the edges. If you can live with that, I think the Xperia 10 mark IV is a good phone without too many compromises for the price.

Camera example...The fact that an image like this is overexposed in clouds and underexposed in trees suggests that the HDR feature that combines multiple exposures is not very advanced(image above).

mundophone