Sony Xperia 10 III  review

 Hey what's up guys will be here for gsm

arena this is sony's new Xperia x3

oh I mean mark 3. and it looks pretty

much the same as last year's

Xperia 10 mark.

ii there's more going on here besides

the looks though so let's dive in and

see what's new in our full review.

if it ain't broke don't fix it said sony

probably.

the new Xperia 10 brings the same

squared-off glossy look like last year's

a model with gorilla glass 6 protection

and a polycarbonate frame although the

Mark 3 is a little heavier

it still brings a pretty lightweight

form factor they're so

similar I'll admit I had to double-check

a few times to keep track of which phone

was which.

you even get the same premium ip68 rated

water resistance

even though the Xperia 10s are

mid-rangers not flagships

on the front is a 6-inch OLED screen

with a tall 21 by 9 aspect ratio

a 1080p resolution and gorilla glass 6

protection.

the bezels are a little thinner this

year but the difference isn't night and

day

despite the popular trends sony hasn't

bumped up the refresh rate this time

around.

you get the standard 60 hertz this

the display is decent of course the

sharpness is good.

and you get the deep blacks typical of

OLED technology as well as hdr support

but sunlight legibility leaves more to

be desired as max brightness is on the

lower side for this type of panel

350 nits with a manual slider and 560

nits in auto mode when in bright

conditions.

colors can be tweaked to be fairly

accurate there is a quirky interaction

with the worth colors

mentioning.

if you have the video image optimization

setting turned on.

the screen will visibly switch color

schemes when you open or close a video

playing app.

such as youtube or Netflix it can be

pretty distracting.

for audio, the Xperia 10 mark iii has a

single front-facing speaker down at the

bottom.

which just begs to be paired with the

the second one for a stereo setup

oh well just like the one on the

previous Xperia 10.

this speaker scored just an average

rating on our loudness charts

the audio quality is decent but not

great with some noticeable low

end but mids and highs which lack

presence.

you do get a headphone jack too for

plugging in your traditional headphones

or if you want to connect wirelessly

headphones to support for each

sony's high res wireless audio waking up

and unlocking the Xperia 10 mark iii

is done with a side-mounted fingerprint

scanner power button.

it isn't the fastest or most

responsive we've used lately

the interface of the Xperia 10 mark iii

is a very stock looking android 11

which brings a few extra functions from

sony on top.

the home screen app drawer notification

shade and task switcher

all look quite a vanilla one feature

that's a bit out of the ordinary is a

multi-window switch.

it gives you two task switches

stacked on top of each other

one for each side of the split-screen

and besides those apps already open

there are also paired app shortcuts here

too for easy access.

speaking of shortcuts side sense is a

menu accessible at the edge of the

screen.

this gives you a customizable space to

place shortcuts for apps and functions

and you even get a widget here to

control sony headphones with

and finally, you get sony's proprietary

music app on board.

other media will be handled by google's

apps by default.

overall you have 128 gigs of storage

onboard the Xperia 10 mark

iii which is expandable via MicroSD at

the heart of the phone is a Qualcomm

snapdragon 690 chipsets built on an 8

nanometer process.

it's a significant step up from last

year's chipset both in performance

and in the fact that it provides 5g

connectivity but with that said

while performance is solid here it still

falls behind the majority of mid-range

competitors at this price.

Sony Xperia 10 III  review

which run on snapdragon 700 series chips

it can stand its ground in CPU

benchmarks with scores that fall just a

a bit behind the competition

but in graphics tests, there's a much

the wider gap this is still enough power to

run your everyday tasks in less

demanding games without a hitch

and we didn't notice any excessive

heating or thermal throttling here

one of the major upgrades the mark iii

brings over last year.

are a larger milliamp-hour battery and it

does a great job.

battery life is excellent with a score

of 137 hours in our proprietary tests

however, we have to talk about the

charging speed our unit came with just a

7.5-watt charger in the box

I suppose these days we should be

thankful we even got a charger but

really with it, we were able to charge

the phone from zero to just

20 percent in half an hour we tried

using a fast 65-watt power delivery

charger too.

and got 37 in the same amount of time

still not very speedy.

the Xperia 10 mark iii has three cameras

on the back.

a 12-megapixel main cam an 8 megapixel

ultra-wide.

and an 8 megapixel two times telephoto

cam it's all pretty similar to what we

saw on last year's model

but even so, this is quite a versatile

setup for this price.

where telephoto cameras are hard to find

during the day

12-megapixel photos from the main cam

are adequate for the class.

there's a good level of detail

well-controlled noise and likable colors

the shots tend to come out underexposed

though and if hdr doesn't kick in.

you'll end up with some harsh highlights

portrait shots are taken with the main

cam and these have nice looking skin

tones and competent subject separation

but since the phone prioritizes the

exposure for the subject you can end up

with a blown-out background in some

scenes.

shots from the ultra-wide cam hold up

well against the competition.

they have good sharpness and detail is

excellent for the 8-megapixel resolution

dynamic range is wide for this class and

we like the exposure here better than on

the main camera

two times zoomed photos from the

telephoto camera have respectable

sharpness and detail.

and wide enough dynamic range the color

rendition doesn't match the other

cameras though

for example, the skies are shifted

towards purple.

the Xperia 10 mark iii tends to struggle

a bit after the sun goes down.

while shots from the main cam have good

color saturation in areas with more

light overall the photos are

underexposed and soft

with limited dynamic range turning on

night mode helps a lot

salvaging blown highlights and opening

up the shadows.

these are a little bit softer though all

the points we mentioned about the main

the camera is also true of the ultra-wide

only even more so these are quite

underexposed with narrow dynamic range

and overall softness in a similar way

night mode improves things dramatically

and gets you better development in the

highlights and shadows

sharpness seems unaffected here at the

two-time zoom setting

in most cases, at night you'll be getting

a crop from the main cam.

when it does manage to acquire focus it

captures passable images

but with a very narrow dynamic range again

we'd prefer the night mode output for

two times zoomed-in shots.

because of its better dynamic range even

if it does tend to smooth out textures

and detail a little bit.

now onto selfies taken with the 8

megapixel front-facing cam

we'd describe these as unremarkable

colors are overall muted.

and there isn't a ton of fine detail

The dynamic range is ok though

and you get good exposure on your face

even in relatively challenging light

the sony Xperia 10 mark iii records

video in up to 4k at 30 fps with its

main camera.

this footage is okay for the class with

good detail levels and excellent colors

but dynamic range is average and these

are a little bit on the soft side

to get video from the telephoto you'll

need to be in 1080p resolution.

it has plenty of sharpness and detail

but the colors are a bit off

just like with the still photos. the

ultrawide is also capped at 1080p

there's good detail saturated colors and

the exposure is brighter than on the

main cams

dynamic range is decent but not

spectacular.

video stabilization is available in all

modes we did notice some annoying focus

hunting in 4k.

but other than that eis does a decent

the job of compensating for camera shake

so that's the Xperia 10 mark iii you get

a compact and lightweight design with IP

rated water resistance.

the cameras are quite versatile for the

class and compared to last year's model

you get a larger battery with great

battery life.

and a more powerful chipset with 5g

support

however, there are a few things to be

critical of here the charger we got with

the phone is kind of a joke.

and even with a larger one charging

speed is still slow.

the display is just 60 hertz and not the

brightest

and you'll find competitors at this

price with faster chipsets

stereo speakers and better low-light

photos and selfies.