Sony Xperia 10 VI has some of the design inspirations coming from its predecessor but it also has little changes to make the phone looking better. It is availed in three elegant colors: black, white, and blue. It is obviously mostly plastic but its profile is sleek and the phone feels premium in hand. The 21:9 OLED display is extremely immersive for watching content on and has a screen brightness of as high as 1055 nits, making it ideal for outdoor use.

While the display is bright and clear at a 449 PPI density, it only operates at 60Hz. For those of us spoiled by smoother scrolling on higher refresh rates that competitors employ, this would be counted as a low point in this phone’s design. Still, for a general use case, the responsiveness seemed good enough to get away with.

With the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 processor inside, Xperia 10 VI shows some noticeable performance gains over its predecessor’s Snapdragon 695 chipset. Not that it’s going to be challenging flagships like the Pixel 8a or Nothing Phone (2a) anytime soon, but it handles the more mundane stuff like browsing, streaming video, and social media rather well. Synthetic benchmarks do put it behind some of the competition in terms of raw power, but it’s still ample for most users’ needs.

Xperia 10 VI comes with a camera setup comprising a 48MP main camera paired with an 8MP ultra-wide lens. This combination provides quite decent photography in good lighting conditions, while the performance in low light leaves a lot to be desired. Owners have complained of noise and the inability to retain detail when shooting at night. There’s no separate telephoto lens, either, which might limit the options of photography enthusiasts who love shooting subjects from far away.

In that way, commendable video recording possibilities extend up to 4K at 30fps, with different frame rates when it comes to full HD video. While functional enough for casual use, customers who want high-quality cameras may want to consider better options in this segment of phones.

But one of the most remarkable things about Xperia 10 VI, without question, is its tremendous battery life. The phone comes with a pretty big 5000 mAh battery that would easily last two days or more with normal usage. Some users report even more, under light conditions, upwards of five and six days, thanks to energy-efficient components and software optimization.

The charging speeds are average, going up to about 20W, and it doesn’t support wireless charging. However, with its quite good battery life, many are willing to look past that.

Sony Xperia 10 VI has continued carrying the audio excellence for which Sony has always been known. It is fitted with dual front-firing stereo speakers that are clear enough to consume media on, and it still retained the highly loved 3.5mm headphone jack for audiophiles who want to connect their favorite headphones without adapters.

Priced at about $360, Xperia 10 VI enters a very competitive market filled with strong contenders like the Pixel 8a and Galaxy A55. While unique features set this device apart from the rest-such as its cinematic display and audio performance-others offer a better value on camera and processing for comparable prices.

Ultimately, Sony Xperia 10 VI has some compelling selling points with its cinematic display and solid battery life, but it’s a balance buyers will need to make against some key weaknesses relative to the camera performance and processing power of competitive options at this price.