Sony Xperia 10 II review

GSMArena team, 8 June 2020.

Stock Android 10, with a hint of Xperia customization

Short of one of Google's own Pixel devices, the modern Xperia UI is about as close as you can get to a clean, vanilla Android 10 experience. Sony somehow managed to tone-down the already clean experience from last year's Xperia 1 and Xperia 5 even further.

Sony Xperia 10 II review

Naturally, the Xperia 10 II comes with all the improvements native to Android 10, like the new two-tier location permission and system-wide Dark theme.

Two-tier location permissions and dark theme - Sony Xperia 10 II review Two-tier location permissions and dark theme - Sony Xperia 10 II review Two-tier location permissions and dark theme - Sony Xperia 10 II review Two-tier location permissions and dark theme - Sony Xperia 10 II review Two-tier location permissions and dark theme - Sony Xperia 10 II review Two-tier location permissions and dark theme - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Two-tier location permissions and dark theme

Weirdly enough, the Xperia comes out of the box with the old-school three button nav bar for navigation, though it does offer you the option for gesture navigation. The pill-based method that the previous-gen Xperias used and is still available on Pixels is not an option on the Xperia 10 II, though.

Fingerprint unlock is the only biometric unlock method available and since we found that to work flawlessly we're not lamenting the lack of face unlock. Seeing how there's no dedicated face recognition hardware, a face unlock feature would be less secure than the fingerprint reader anyway.

Gesture navigation - Sony Xperia 10 II review gesture sensitivity - Sony Xperia 10 II review security options - Sony Xperia 10 II review security options - Sony Xperia 10 II review security options - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Gesture navigation • gesture sensitivity • security options

Sony has included more than one thoughtful subtle behavioral tweak in the UI. Especially when it comes to making navigation work properly with various apps. For instance, you can tweak basic gesture navigation sensitivity.

Sony Xperia 10 II review

On the flip side, there are very few options in terms of visual customization. You get some static wallpapers and watch styles, and that's about it. In case you were wondering - that Live wallpapers menu from the screenshot has no baked-in options available. It is simply there for convenience once you do install standard Android live wallpapers. Thoughtful!

Very few visual styling options - Sony Xperia 10 II review Very few visual styling options - Sony Xperia 10 II review Very few visual styling options - Sony Xperia 10 II review Very few visual styling options - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Very few visual styling options

One small complaint we do have is the overly guided Sony way of presenting things. It takes a good few minutes to initially set up the phone and go through all of the tutorials, settings recommendations, and the additional app wizard. Then, every app or menu you visit for the first time typically has its own little tutorial or "tip" to offer. While we appreciate the novice-friendliness of it all, perhaps the whole system can benefit from an initial "Easy" or "Advanced" mode prompt. Just our two cents.

Setup notifications after the initial setup - Sony Xperia 10 II review Setup notifications after the initial setup - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Setup notifications after the initial setup

The UI basics are identical to what you'd get on Google's own phones.

Lockscreen - Sony Xperia 10 II review Homescreen - Sony Xperia 10 II review Folder view - Sony Xperia 10 II review App drawer - Sony Xperia 10 II review Task switcher - Sony Xperia 10 II review Quick toggles - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Lockscreen • Homescreen • Folder view • App drawer • Task switcher • Quick toggles

There are unique Xperia bits on top, however. One-handed mode, for example, lets you shrink the UI to one corner by double-tapping the home button to bring everything within reach. If you go with gesture navigation instead, there is still a convenient-enough toggle in the Side Sense UI.

One-handed UI - Sony Xperia 10 II review One-handed UI - Sony Xperia 10 II review
One-handed UI

Sony's Side Sense is present as well. A pair of touch-sensitive areas on either side of the phone enable various actions most of which user-configurable. One particularly powerful and customizable option is the 21:9 pair shortcut feature. Through it, you simply select two apps and the relative location you want to launch them in, and then you can trigger split-screen with the pair instantly.

Side Sense - Sony Xperia 10 II review Side Sense - Sony Xperia 10 II review Side Sense - Sony Xperia 10 II review Side Sense - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Side Sense

You can freely drag the Side Sense Ui up and down once open, for optimal convenience. You can even get a smaller version of the app drawer, with all of the apps there. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to small, thoughtful tweaks and settings for Side Sense.

Sony Xperia 10 II review

Side sense and Multi-window are technically two separate entities, with separate settings. Their UI's, however, are so intertwined that there is hardly any meaningful distinction. By default, Side Sense has a set of quick toggles and a total of 8 app shortcuts, which are dynamically selected based on behavioral monitoring and patterns. Of course, you can add custom app entries yourself, as well.

Add apps to Side Sense - Sony Xperia 10 II review Add apps to Side Sense - Sony Xperia 10 II review Add apps to Side Sense - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Add apps to Side Sense

The main setting aspect of the multi-window menu is an interface to set up specific app pairs, for quick launching.

Sony Xperia 10 II review

Alternatively, you can evoke Multi-window in several other ways and then just rely on Side Sense suggestions for frequently used app pairs.

Multi-window settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Multi-window settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Multi-window settings

We really like how Multi-window actually functions in action. You can quickly swap one of the two apps out for a different one, switch them around and adjust the split. The whole system is responsive, and most modern apps play nicely with it.

Multi-window in action - Sony Xperia 10 II review Multi-window in action - Sony Xperia 10 II review Multi-window in action - Sony Xperia 10 II review Multi-window in action - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Multi-window in action

Rounding-off Side Sense, we have a very in-depth set of tweaks and settings available. Everything from position, size, look, and sensitivity can be finely-tuned to your liking. You can customize what double-tap, slide up and slide down on the Side Sense bar do freely and even have the entire thing selectively turned-off on a per-app basis. Side Sense is a very versatile feature.

Side Sense settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Side Sense settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Side Sense settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Side Sense settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Side Sense settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Side Sense settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Side Sense settings

Other than Side Sense, there are a few light Xperia options sprinkled here and there. Most of these housed neatly inside the Xperia Assistant. Battery Care is a particular favorite of ours.

Xperia assistant and various features - Sony Xperia 10 II review Xperia assistant and various features - Sony Xperia 10 II review Xperia assistant and various features - Sony Xperia 10 II review Xperia assistant and various features - Sony Xperia 10 II review Xperia assistant and various features - Sony Xperia 10 II review Xperia assistant and various features - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Xperia assistant and various features

And there are a few gestures to customize on a system-wide level as well. Nothing too fancy, but thoughtful-enough to be meaningful on an everyday basis.

Gesture settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Gesture settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Gesture settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Gesture settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review Gesture settings - Sony Xperia 10 II review
Gesture settings

Finally, it is worth noting that Sony retired a few of its in-house apps, as well. Gone is the Album app - Sony's in-house gallery, and with it, the image editor. This functionality has been delegated to the Google Photos app now, and that's hardly an issue. The Music app remains, though with ubiquitous streaming apps taking over from offline playback we think its days are probably numbered too.

Sony Xperia 10 II review

Just in case you were wondering, the feature-rich "Game enhancer", as seen on the Xperia 1 II, is not present on our Xperia 10 II review unit.

Synthetic benchmarks

Raw performance is not the strong suit of the Xperia 10 II. While not necessarily bad in any way, the Snapdragon 665 chipset, powering it, simply had the misfortune to be followed-up, quickly by a lot of development and meaningful competition in the midranger silicon space. It is worth remembering that the Xperia 10 II was announced back in February and is only now coming to the market. That places the RnD cycle for it further in the past, still. Hence, in some sense, we can't really fault Sony for its chipset choice.

Sony Xperia 10 II review

Starting with GeekBench and some pure-CPU numbers, we can start to illustrate in number just what we mean when we mention development in the mid-range chipset market, with silicon such as the MediaTek Helio P95 and Snapdragon 765G shifting the bar for performance expectations. Granted, the Snapdragon 730 or 730G, which came out alongside the 665 would have probably stood a better chance in such a crowd.

GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 7T
    2858
  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    2732
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    2700
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    2027
  • Motorola Edge
    1862
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    1692
  • Oppo Reno3 Pro
    1517
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    1413
  • Motorola Moto G8 Power
    1394
  • Sony Xperia 10
    990

GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 7T
    776
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    743
  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    738
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    688
  • Motorola Edge
    586
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    548
  • Oppo Reno3 Pro
    398
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    315
  • Motorola Moto G8 Power
    311
  • Sony Xperia 10
    179

AnTuTu paints the same overall picture. At least we can see that the Xperia 10 II is outscoring other devices with the same Snapdragon 665 chipset. Seeing how AnTuTu is a more compound benchmark, this is a positive sign about more potent internals inside the Xperia 10 II as a whole, as well as proper optimization on Sony's part to make sure they are getting the most out of the chip.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 7T
    485585
  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    459497
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    362730
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    341212
  • Motorola Edge
    305989
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    272229
  • Xiaomi Mi Note 10
    256717
  • Oppo Reno3 Pro
    227810
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    196545
  • Motorola Moto G8 Power
    173607
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
    167395
  • Sony Xperia 10
    112198

Moving on to GPU figures, we can see the Adreno 610, inside the Snapdragon 665 start to sweat. Even on the lower-intensity OpenGL ES 3.1 test inside GFXBench, we do not see frame rates above the 30 mark. Let alone 60.

Granted, on top of these charts, we have Snapdragon 855+ and 855 ex-flagship devices, skewing the scale, mainly because some of these are now attainable at roughly the Xperia 10 II's price point. If you are after the best possible graphics experience and are willing to live with slightly older hardware, we see no reason not to look in that direction.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 7T
    112
  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    100
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    90
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    79
  • Motorola Edge
    50
  • Xiaomi Mi Note 10
    41
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    41
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
    20
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    19
  • Motorola Moto G8 Power
    19
  • Sony Xperia 10
    13

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    60
  • OnePlus 7T
    59
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    57
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    51
  • Motorola Edge
    48
  • Xiaomi Mi Note 10
    38
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    37
  • Motorola Moto G8 Power
    18
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    16
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
    16
  • Sony Xperia 10
    11

On-screen numbers are particularly interesting here, mainly to illustrate that the extra tall, or rather extra-wide, depending on how you look at it, resolution on the Xperia 10 II is not doing it any favors.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 7T
    79
  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    69
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    65
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    47
  • Motorola Edge
    34
  • Xiaomi Mi Note 10
    30
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    30
  • Oppo Reno3 Pro
    20
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    13
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
    13
  • Motorola Moto G8 Power
    13
  • Sony Xperia 10
    9.6

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 7T
    59
  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    56
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    41
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    33
  • Motorola Edge
    32
  • Xiaomi Mi Note 10
    27
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    27
  • Oppo Reno3 Pro
    17
  • Motorola Moto G8 Power
    12
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
    11
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    10
  • Sony Xperia 10
    7.8

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 7T
    48
  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    43
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    40
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    29
  • Motorola Edge
    19
  • Xiaomi Mi Note 10
    17
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    17
  • Oppo Reno3 Pro
    7.3
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    7.1
  • Motorola Moto G8 Power
    7.1
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
    7
  • Sony Xperia 10
    5.4

Finally, we have some 3D mark numbers for you, as well. It should be noted that these weren't particularly easy to record since the Xperia 10 II ran out of graphical memory and either errored-out or froze on most runs. In much the same fashion, the higher-difficulty Aztec runs within GFXBench never properly finished on the phone either.

3DMark SSE OpenGL ES 3.1 1440p

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 7T
    6296
  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    5641
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    5254
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    4015
  • Motorola Edge
    3004
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    2467
  • Oppo Reno3 Pro
    1243
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    1125
  • Sony Xperia 10
    820

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1440p

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 7T
    5540
  • Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite
    4892
  • LG G8 ThinQ
    4514
  • Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite
    3706
  • Motorola Edge
    2801
  • Xiaomi Redmi K30
    2244
  • Oppo Reno3 Pro
    1551
  • Sony Xperia 10 II
    1121
  • Sony Xperia 10
    831

The Xperia 10 II is definitely no record-setter and its Snapdragon 665 chipset is hardly a powerhouse by 2020 standards. If you are after raw performance, you can likely get more for the same money elsewhere. Going for one of the newer mid-ranger chips, or, alternatively, one of the price-depreciated flagships from last year.

However, if gaming is not a major priority for you, we can assure you that the Snapdragon 665, as implemented in the Xperia 10 II does a swell job of running everything perfectly smoothly - whether it is web browsing, popular apps or simply general UI interactions.

Reader comments

  • Ram
  • 28 Dec 2021
  • XQ9

Sony's one of the Best affordable mobile. but amazon website is out of stock in india. im waiting for sony 10 II mobile in india.

  • Edda
  • 18 Oct 2021
  • p}h

Great phone at this price range, but the processor could have been a tad better. But other wise a superb midranger from Sony. The camera is pretty good too.

  • Anonymous
  • 16 Oct 2021
  • gIc

Big fun of Sony! So I have this model the last 6 months and I can say it's pretty good. Today I put it accidentally in the washing machine.. 15 minutes later I realized it was in there.. I didn't want to test if it's water resistant bu...