Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra Review.
The Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra is a sleek masterpiece with a great display. It boasts a familiar Sony design which attempts to keep the look up to date with the current trend for bezel-free smartphones. Sony launched the phone at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2018.
This well-rounded, mid-range phone is perfect for watching videos and taking selfies. Images are sharp, colours are punchy and a contrast ratio of 1,607:1 is fantastic.
It is 163mm tall and 9.5mm thick. Although it is a little bulky, watching videos on the phone is amazing. The display is crisp which makes it great for taking pictures and catching up on the latest shows. It offers a clear display, providing a good canvas for video content.
A mid-range octa-core Snapdragon 630 processor powers things, with 4GB of RAM and the choice between a 32GB and 64GB model, both of which are expandable via microSD card. The phone also has a sizeable 3,850mAh battery and runs Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box.
This is a relatively big phone with an enormous 6-inch screen on the front, which makes it a perfect device if you stream lots video or play games on your commute.
While the bezels to the left and right of the display are suitably thin, its top and bottom bezels are considerably chunky by modern standards.
Although the phone seems huge, you can still hold it comfortably with one hand. It looks and feels solid. The rounded sides, make it easier to grip, and chamfered edges at the top and bottom, which although a little sharp, look great.
The Xperia XA2 Ultra has Gorilla Glass 4, which protects the front and the back and is coated in a matte plastic. This makes it easier to keep clean as it doesn’t pick up fingerprints.
On the bottom of the handset, there’s a USB Type-C port with Quick Charge 3.0 support and on the right side, there is a volume rocker, the circular power button and a dedicated camera shutter button. The left side of the phone has the microSD and nano-SIM slots beneath a removable flap.
The headphone jack is placed at the top and there is a circular fingerprint reader placed just below the camera on the rear of the phone. The Xperia XA2 does not offer any kind of dust or water resistance.
Shifting the focus to the cameras, The device comes with two front-facing cameras – one with a resolution of 16 megapixels and an aperture of f/2.0 and the other an 8-megapixel snapper with a f/2.4 aperture. They’re both also supported by a single LED flash, which helps to brighten your shots in low light. The dual front camera setup lets you capture both regular and wide-angle selfies. The Xperia XA2 Ultra packs an impressive 23-megapixel rear camera and a dual front-facing camera (which features a 16-megapixel and 8-megapixel sensor). In good light, the rear camera is great.
When it comes to battery performance, the XA2 Ultra has a decent battery life – its 3,850mAh battery enables it to comfortably last almost a day and a half with moderate use, The XA2 Ultra does support fast charging
The phone is available in silver, gold, blue and black, and looks nice in all especially the gold. The gold is sleek and classy and the phone retails for just a little over R7,000 or R9,000 depending on the storage size in South Africa.
Conclusion
If you go ahead and buy one today and have a tight budget, it’s unlikely you’ll regret it, at least because you’ll save a fair bit of money. There is not much one can fault with the XA2 Ultra. It is appealing to the eye and the camera produces good-quality pictures and video. The battery life is decent and the Smart Stamina mode, which predicts how long your power will last, is a bonus. If you’re due for an upgrade, the XA2 should be the next one you get. It ticks all the right boxes at an affordable price.
By Fundisiwe Maseko
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