Sony Xperia X Performance Unboxing, First Impressions

The Xperia X Performance is Sony’s current flagship that sits on the throne above its Xperia X and XA siblings. Can the king of the new Xperia X series help Sony rise? Here’s our unboxing and initial impressions of the device.

The box of the new Sony handset is far from striking, just a straight-forward package neatly labeled with a shiny Xperia branding. Inside we have: earphones, a micro-USB cable, travel charger, a few paper works, and the device itself. The device is protected by a sheet of plastic you’ll have to remove before using. Also, the plastic has some printed guides for accessing the SIM card, and where the NFC chip is placed which is beside the front camera.

The device has a 5-inch display with a 1080p IPS LCD panel topped with a beveled scratch-resistant glass. The panel has two of Sony display technologies built to it namely Triluminous display and X-reality Engine. This basically means you’re getting only the best from the maker. It is accompanied by a 13-megapixel camera for selfies, a couple of sensors, and the earpiece slash stereo speaker setup up front.

On its right side is the long power button which doubles as a fingerprint scanner, a weirdly positioned volume rocker, and a physical camera shutter key. It’s good to see that Sony’s not yet ditching the shutter key.

On the left side we just have the card tray for two micro SIM cards and microSD card. It’s a hybrid system wherein the slot 2 can be used with either a microSD or a micro SIM. The tray is easy to access and there’s no need for an ejector pin (two thumbs up for that!).

The top side houses the 3.5mm headphone jack and a noise-cancelling microphone for clearer calls while the bottom end of the phone has the micro-USB port for charging and connectivity and the main microphone.

From the old sandwiched glass design, Sony has shifted its attention to materials choices. We now have a brushed aluminum back panel that’s occupied by the main 23-megapixel shooter with an LED flash at the top-left corner.

Despite the change in name from the Z series, the design of the X Performance (and the other two as well) remains loyal with its rectangular brick body with slightly curved corners for gripping. Indeed, aluminum is a better option over glass that’s prone to damage especially when dropped. It also gives the phone a more mature aesthetic look. Fortunately, the body is IP68-certified for dust and waterproofing.

With the Performance moniker, the handset is powered by the top chipset available — the Snapdragon 820. It’s paired with an Adreno 530 GPU and 3GB of RAM. We do wish that Sony had put in more RAM to their flagship. A strenuous multitasker will be able to use up the memory faster than 4GB or 6GB RAM phones.

Being a Sony phone, the camera department is no slouch. There’s a main 23MP shooter w/ predictive hybrid autofocus using the best available Sony sensor. Selfies are also top notch with the 13MP front camera. And yes, 4K video recording is available.

All of this hardware is ran by Android 6.0 Marshmallow with minor tweaks done by Sony that’s not far from the Android Vanilla flavor. A non-removable 2700mAh battery with Adaptive Charging Technology provides the needed juice.

Sony Xperia X Performance specs:
5-inch Full HD Triluminos display @ 1920 x 1080 pixels, 441ppi
Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 quad-core CPU
Adreno 530 GPU
3GB RAM
64GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD, up to 200GB
23MP predictive hybrid autofocus f/2.0 rear camera w/ LED flash
13MP f/2.0 front-facing camera
Dual-SIM
4G LTE Cat9
Wi-Fi 802.11ac
Bluetooth 4.2
NFC
GPS w/ A-GPS, GLONASS
Fingerprint scanner
IP68 certified
Android 6.0 Marshmallow
2700mAh battery

The Sony Xperia X Performance will undergo our review process in the coming week complete with camera samples and performance benchmarks. The unit we have is provided by our friends from Widget City. It’s currently listed for Php 29,990 (see listing here).