Sony Xperia 10 V review

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.