Sony Xperia X review: Rated X

Phone

We have a single-SIM Sony Xperia X, but there is a dual-SIM version if you need an extra phone line. The phone has active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic. You can filter the call log by missed, incoming and outgoing calls.

Dialer • Call log filtering

The phone also has a fairly unique feature, a built-in answering machine. Yep, it picks up an incoming call, plays your greeting and would later replay your friends' messages. You can set up your greeting and pickup conditions.

The Xperia X has a built-in answering machine

The Sony Xperia X scored fairly low on our loudspeaker test. Stereo speakers or not, it just sounds quiet even when you boost the volume to the maximum. So it scores a Below Average, not really improving on the Xperia Z5's or the M5's performance.

Messaging

The Sony Xperia X has a beautiful Material design messaging app. It feels like the instant messengers you might be used to, including conversations wallpapers and cute stickers you can send.

Messaging app

Ours came with panda stickers pre-installed, but you can download more (free and paid sticker packs are available). You can also send your own creations drawn in the Sketch (obviously, this changes the message type to MMS).

Stickers are available, just like in chat apps

For text entry, Sony picked the SwiftKey keyboard. It became popular for its swipe input, but regular tap-typing with text correction is available as well.

Customizeable SwiftKey keyboard

The keyboard is highly customizable - you can change the layout, choose what characters are available (accented characters, emoji), enable a number row, resize the keyboard or even undock it.

The Messaging app also handles voice input.