Sony Xperia 10 V review

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.