home page evaluating Article Details
Sony Xperia XA Ultra, a model of large screen mobile phones, detailed evaluation
Cui Ye 2017-07-28 15:56

Now there are hundreds of millions of users on social network media, and it may be difficult for you to stand out from them, especially because there are so many online celebrities, but now there is a mobile phone that can help you show yourself with perfect self portraits, which is also one of the missions of Sony Xperia XA Ultra.

At present, only two mobile phones on the market are equipped with front camera optical anti shake, and it is one of them. Look at the parameters of its front camera, a dedicated LED flash and a 16 megapixel 1/2.6 "aperture sensor, which is exactly the same as the main camera on the Galaxy S6!

In addition to the screen size, Xperia XA Ultra looks similar to Xperia XA in other aspects. In the new Xperia X series, the appearance design of Xperia XA is the most impressive. XA Ultra is also Sony's representative work on large screen mobile phones. Its screen has a higher 1080P resolution. Although it has a metal frame, it still makes the screen frame very narrow. In our database, XA Ultra is the narrowest one among the 6-inch screen phones we have measured.


Main parameters of Sony Xperia XA Ultra:


Negative equinox


The front camera of XA Ultra is amazing, even more amazing than the main camera on Xperia XA. Therefore, we think the main camera performance of XA Ultra should be better. After all, the main camera has 21.5 million pixels (1/2.4 '' aperture IMX230 stack), which is another Oppo F1 Plus (the front camera is more powerful than the main camera).

Finally, compared with Xperia XA, XA Ultra has a larger memory and battery. Other aspects are really similar. It has the same chip and software as Xperia XA. In addition, the battery is also a point of deduction. For a 6-inch screen and 8.4mm thick mobile phone, 2700 mAh is really small.

However, we love the Sony Xperia XA too much, and it is also the brain power of the big screen, so we decided to look at this XA Ultra with a more positive and optimistic attitude.


Unpacking, appreciation and hardware configuration


Obviously, the box of XA Ultra is bigger than that of its predecessors. When the box is opened, the mobile phone lies flat in it, covering almost the whole area (I can imagine how big it is!). A charging plug, a mirco USB cable, and several manuals are missing. These are the only things in the box.

The charging plug is 1.5A. By the way, Sony has different accessories in the package according to different regions. The American market usually has a fast charging plug. Before buying, you'd better make sure that the version you buy has a fast charging plug. If you don't have a fast charging plug, remember to find a charging plug that fits MTK Pump Fast Charging 2.0 instead of Qualcomm Fast Charging.


The three-dimensional dimensions of the XA Ultra body: 164x79x8.4mm, which also makes the XA Ultra the narrowest screen frame in the 6-inch mobile phone, beating the previous record holder Xperia C5 Ultra by 0.6mm.

However, XA Ultra is not so outstanding in other aspects of appearance. The market is full of 6-inch phones that are smaller, thinner and lighter than XA Ultra. The width and weight of a large mobile phone become particularly important if you want to make it comfortable to hold it. However, the XA Ultra is so thick, but it can't fit a larger battery capacity.


hardware configuration

Sony Xperia Z Ultra is one of the earliest and best large screen phones. This gadget has a 6.4 inch screen since 2013, and the Z Ultra is super thin, 6.5mm! What's more surprising is that it also has a 3050 mAh battery (larger than XA Ultra, which seems to be hitting the face), with a metal frame and glass panel, and a round power key embedded in the frame.

T2 Ultra and C5 Ultra were released in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Gradually, Sony has brought out a 6-inch super large screen mobile phone almost every year, so this year is no exception. It inherits the advantages of C5 Ultra (C5 Ulra has a 13 million pixel front camera with LED flash) and introduces XA Ultra.

This XA Ultra front camera is more amazing than ever before, with larger sensor size, higher pixels, and optical anti shake. In addition, XA Ultra looks more high-end, with a metal frame. Although plastic is still used on the back, it is not an ugly ordinary plastic, but a smooth, comfortable, high-quality polycarbonate. We think this change is great and successful.

The purpose of introducing Sony's past history of large screen phones is to tell readers that Sony is not the first time to touch large size phones. If you like the previous Ultra series, you will undoubtedly like the XA Ultra this time. The 79mm body width allows you to hold it with one hand without pressure, but if you want to operate and send WeChat code, you must put both hands together. It is understandable for such a large phone. The machine is much heavier than we expected, and it will be very tiring to hold it for a long time. The weight of XA Ultra is almost the same as that of Xiaomi Max, which has a full metal body and a 4850 mAh battery.

One thing to commend Sony is that it has made the XA Ultra screen frame as narrow as possible. We have looked around the mobile phone industry, and the XA Ultra is the narrowest screen frame in the 6-inch mobile phone. The screen frame is so narrow that even if you hold the phone, it may cause false touch.

The front panel glass is 2.5D and scratch resistant. Although Sony doesn't make a big deal in this part, the smooth connection between the screen edge and the metal frame makes you feel very comfortable! And the 2.5D glass has great visual effect.


The frame of the fuselage is made of metal. However, the top and buttons are slightly different from other parts. Although this is a small problem, if there is no color difference, the visual effect of the fuselage will be better.


In addition to the front camera, there is a special flash, earpiece and distance and light sensors for self portrait on the top of the screen. This front camera is the most eye-catching part of the front of the fuselage. It looks larger than the ordinary front camera. At a glance, you can see that it is a tough character.

There is something inconspicuous next to it - LED message notification breathing light

There is nothing at the bottom of the screen. It's a pity that Sony didn't use this opportunity to add a front speaker (like HTC BoomSound) for it, despite the large position at the bottom. The only speaker is placed at the bottom of the fuselage, with a mirco USB interface in the middle and a microphone on the right.

There is also a microphone on the top of the body, which is installed together with the 3.5mm headphone connector.

All the physical keys on the XA Ultra are on the right side of the body. There are power key and camera shutter key, and the volume key is placed between them. These keys are very comfortable and respond quickly.

The power key is designed as usual. The iconic aluminum alloy round key inherited from the Z series, Xperia XA and XA Ultra, have no fingerprint recognition. Sony explained that the reason is that the fingerprint recognition module cannot be placed on the body with such a narrow screen frame, which is understandable, but we still hope to see fingerprint recognition on it!

There is a card slot cover on the left side of the fuselage. XA Ultra is not waterproof, so it can be seen that this is just an ordinary card slot cover.

Open the card slot cover, and there is a very solid card holder inside, which is used to install SIM cards and mircoSD cards. We don't have a chance to try the XA Ultra with dual SIM cards. That version of XA Ultra has a very long card holder, and you can try two SIM cards and SD cards at the same time (you absolutely need it, after all, it only has 16GB of storage space).

The back of the fuselage is a smooth and smooth polycarbonate plastic back shell, which makes it look and feel great! Compared with C5 Ultra, its back shell is not easily stained with fingerprints, but after a day's use, it will inevitably make the back shell dirty.

The main camera and flash are located in the upper left corner of the back of the fuselage, and the NFC is located slightly upward in the middle of the back. Recently, some NFCs of Sony's mobile phones have been placed on the front of the body, which is not easy to use. I'm glad that Sony has changed this shortcoming!

In general, Sony Xperia XA Ultra looks very tall, and it feels the same way, leaving us a good impression. In addition, XA Ultra has an ultra narrow border that looks cool, which is very rare in the current mobile phone industry. The metal frame also makes the phone look solid.

 

Screen, data connection and battery

XA Ultra has a 6-inch screen, which is huge even today! With 1080P resolution, 367ppi is much clearer than the 720P screen (294ppi) of Xperia XA. We are very satisfied with the performance of this screen. For most consumers, this is enough, and the 1080P screen will not bring too much power consumption.

The screen uses an IPS LCD panel, which has a great visual angle. Although it doesn't use Sony's Triluminos technology like the X series, to be honest, we don't see much difference between the two with the naked eye.

 

As for the average color difference of the screen, the average value is 7.4, and the highest value is 13.4. The parameters look very similar to Mi Max of Xiaomi. However, it is still inferior to some AMOLEDs (such as Samsung Galaxy A9 or Oppo R7 Plus).

The main reason is its white balance. You can adjust the RGB color channel of the screen through the system. It may be difficult to adjust it to a correct value with the naked eye. Just adjust it to a color you like.

The screen has two adjustment modes - Mobile Bravia 2 enhanced engine and Super Vivid ultra realistic mode. Bravia makes the colors of pictures and videos more vivid by reducing noise and enhancing image clarity (this function can only be realized in the system album). Super Vivid makes the image more beautiful by enhancing the gamma curve. Neither mode will affect the maximum brightness and color accuracy of the screen.

Speaking of screen brightness, the XA Ultra screen is very bright, much brighter than screens of the same size! The brightness can reach 530 nits while maintaining a high contrast of 1000:1. When you turn the brightness to the lowest, the screen is only 6.7 nits bright, which makes you feel no dazzling feeling when you use it at night.

Surprisingly, the screen recognition in the sun is very good. Although AMOLED's performance is more excellent, at this price point (even Sony's flagship Z5 does not perform well in strong light), XA Ultra's performance is very sincere.

 

data connection

Xperia XA Ultra has two versions of single SIM and dual SIM cards, which can realize LTE, Cat4 150Mbps/50Mbps and HSPA+data connection, and WiFi a/b/g/n (the speed can reach 150Mbps, but there is no WiFi ac). Bluetooth 4.1 can realize low-power operation, high-quality aptX audio streaming, and NFC.

MircoUSB 2.0 is used for charging and data transmission. It also supports the USB OTG function for connecting external devices. If you want to connect an external USB flash disk and other storage devices, you must first install a file browser to achieve this function.

Sony's Video&TV SideView application can control your Bravia TV through WiFi connection (this phone is not equipped with an infrared remote control, so you can't control other TVs). Of course, FM radio is an old-fashioned pastime, but Sony has added some new ways to play FM raido - music recognition function. When you meet a song that you haven't heard before, identify it and you will know.

 

Battery

The battery on the Xperia XA Ultra is not large, only 2700mAh. Not that we are picky, but you can see that C5 Ultra phones of the same size all have 2930 mAh batteries. Not to mention Xperia Z5 Compact, it's a phone with a 4.6 inch screen! It can insert 2700mAh battery!

Considering that the battery is also the weakness of Xperia XA (2300mAh battery, the same chip as XA Ultra), we don't have much hope for the battery life test of XA Ultra.

Surprisingly, the battery test results were much better than we expected, significantly improved compared with the XA on the 5-inch screen (but both performed similarly in web browsing and video playback tests). However, compared with the C5 Ultra, it has not made much progress, and its performance in the mobile phones released in 2016 is just normal. Like other 6-inch screen phones (or larger ones), they can achieve 100 hours of standby life and nearly 20 hours of web browsing. Take XA Ultra out, I think you need to prepare a power pack!


system

Android 6.0 marshmallow system with a touch of Sony

Sony's latest X series product line is equipped with the latest system - Android 6.0.1. What is necessary is that Sony will load some of its own apps in it. The multimedia music business is Sony's trademark. In addition, Sony has not made too many changes to the system level.

Compared with other manufacturers, Sony's system is particularly bulky. The 16GB built-in storage is only about 8GB in fact, so you have to buy an SD card, because photos, videos and concerts occupy your memory all at once.


▼ The lock screen interface can be customized freely. Slide left to unlock. Pull down to see the notification center. Strangely, slide right to unlock~  


▼ The main interface looks similar to the native system. In the main interface, you can see some of the most commonly used apps and a search bar (similar to iPhone).


▼ The theme can be changed freely. You can find and download your favorite in the theme store (free and paid).


▼ The notification center is identical to the native Android. We have to say that we don't like Sony's own apps at all, because there are often a lot of tips about those apps in the notification center.  


▼ The multi task center is also the same as the native Android. The previous floating window app has been canceled.

 


▼ The intelligent cleaning tool will regularly clean the cached data in the apps you don't use frequently. You can manually turn off this option in the settings.  


▼ Original Android has not always done a good job in data backup. Now Sony can provide a good solution. Information such as contacts, information and phone settings can be stored on Sony accounts, or SD cards and external storage devices.  


▼ One bonus point is the one hand mode, which can reduce the interface to the range that can be controlled by one hand by sliding from the edge of either side of the screen to the inside.

 


performance

The Xperia XA Ultra is equipped with MTK MT6755 Helio P10. The 5-inch XA also uses this SoC, but it has more memory than the Xperia XA - 3GB of memory, which makes it easier to switch multiple tasks. The XA Ultra's CPU is an 8-core processor that can reach up to 2GHz, while the GPU is a dual core Mail-T860.

 

In general, compared with Xperia C5 Ultra, its performance has not been greatly improved. The performance of XA Ultra is similar to that of Oppo R7 Plus and Moto X Play using Qualcomm Snapdragon 615.

This GPU performs well on the 720P of the 5-inch XA, but not so well on the 6-inch 1080P screen of the XA Ultra. It can be seen that XA is just ahead of XA.

  s

In any case, the performance of XA Ultra is enough for daily use, but if you want to play large games, it will be difficult.

 

Phone, SMS and multimedia

The new Xperia family has a new feature - automatic phone response. When you enable this function, the system will connect the call, and then automatically play the audio you have recorded in advance, and then record what the caller said for you to listen to. You can set the trigger mechanism and the audio automatically played by the system.  


Sony's SMS interface is very beautiful. You can send it to your friends with special cute texture expressions (you can also download emoticons like WeChat). Sony uses the SwiftKey sliding input keyboard, which has become very popular (Chinese people say they don't like it), and can also choose the one handed keyboard mode.

 

Sony's album app is super easy to use!

The photos in the album are classified by month. Zoom with your finger to change the number of photos you view. You can check where your photos were taken on the map (you can also manually add a geographical location to your photos) or view them in a folder. Photos can be modified through their own Sketch software - you can add text, stickers or hand drawn patterns.  


video

The previous movie app has disappeared and is integrated into the current video app, where you can watch TV programs and movies. Now you can view popular content such as movies and American dramas through tags.  


audio frequency

XA Ultr a performs very well in the external amplifier test. The audio output is very clear and the maximum volume is very high. The audio quality is damaged and distorted after the headset is inserted.

 

camera

Xeria XA Ultra has a 21.5 million pixel main camera with aperture f/2.2 and 1/2.4 '' sensors. Although it is not the flagship camera on Xperia X and X Performance, it is also great! This camera is also equipped with compound auto focus (contrast+phase focus), and also supports object tracking, although this function is not as good as its peer X high-end series.

The camera UI is similar to other Sony phones. Slide up and down to change the camera mode, and slide left and right to switch the front and rear cameras.  


Camera modes include full automatic mode, manual mode, and "Camera App" for download, providing more interesting and interesting modes for the camera, such as panorama and AR enhancement mode.  


The front camera has parameters of 16 million pixels, 1/2.6 "size sensor and f/2.0 aperture, as well as a dedicated LED flash and optical anti shake. This is the most powerful front camera of almost all Sony mobile phones!

The quick capture function is also available. In the lock screen interface, press the shutter key to start capturing immediately. You can not only capture photos, but also record videos immediately (manual setting is required). Although not as fast as the high-end X series, it is really fast. When snapping quickly, the camera is not always able to focus and adjust the exposure, so you may need to check the effect after each snapshot. Although the imaging speed is better than the 5-inch XA, taking pictures in HDR mode will become extremely slow. When you press the shutter to take an HDR photo, the system needs a certain amount of time to complete it. During this time, you can click anywhere and nothing will be reflected until the HDR photo is taken.


Photo quality

The main camera left us a very good impression. This 21.5 megapixel camera can capture very rich details, and there is very little noise. The photo is very clear when viewed without zooming, but because of noise reduction, some details, such as plant leaves, will be slightly blurred.

We focus on full automatic mode, manual mode and manual mode+HDR. In full automatic mode, the camera can detect the type of scene you take, and then make some adjustments accordingly. Manual mode does not have as many settings for adjustment as other cameras do.

We found that photos taken in the automatic mode tend to be more saturated with white balance color, and some photos can be seen to have obvious yellowing. The manual mode will take more accurate color photos and gamma curves completely different from the automatic mode, with higher contrast. We also prefer the photos taken in this mode.  

(Full automatic mode/manual mode)

(Full automatic mode/manual mode)


Sony's camera products will automatically start HDR mode in full automatic mode according to the situation, but it often fails on XA Ultra. Only when HDR is enabled in manual mode can we take some better photos. XA Ultra's tolerance performance is excellent. If you turn on HDR mode, you can take better photos in complex light environments.

(Full automatic mode/manual mode/HDR mode)

(Full automatic mode/manual mode/HDR mode)


The performance in low light environment is not ideal. You may need to take many times to get a usable picture. There is a lot of noise, and the details are lost seriously. But at this price, I can understand.

(Low light environment: automatic mode/manual mode)


The size and height of the photo taken in the panoramic mode is 1080px, the resolution is relatively general, and there are many problems with photo splicing. You can see the overlap.

 

Most phones of the same level as XA Ultra have only 13-16 million pixels, and Sony has an inherent advantage in terms of resolution.

 

Video capture

Both front and rear cameras can capture 1080P video at 30 frames per second, and HDR can be used for video recording. The video shot is very clear and tolerant, with no noise. The white balance/color accuracy is a bit strange (too saturated color). The focusing process is very stable and there is no out of focus. The captured sound is also very clear, and can even filter out the background wind noise.

 

summary

In general, this mobile phone performs very well. The Z series used to be great, but that's a long time ago. Now the X series is tepid. The introduction of XA Ultra proves that Sony is still working hard to make these high-end phones.

We like the appearance of Xperia XA (even more than the X series). Now we love this XA Ultra even more! In addition to this large screen, the front camera is also one of the reasons why we are fascinated. This camera is the best phone you can buy on the market at present, and even more expensive phones do not have this configuration.

HDR mode photography is a bit slow. The XA Ultra should be equipped with a faster processor. Although there is no problem in daily use, you will find its disadvantages when you play large games and process photos. This huge 6-inch screen has high brightness, high contrast and a perfect viewing angle. It is a pity that the color restoration is not very good. The metal frame also adds a bit of high-end quality to this phone, but Sony should install a battery with larger capacity!

 

Key points of test report

Share with friends Share to Weibo
Scan WeChat to share the page with friends
It is recommended to use the built-in sharing function of the current mobile browser
-->
Related articles