Design

Most people will still be hard-pressed to visually tell the difference between the last few generations of Xperia 10 phones. The Xperia 10 V is no exception. For the most detail-oriented among you, we will point out that the back side of the Xperia 10 V has gotten even flatter in this generation.

Other than that, it is still made of plastic, and its finish is matte and slightly frosted. It doesn't attract too many fingerprints or other dirt, which is great to see.

All of the other major elements on the phone's rear are positioned and shaped exactly as before, including the familiar vertical triple-camera island. Its shape is admittedly a bit retro, but on the flip side, it is still recognizable with the LED flash at the very top, which you don't see often.

The camera island protrudes ever so slightly, allowing minimal wobble when the Xperia 10 V is placed on a flat surface.

From the side, the Xperia 10 V looks almost identical to the Xperia 10 IV. Last generation Sony decided to square off the frame quite a bit, which is getting carried over to the current gen device. There is still some curvature to the middle frame, though, and the phone can't stay up on its own. It feels good in the hand.

Measuring 155 x 68 x 8.3 mm, the Xperia 10 V is slightly bigger than its predecessor. This might, in part, be due to the slightly larger 6.1-inch display or the introduction of stereo speakers to the front of the phone. Even so, the Xperia 10 V tips the scale at just 159 grams, which is a couple of grams less than the smaller Xperia 10 IV. We aren't sure how Sony managed the weight reduction, given the bigger footprint and identical 5,000 mAh battery, but it is still impressive.

In fact, Sony claims that this weight is enough to keep the title of "world's lightest 5G phone with a 5,000 mAh battery or higher" that was previously held by last year's Xperia 10 IV.

Weight distribution on the Xperia 10 V feels superb. This is also pretty important on such a tall device since the last thing you want is for it to be top-heavy and affect handling negatively.

Build quality

The Xperia 10 V is mostly made of plastic, which is not necessarily a bad thing. We've sung praises to this material in the past and will continue to do so in the future since it is durable and pretty light, also less prone to scratches and denting than metal and generally more shatter-resistant than glass.

The frame of the phone is plastic and feels really sturdy. There is practically no flex to speak of.

The back side of the Xperia 10 V is also made of plastic. Sony ditched glass back panels with the previous Xperia 10 IV. Frankly, we don't condemn the decision. Yes, plastic is technically "less premium" of material, but we personally like the new matte finish more.

The back panel on the Xperia 10 V feels pretty solid. There is a slight hollowness at some spots, but nothing to fret over.

Like its predecessor, the Xperia 10 V has Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on the front. The phone also has official ingress protection. Sony advertises it as IP65/IP68, which doesn't really make much sense. It should be either one or the other, but we can be optimistic here and say that Sony wants to emphasize that the Xperia 10 V is protected both against immersion in fresh water and water jets.

Controls

The Xperia 10 V has a standard set of controls at its disposal. The phone's right side houses a volume rocker and the power button/fingerprint reader combo. Both are nice and "clicky" and offer great tactile feedback.

The power button is generally well-positioned height-wise, but the volume rocker is hard to reach and too high up on the frame. Thankfully, it's not a control that gets used that often, so we're willing to overlook the ergonomics here.

The fingerprint reader part of the button works great. It is both snappy and accurate. We expect nothing less from a conventional capacitive reader and one inside a Sony phone. The reader can be always-on, or you can choose for it to start reading only after the power button is pressed. We do kind of wish Sony had moved to an in-display fingerprint reader instead, but that is largely a matter of personal preference.

The left-hand side of the phone only houses the SIM tray. In keeping with tradition, access to it is toolless. The tray has a single spot for a Nano-SIM card. The Xperia 10 V also supports eSIM; you can use the two concurrently. On the opposite side of the SIM tray, there is a spot for a microSD memory card.

The top frame of the Xperia 10 V houses a secondary noise-canceling microphone and a trusty old 3.5mm audio jack.

There is a microphone on the bottom of the phone as well. That and the Type-C port. It supports PD and Quick Charge fast charging and houses a USB 2.0 data connection. The Xperia 10 V supports USB Host/OTG functionality. There is, however, no video output from the port.

There is no speaker grill on the bottom of the phone where one would expect it since the this generation comes with a pair of front-facing stereo speakers. Technically, there is a dedicated bottom speaker underneath the display and an amplified earpiece above the display to cover the second channel, making this a hybrid setup.

The Xperia 10 V has pretty big bezels around its screen but does make pretty great use of the space. The selfie camera is nestled in the top bezel, which allows for an uninterrupted display with no punch hole or notch. Sony also decided on a traditional approach for its light and proximity sensors, which are also positioned in the frame above the display instead of under the display.

In case you were wondering, there is no notification LED on the Xperia 10 V, which is the expected norm rather than an exception.

Connectivity

As already mentioned, the Xperia 10 V is a single SIM device, but it can also use eSIM. It has SA and NSA Sub.6 5G connectivity and LTE-A. For positioning, there is support for GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS and QZSS. In terms of local connectivity, the phone has dual-band Wi-Fi ac, NFC and Bluetooth 5.1 with LE, aptX HD and aptX Adaptive support. There is no FM radio on board. The Type-C port supports USB 2.0 data speeds, which means a theoretical maximum of 480 Mbps. There is support for USB Host/OTG, but not video output.

The Xperia 10 V has an almost full set of sensors at its disposal. There is a BOSCH bmi26x accelerometer and gyroscope combo, memsic mmc56x3x magnetometer and compass combo and a sensortek stk3a5x ambient light and hardware proximity sensor combo. There is no barometer.

A 6.1-inch, 21:9 HDR display, still locked at 60Hz

Sony continues to stubbornly refuse to bring any meaningful upgrades to the display of its Xperia 10 family. The Xperia 10 V is still stuck at a 60Hz refresh rate, which is hardly competitive on a 2023 midranger.

On the positive side, the display still has some great aspects to impress with, including quite literally, its 21:9 aspect ratio. This one is pretty hard to come by, particularly on a midranger. Of course, it has its pros and cons, but it is undoubtedly a unique feature.

The display is slightly larger this year with a 6.1-inch diagonal but still has the same 1080 x 2520-pixel resolution as before. This technically makes it less sharp than the panel on the Xperia 10 IV, but the picture is still very crisp and clean in person. Speaking of which, we appreciate the fact that the panel is 10-bit and comes with HDR support. Also, the lack of a punch hole or notch makes for a great, uninterrupted multimedia viewing experience.

One thing Sony explicitly claims to have improved with the Xperia 10 V is the display's maximum brightness. As per official specs, it should now be 1.5x brighter than the previous generation. We managed to measure 624 nits of maximum brightness on the slider and a max auto value of 947 nits. This makes the phone perfectly usable outdoors in sunny conditions.

One thing potentially worth noting is how the Xperia 10 V triggers its maximum auto brightness mode and automatically boosts brightness. Not only do you have to enable automatic brightness adjustment in settings and be in a bright enough environment, but you have to avoid triggering the phone's proximity sensor at the same time. That is to say that you can't have anything close to the top frame of the phone. It's a bit odd to include that in the overall display behavior logic, so we are pointing it out.

The Xperia 10 V only has two color modes available in settings - Standard and Original. There are, however, custom white balance adjustments as well, which add some versatility to the mix. The default standard color mode aims for the DCI-P3 color space and delivers good accuracy. The default white balance is very cold and blue, though. If you want a more accurate picture, just use the warm preset in settings.

Color mode settings • White balance settings

Original, as the name suggests, is meant to cover the sRGB color space and nails that task perfectly with deltaE values low enough to be considered color-accurate.

The display on the Xperia 10 V is 10-bit, which means it can reproduce more colors and shades than a standard 8-bit display, resulting in smoother color transitions and less banding.

The Xperia 10 V has HDR support on its display. Regarding HDR decoder support, the phone reports compatibility with HDR10 and HLG. No HDR10+ or Dolby Vision.

The Xperia 10 V also has the highest possible Widevine L1 DRM protection, which allows streaming services such as Netflix to offer up FullHD streams. At the time of writing, Netflix recognized no HDR support on the phone, though that will likely change since the streamer operates its own device whitelist.

HDR decoding • Widevine DRM • Netflix playback capabilities

As we already mentioned, the Xperia 10 V is, unfortunately, still stuck with a 60Hz refresh rate, so there is no high refresh rate behavior to discuss. This is a real shame and a drawback on a 2023 midranger.

Battery life

The Xperia 10 V has a hefty 5,000 mAh battery. Since it uses the same chipset as its predecessor, has the same battery capacity, and has a very similar, albeit slightly larger 60Hz OLED display, we expected to see similar battery endurance numbers between the two devices.

To our pleasant surprise, the Xperia 10 V managed to do even better than its predecessor in terms of battery endurance, probably thanks to some software optimization on Sony's part and earned an excellent endurance rating of 175 hours in our proprietary test. It scored better than its predecessor across the board.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test is done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage - check out our all-time battery test results chart.

Charging speed

The Xperia 10 V is not a particularly fast-charging device. Sony doesn't officially provide a wattage number for the charging rate, and unofficially the phone supposedly tops out at a rate of 21W via PD or Quick Charge.

We tested the Xperia 10 V with a known good 65W third-party charger and got from fully dead to 37% in thirty minutes. A full charge took just shy of two hours. While these are hardly impressive numbers in the grand scheme of things, we are at least happy to see that the Xperia 10 V charges notably quicker than its predecessors.

Speakers

Front-facing stereo speakers are one of the few new additions to the Xperia 10 V this year. The feature has finally trickled down from the more expensive Sony phones.

To be fair, it is not a proper symmetrical stereo speaker setup but rather a hybrid one with an amplified earpiece as the second channel. Even so, the two sound sources are surprisingly well-balanced, and the fact that they both face forward only adds to the immersive multimedia experience.

The new stereo speaker setup is also noticeably louder than what the Xperia 10 IV offered in terms of output. Said output is also notably cleaner, especially in the mids. Highs are very well contained as well, and there is no noteworthy distortion even at high volumes.

Overall, Sony has crafted a very respectable stereo setup for the Xperia 10 V. Users also get a few software extras on top of the audio hardware, like 360 Reality Audio, which unfortunately only works with a limited selection of audio player apps. There is even a complementary feature that claims in can upmix regular stereo audio into a 360-degree compatible one. Sony's DSEE Ultimate general audio upscaler is also on board.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

Android 13 in a clean Xperia wrapper

The Xperia 10 V ships with the latest Android 13 with minimal Sony customization on top. In typical Sony fashion, the look and feel are very AOSP, with just a pinch of extras, which you typically have to dig a bit deeper to uncover.

The number of pre-installed apps on the Xperia 10 V is really small. The phone handily asks you if you want to install some basics from a curated list during the setup process. No bloat, just genuinely useful suggestions, as far as we can tell.

App suggestions during setup

Starting with the basics, we find out that some of them are actually missing - like Ambient display (Google's name for an always-on display feature). This was the case with the previous generation Xperia 10 IV as well. For some reason, Sony reserves this feature for its higher-end devices, even though the Xperia 10 V also has an OLED display.

The lockscreen brings no surprises and features a clock (that you can customize), a shortcut to the camera and another one for Google Assistant. The homescreen, too, is as standard as they come. The Google feed is the leftmost pane, but you can disable it if it's not your thing. The quick toggles/notification area is Google's stock, too.

The style of choice features oversized buttons. The improved widget interface from Android 12 is still present here as well.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Folder view • App drawer • Notification shade • Widgets

One of the Sony exclusives, which deserves mention even though it's not new, is the Multi-window switch. You can access it from the task switcher or from the dedicated Multi-window manager shortcut icon on the homescreen (which technically sums up Side sense, it's all a bit intertwined). You get sort of like two stacked task switcher rolodexes with your currently opened apps to pick one for the top half and one for the bottom half of the screen. Each half's rightmost and leftmost pane lets you launch another app, not just pick from the already running ones.

The phone remembers three previously used pairs so that you can access them directly, though we couldn't find a way to save custom app pair presets. It's worth mentioning that the window split can be done in almost any arbitrary ratio, not just 50/50.

Task switcher • Multi-window switcher

If multi-window does not provide enough multitasking potential for you, there is always pop-up window. It does only work on supported apps, but most are already on that list.

Pop-up window

Side sense is another of the in-house Sony features. A handle on the side of the phone opens up a menu of shortcuts to apps and features, most of them user-configurable. The 21:9 multi-window pairs can be customized here, but they don't go into the three-pair shortcuts in the regular task switcher. A recent addition to the menu is a widget to control the Sony headphones app - handy if you have a set of those.

Side sense

There's a fairly standard set of gestures for call handling, as well as a one-handed mode and smart backlight control. In this menu, you'll find the navigation options with the two basic types available - gestures or a navbar.

Gesture settings

Similarly to previous generations, the Game Enhancer utility is missing on the Xperia 10 V. Sony's Music player is on board, though, while Google's Photos and Files are used for gallery and file management purposes.

Sony Music • Google Photos • Google Files

Synthetic benchmarks

There is no point beating about the bush - the Xperia 10 V is pretty deficient in the performance department. Sony is carrying forward the same silicon for a third year in a row. Like its predecessor, the Xperia 10 V uses the Snapdragon 695 chipset. Before that, the Xperia 10 III used the Snapdragon 690, which is essentially the same chip with a slightly lower max speed on its "big" cores and the ability to capture 4K video, which the Snapdragon 695 lacks.

Yes, you read that right, it's a year later, and we still have to criticize Sony for going with a midrange chipset that does not support 4K video capture. At least the Snapdragon 695 is a fairly efficient 5G-capable chip (6nm), as we already saw with the excellent battery score of the Xperia 10 V.

It has a 2x2.2 GHz Kryo 660 Gold & 6x1.7 GHz Kryo 660 Silver CPU configuration, plus an Adreno 619 GPU - nether is particularly impressive, especially in 2023. The Xperia 10 V comes in a single 6GB RAM and 128GB expandable storage configuration. That's what we tested as well.

Let's start with GeekBench and its CPU tests. We can clearly see that the Xperia 10 V hasn't improved compared to the Xperia IV with the same chipset and even the Xperia 10 III with its Snapdragon 690. The Snapdragon 695 is only slightly more powerful in CPU tasks than the MediaTek Helio G99 and trades blows with the Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 - a chipset that is technically in a lower performance class but simply has the benefit of being much newer and more modern.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  3049
• Nothing Phone (1)
  3024
• Poco X5 Pro
  2930
• Google Pixel 6a
  2876
• Galaxy A54
  2703
• vivo V27
  2400
• Realme 10 Pro+
  2371
• Galaxy A34
  2316
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  2229
• Realme 10 Pro
  2021
• Redmi Note 12 5G
  1998
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  1908
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  1897
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  1797
• Realme 10
  1762
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  1738
• Galaxy A14 5G
  1727
• Realme C55
  1452
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  1413

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  1096
• Google Pixel 6a
  1047
• vivo V27
  887
• Realme 10 Pro+
  842
• Nothing Phone (1)
  820
• Galaxy A34
  781
• Poco X5 Pro
  781
• Galaxy A54
  770
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  758
• Realme 10 Pro
  698
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  667
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  662
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  592
• Redmi Note 12 5G
  588
• Realme 10
  567
• Galaxy A14 5G
  530
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  440
• Realme C55
  374
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  315

AnTuTu isn't particularly kind to the Xperia 10 V. It manages to score closer to the Xperia 10 III and the Redmi Note 12 5G and Realme 10, with their Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 and Helio G99, respectively, than the Xperia 10 IV and Realme 10 Pro, both running the same Snapdragon 695 chipset.

This effectively means that either the Xperia 10 V is not making full use of the performance the Snapdragon 695 has to offer or some other parts of the performance chain, like RAM and storage, are misbehaving, or alternatively, there is some software issue. Hopefully, this gets resolved via an update, and we get at least proper Snapdragon 695 performance levels.

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  719696
• Google Pixel 6a
  712092
• vivo V27
  613641
• Nothing Phone (1)
  592789
• Poco X5 Pro
  531398
• Realme 10 Pro+
  522376
• Galaxy A54
  506678
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  490526
• Galaxy A34
  472126
• Realme 10 Pro
  401860
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  396008
• Realme 10
  385829
• Redmi Note 12 5G
  360745
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  357142
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  345223
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  319219
• Galaxy A14 5G
  307886
• Realme C55
  257263

At least the Adreno 619 GPU inside the Xperia 10 V performs as expected. That is to say better than the Helio G99 and its Mali-G57 MC2 but worse than the Dimensity 1080 and the Mali-G68 MC4.

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 6a
  47
• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  38
• vivo V27
  30
• Nothing Phone (1)
  23
• Galaxy A54
  19
• Galaxy A34
  17
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  16
• Realme 10 Pro+
  16
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  11
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  11
• Realme 10 Pro
  11
• Realme 10
  10
• Galaxy A14 5G
  8.3
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  7.9
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  5.3
• Realme C55
  5.3

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 6a
  29
• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  24
• vivo V27
  20
• Nothing Phone (1)
  15
• Galaxy A54
  13
• Galaxy A34
  11
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  11
• Realme 10 Pro+
  11
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  7.8
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  7.8
• Realme 10 Pro
  7.8
• Realme 10
  6.5
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  5.7
• Galaxy A14 5G
  5.5
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  3.5
• Realme C55
  3.5

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 6a
  39
• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  38
• vivo V27
  33
• Nothing Phone (1)
  23
• Galaxy A54
  19
• Galaxy A34
  16
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  15
• Realme 10 Pro+
  15
• Realme 10 Pro
  12
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  11
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  11
• Realme 10
  9.3
• Galaxy A14 5G
  7.9
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  7.3
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  5.3
• Realme C55
  4.9

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 6a
  32
• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  25
• vivo V27
  21
• Nothing Phone (1)
  16
• Galaxy A54
  13
• Galaxy A34
  10
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  10
• Realme 10 Pro+
  10
• Realme 10 Pro
  8.3
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  8.2
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  8.1
• Realme 10
  6.1
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  5.8
• Galaxy A14 5G
  5.3
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  3.6
• Realme C55
  3.2

Lowering the difficulty of the GFXBench tests doesn't change the overall picture too much. The Dimensity 1080 does gain a more substantial lead in raw fps numbers.

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  56
• Google Pixel 6a
  51
• vivo V27
  34
• Nothing Phone (1)
  33
• Poco X5 Pro
  28
• Galaxy A54
  25
• Galaxy A34
  23
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  22
• Realme 10 Pro+
  21
• Realme 10
  17
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  16
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  16
• Realme 10 Pro
  16
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  12
• Galaxy A14 5G
  12
• Realme C55
  9
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  7.5
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  5.6

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 6a
  66
• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  57
• vivo V27
  40
• Nothing Phone (1)
  37
• Galaxy A54
  31
• Realme 10 Pro+
  27
• Galaxy A34
  26
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  26
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  20
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  19
• Realme 10 Pro
  19
• Galaxy A14 5G
  15
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  14
• Realme 10
  14
• Realme C55
  10
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  8.6
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  7.1

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  98
• vivo V27
  61
• Google Pixel 6a
  60
• Nothing Phone (1)
  58
• Galaxy A54
  46
• Galaxy A34
  41
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  40
• Realme 10 Pro+
  38
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  29
• Realme 10 Pro
  29
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  28
• Realme 10
  28
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  21
• Galaxy A14 5G
  21
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  14
• Realme C55
  14
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  10

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 6a
  116
• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  103
• vivo V27
  68
• Nothing Phone (1)
  65
• Galaxy A54
  52
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  45
• Realme 10 Pro+
  45
• Galaxy A34
  44
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  35
• Realme 10 Pro
  35
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  34
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  26
• Galaxy A14 5G
  25
• Realme 10
  25
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  16
• Realme C55
  16
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  13

GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  116
• vivo V27
  85
• Nothing Phone (1)
  84
• Galaxy A54
  69
• Galaxy A34
  62
• Google Pixel 6a
  60
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  57
• Realme 10 Pro+
  56
• Realme 10
  44
• Realme 10 Pro
  41
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  39
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  39
• Galaxy A14 5G
  34
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  29
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  23
• Realme C55
  23
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  16

GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 6a
  167
• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  133
• vivo V27
  100
• Nothing Phone (1)
  93
• Galaxy A54
  79
• Galaxy A34
  68
• Realme 10 Pro+
  68
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  67
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  48
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  47
• Realme 10 Pro
  47
• Galaxy A14 5G
  40
• Realme 10
  40
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  35
• Realme C55
  26
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  20
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  19

3DMark generally offers a clearer, more legible picture of relative performance across different devices with its offscreen tests. Going by its numbers, the Xperia 10 V and its Snapdragon 695 are pretty similar in graphics performance to the Dimensity 700 and the Helio G99.

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Google Pixel 6a
  6066
• Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  5432
• vivo V27
  4138
• Nothing Phone (1)
  2921
• Galaxy A54
  2818
• Galaxy A34
  2313
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  2255
• Realme 10 Pro+
  2252
• Realme 10
  1320
• Realme 10 Pro
  1218
• Sony Xperia 10 IV
  1213
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  1205
• Galaxy A14 5G
  1197
• Sony Xperia 10 III
  825
• Realme C55
  740
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  652

3DMark Wild Life Extreme (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• vivo V27
  1156
• Galaxy A54
  808
• Galaxy A34
  636
• Redmi Note 12 Pro
  630
• Realme 10 Pro+
  622
• Realme 10
  366
• Sony Xperia 10 V
  358
• Galaxy A14 5G
  331
• Realme C55
  189
• Redmi Note 12 4G
  135

Things aren't looking particularly good for the Xperia 10 V in the performance department. At least the phone runs pretty cool to the touch. Initially, we thought that this meant it had great thermal management, and a 3DMark stress test even collaborated with that theory. However, it turns out that with a long enough stress test, the Xperia 10 V reveals some pretty lackluster thermal management. The kind that sees the chipset rapidly dip in performance, which might cause a stutter in-game, only to then ease up and ramp performance up, just to repeat the process seconds later. That's the worst kind of thermal management you can generally have.

Thermal throttling behavior

We are pretty disappointed with the overall performance profile of the Xperia 10 V. The Snapdragon 695 was never a great chipset and is starting to show its age. Plus, in practical terms, the Xperia 10 V doesn't even run its UI smoothly and suffers from slowdowns and stutters. We really think Sony dropped the ball by not moving the Xperia 10 V to a more potent chipset.

New main camera with a familiar ultrawide and telephoto

The Xperia 10 V has a pretty familiar triple camera setup quite similar in essence to the one on the Xperia 10 IV and even the Xperia 10 III before that. You get three real focal lengths, including a camera with optical zoom - a rarity in the midrange.

The main camera has, however, been swapped in this generation. It now uses a Sony IMX582 sensor, which is roughly 1.6 times larger than the IMX486 inside the Xperia 10 IV. It is a 1/2" sensor with 0.8µm individual pixels. The IMX582 is a Quad-Bayer sensor with a 48MP native resolution that captures 12MP stills by default. It is a fairly old sensor, but it should still be more capable than the IMX486 it replaces. You get PDAF and OIS on the main camera and an f/1.8 lens.

The other cameras on the Xperia 10 V are unchanged and carried over from the Xperia 10 IV. All of them have sensors courtesy of SK hynix. The one on the telephoto is the Hi-847. It has a 1/4.4" optical format and 1.0µm pixels. It has a 54mm equivalent 2x zoom, f/2.2 lens and PDAF.

The ultrawide camera uses the Hi-846 sensor, which Sony lists as having a 1/4.0" optical format and 1.12µm pixels. The focal length has a 16mm equivalent, and the aperture is f/2.2. There's no autofocus on this camera.

Finally, we have the selfie cam, which is also based on the Hi-846 sensor. The fixed-focus lens here has an f/2.0 aperture and a focal length of 27mm. Again, same as on the Xperia 10 IV.

The camera app on the Xperia 10 V is a familiar Sony affair. The app has a proper zoom selector with direct access to each of the three cameras instead of the infuriating single button on the old model, which cycled between them. Other things are as expected - side swipes switch between stills and video while swiping down (but not up) toggles between the front and rear cams. The far end of the viewfinder has controls for flash, timer, night mode, bokeh mode, implicit white balance and exposure compensation adjustment and a cog wheel to take you to settings.

Camera UI

A Mode button near the shutter release gives access to extra modes like Panorama and Slow Motion. There's a manual mode where you get to tweak exposure parameters yourself. It's not the most full-featured - white balance, for example, can only be set to one of four presets, but not by light temperature. ISO range is 50-3200, so that's pretty good, while the shutter speed can be set between 1/4000s and 1s. You can dial in exposure compensation in the -2EV to +2EV range in 1/3EV increments, and you can also focus manually, but there's no focus peaking. A live histogram is also missing.

Manual camera mode

You can use the manual mode with all three rear cameras. The caveat is that it uses the most unintuitive of switching selectors in existence - it looks like a slider, but it doesn't slide, and it requires tapping to cycle between cameras - the concept they very wisely abandoned in the regular photo mode. You also get a Manual mode for the selfie cam - with just white balance and exposure compensation.

Daylight photo quality

As mentioned, the main camera on the Xperia 10 V captures 12MP stills. The quality of these stills is decent, but nothing to phone home about. Detail is good, and we appreciate the natural rendition of details. Colors appear nice and natural, though a bit muted. Dynamic range is generally good, but we've seen better.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 12MP main camera samples

The Xperia 10 V doesn't seem to offer a way to capture photos in the full 48MP resolution of the main Quad-Bayer camera. We can't say we are overly disappointed with the omission, though.

Our extensive photo comparison database shows how the main camera stacks up against the competition.

Sony Xperia 10 V against the Poco X5 and the Realme 10 Pro in our Photo compare tool

The main camera captures pretty decent portrait shots. Subject detection and separation are spot-on. However, the background blur can be a bit messy and is far from perfect.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 12MP main camera portrait samples

Portrait mode works pretty well on non-human subjects too.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 12MP main camera portrait samples

The 8MP telephoto is nicely sharp and detailed; we're almost contemplating calling it impressive. It offers a very good dynamic range and good exposures.

Color rendition is notably different than the main camera.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 8MP telephoto camera 2x samples

The Xperia 10 V lacks a dedicated macro camera and also doesn't have autofocus on its ultrawide. Even so, the main camera and especially the telephoto can focus from pretty close and produce very pleasant closeups

Sony Xperia 10 V: macro samples

Photos from the 8MP ultrawide camera also look pretty good. The detail is decent - there are not a whole lot of pixels, to begin with, and things can get a little soft off-center, but it's not a bad performance overall.

Dynamic range is good, particularly so for a midrange ultrawide camera. Color rendition also seems to be a pretty good match to the main camera.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 8MP ultrawide camera samples

Selfies

Selfies out of the Xperia 10 V are okay. There's a 'Sharpen faces' toggle in settings, which is On by default. As per the promo materials, it uses AI to reproduce facial details clearly and reduce noise without affecting sharpness in less-than-ideal light.

The 8MP selfie shots from the Xperia 10 V look good overall. The shots have plenty of detail, and colors look natural, particularly skin tones. Dynamic range is reasonably wide, and exposure is dependable.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 8MP selfie camera samples

Skin texture is kind of lost in the processing and comes out looking a bit soft. Not dramatically so, though.

Video recording

Video capture is kind of an Achilles heel for the Xperia 10 V. Due to the limitations of the Snapdragon 695, video capture is limited to 1080p across all cameras. This is not an artificial limitation either. You can't just grab something like Open Camera and capture higher-resolution video.

All cameras on the Xperia 10 V capture h.264 videos with a standard AVC video stream of around 17.5 Mbps and a stereo AAC audio stream.

1080p video from the main camera is decent, but unimpressive. Dynamic range and colors are decent, though saturation is cranked a bit high. The level of detail is not great. There is also some noise in the frame.

Here's how the main camera stacks up against the competition in our video compare database.

Sony Xperia 10 V against the Poco X5 and the Realme 10 Pro in our Video compare tool

The telephoto camera gets pretty close to the main one in color rendition, which is appreciated, even if the colors are still too saturated. Contrast is a bit high too. Detail from the telephoto, while not great, is honestly a bit better than the main camera, which is kind of impressive. There is a bit of noise in the frame, but not much.

We should note that depending on the available light, the Xperia 10 V can choose to capture 2x zoomed video with its main camera instead of the telephoto, which is a standard approach.

The ultrawide camera can be excused for its relatively low level of detail and potentially its narrower dynamic range. The noise in frame is pretty excessive, though. Colors are not a great match to the main camera or telephoto and tend to have a yellow tint to them.

The selfie camera captures surprisingly decent videos, given the 1080p resolution limitation. Detail is good and facial tones, and features look natural. In fact, colors are pretty natural overall.

Saturation is a bit too high once again, and the video tends to crop away from the frame quite aggressively, even with stabilization turned off.

The Xperia 10 V has OIS on its main camera, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference to video capture. However, EIS is available across all phone cameras and does a great job of smoothing out bumps and shakes. You can see it in action for yourself in the following playlist.

Low-light camera quality

The new main camera on the Xperia 10 V does alright in low-light conditions but fails to impress. Being a larger and Quad-Bayer sensor, the IMX582 should be gathering more light than the IMX486 it replaces. However, we can't say that this is what we observed in practice. Shots from the main cam come out pretty dark and underexposed. Shadows, in particular, are crushed.

On the plus side, light sources are handled quite competently. Also, there is plenty of detail in the frame and practically no noise. Dynamic range could be a bit better, but that's a small gripe.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 12MP main camera low-light samples

All of the low-light photos were captured with HDR enabled. It, however, tends to be a bit stingy with the stacking process. Enabling night shooting mode does have a small but noticeable effect on the main camera. Night shooting brightens up shots, especially shadows. Light sources are handled better, and a bit more sharpening is applied on average. Dynamic range is better too.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 12MP main camera night shooting samples

The Xperia 10 V tends to capture zoom shots with its actual telephoto camera more often than not, which is great to see since these shots definitely look better than digital zooms from the main camera.

The telephoto holds its own well in low light. The detail it captures is good, and colors are nice and natural. Dynamic range is not bad, either.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 8MP telephoto camera low-light samples

Just like photos from the main camera, however, these ones tend to be quite dark and underexposed, with crushed shadows.

Enabling night shooting on the telephoto helps out quite a bit. These shots are brighter overall, with less noise on surfaces and more sharpening applied to straight lines. Light sources are handled a bit better too.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 8MP telephoto camera night shooting samples

Low-light stills from the ultrawide are OK and nothing to phone home about. Detail is decent, and so are colors. The ultrawide tends to expose a bit better and higher on average than the other two rear cameras on the Xperia 10 V, but it is still far from perfect, resulting in crushed shadows. Light sources are blown out more often than not.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 8MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

Night shooting mode considerably brightens up ultrawide shots and helps contain light sources a bit better, improving dynamic range in the process. These photos also look less noisy and less soft than their regular counterparts.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 8MP ultrawide camera night shooting samples

The selfie camera on the Xperia 10 V fairs well in low-light conditions but is largely unimpressive as well. Skin tones and colors generally look natural, dynamic range is good, and there is little noise to speak of.

Detail, however, isn't great, and skin features and texture are pretty much entirely gone.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 8MP selfie camera low-light samples

You can also use night shooting on the selfie, and as with the other cameras, it results in a noticeably brighter and, in our opinion, better exposure. Faces tend to look slightly softer than in regular photo mode, though.

Sony Xperia 10 V: 8MP selfie camera night shooting samples

Videos from the main camera have decent detail and nice colors. They are, however, quite dark and light sources are pretty blown out.

Like with photos, the Xperia 10 V can shoot 2x zoom videos with its telephoto or the main camera. Thankfully, it tends to favor the actual telephoto cam rather than zooming from the main one. Aside from color rendition, these videos don't look too dissimilar from the main camera ones. That is to say, with decent detail, but pretty dark overall.

We would not recommend capturing ultrawide low-light videos with the Xperia 10 V. These come out looking very dark and soft, with limited dynamic range, crushed shadows and blow-out light sources. There is plenty of noise in the frame as well.

Competition

A year later, not much has changed in the latest Xperia 10's Pros and Cons lists or how it stands in its market context. This is becoming a trend with the Xperia 10 line, for better or worse. Changed or not, the Xperia 10 V remains a sort of unique offering. That odd 21:9 display aspect ratio makes for a tall and skinny phone. One that Sony continues to parade as the lightest and most compact 5G phone out there. Add stereo speakers to the mix for this year's model and official ingress protection, and you end up with a pretty particular package with a niche of its own.

Still, there is plenty of competition in the mid-range space around the €449 MSRP of the Xperia 10 V. First and probably foremost, there is the Samsung Galaxy A54. Like the Xperia 10 V, it has official ingress protection (IP67) and a stereo speaker setup. Its 6.4-inch AMOLED display is arguably better, with a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support. The Galaxy A54 also offers a large 5,000 mAh battery with 25W charging. Its Exynos 1380 chipset, while far from a powerhouse, is a bit more potent than the Snapdragon 695 inside the Xperia. One thing you will miss out on with the Samsung is a telephoto camera, but you get 4K video capture.

If you want to save a few bucks and still get most of the same Samsung experience, there is also the Galaxy A34 to consider. Some of its highlights include an even bigger 6.6-inch, 120Hz display, IP67 ingress protection and stereo speakers.

Samsung Galaxy A54 • Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro • Xiaomi Poco X5 Pro • Google Pixel 6a

Another phone that instantly comes to mind is the significantly cheaper yet still competitive Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro. It has a large 6.67-inch, 10-bit, 120Hz, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision certified display, stereo speakers, and some ingress protection. Though just IP53. It is also powered by a 5,000 mAh battery, but with 67W charging significantly faster than that on the Xperia 10 V. Unfortunately, the Redmi Note 12 Pro also lacks a telephoto camera. That is hard to come by in the mid-range niche. On the plus side, the Dimensity 1080 chipset of the Redmi can capture 4K video, unlike the Snapdragon 695 inside the Xperia.

Just like with the aforementioned Samsung phones, there is also a pretty viable step-down option in camp Xiaomi - the Redmi Note 12. The vanilla model gives up on some extras like HDR support on the display and stereo speakers. The overall user experience, however, is not that different.

Another Xiaomi phone definitely worth considering is the Poco X5 Pro. In many aspects, it is not too dissimilar to the Redmi Note 12 Pro, like the 6.67-inch, 10-bit Dolby Vision, HDR10+, 120Hz display, the IP53 ingress protection rating and the stereo speakers. There is also the identical 5,000 mAh battery with the same 67W fast charging. Once again, you will be missing out on a telephoto camera, though.

We would be remiss not to mention the Google Pixel 6a. It is an overall excellent and quite popular midranger that just so happens to offer some of the same extras as the Xperia 10 V, like stereo speakers and IP67 ingress protection. Like the Xperia, it is a pretty compact device with a 6.1-inch display-diagonal. Sadly, just like with the Sony, the panel here is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. Unlike the Xperia and its rather disappointing Snapdragon 695 chipset, the Google Tensor chip inside the Pixel 6a is a pretty decent part with great modern features - most notably, 4K video capture. And speaking of cameras, though you won't get a telephoto with the Pixel 6a, it is hard to compete with Google's prowess in computational photography.

Verdict

Once again, not a lot has changed going from the Xperia 10 IV and even the 10 III to the new Xperia 10 V. That's both a good and a bad thing. If you are a fan of the iconic thin and tall, extra light design on the phone, there is just nothing else out there in the midrange space to offer an alternative. Similarly, the 21:9 display aspect ratio remains a pretty exclusive spotlight feature.

Let's start with some positives first. The Xperia 10 V finally has a stereo speaker setup and a pretty good one at that - front-facing, well-balanced and decently loud, with a clean output. Making a return - the great ingress protection rating is hard to come by in the midranger space. The same is true for a telephoto camera, let alone one that does a decently good job quality-wise, like we are seeing on the Xperia 10 V. We can't fail to mention the excellent battery life the Xperia 10 V manages from its 5,000 mAh battery and now with notably faster charging, even if still rather slow in the grand scheme of things. The brightness boost on the signature 21:9 HDR display is also great to see this year.

Unfortunately, there is also a lot to dislike about the Xperia 10 V. Annoyingly, most of the problems are carried forward from its predecessor. Things like the lack of a high refresh rate - a 60Hz display is unacceptable on a phone of this caliber in 2023. Then there is arguably the biggest Achilles heel on the Xperia 10 V - the Snapdragon 695 chipset - the exact same chip from the Xperia 10 IV that was hardly an adequate choice then and is even less so now. It is just very deficient in performance. So much so that the otherwise clean UI of the Xperia 10 V struggles to run and animate smoothly. Plus, the annoying 1080p video capture cap stems from a chipset limitation.

We're hardly enthusiastic about the value proposition of the Xperia 10 V. It's not a bad phone, and it's undoubtedly got a few standout selling points that may tickle you just the right way - like the unusual form factor or the amazing battery. Plus, the Sony badge still has some extra weight to it - enough to mitigate the cost difference with alternative devices. If you are someone who might fancy any of those, then we'd say the Xperia 10 V is worth a (cautious) recommendation.

Pros

• Gorilla Glass Victus on the front, IP65/IP68 rating for dust and water protection.
• Light and compact.
• Noticeably improved display brightness since the last generation. Great color accuracy.
• Front-facing stereo speakers with nice and clean output.
• Spectacular battery life.
• One of few telephoto cameras in the price segment.

Cons

• No charger in the box, not even a USB cable.
• Display is only 60Hz while all competitors offer HRR.
• Charging speed is not competitive but is still quicker than its predecessor.
• UI does not run smoothly. More powerful competitors are available in the price segment.
• No 4K video recording on any camera.