Among Sony's new arrivals at MWC was the Xperia XA. Sony calls it a 'super mid-range' phone, but it's anything but a boring handset. Weighing just 137g and measuring just 7.9mm thick, it feels great in the hand, with its nicely sized 5in form factor and slightly curved sides. It feels nice and grippy, too, so I would hope that this phone won't suffer from the same problems of its forebears which saw many a cracked screen thanks to the phone sliding off of seemingly level tables.
Previous Xperia phones have benefitted from water proofing, but the XA makes no claims about this, so avoid using it in the bath.
I love the near edge-to-edge display, too; the left and right bezels are so small they're barely perceptible, and while this can sometimes cause problems when gripping the phone with a thumb on the front of the display, I didn't have any problems with this during my testing of the device. The screen itself is a 1280x720 panel, which is the first area you'll notice it's a budget phone. I was really impressed by its brightness - it's not stated but I'd guess it peaks at around 400cd/m2. Even better, whites are very pure indeed and vibrant colours have punch. This is one phone I can't wait to test with our colour calibrator.
The other area budgets have been cut are in the processing department. A quad-core MediaTek MT6755 isn't a high-end chip and sticks the Xperia XA firmly in the mid-range as far as performance goes, as does the 2GB of RAM. For reference, the recently launched Xperia M5 (MT6795) scored 1,429 in the Geekbench offscreen test, which is a pretty middling result. The MT6755 is a lower-end chip, so expect slightly lower scores. Still, Android 6 Marshmallow feels nice and smooth in general use, but we'll need to look at it in closer detail to see whether the performance compromises are worth it.
The Xperia XA comes equipped with a 2,300mAh battery and Sony claims up to two days of battery life. Quite what sort of usage is required to achieve that remains to be seen, but Sony's Stamina Mode has proven quite effective on previous handsets so I've no doubt it's possible.
Storage is limited to 16GB internally, but the microSD card slots supports cards of up to 200GB so it's unlikely you'll run out of storage space if you're prepared to make a small upfront investment.
Sony has always focussed on the performance of its cameras, and this launch is no exception. The firm was keen to point out its new camera tech in its presentation. The XA doesn't get Sony's predictive auto-focus found in the Xperia X, but it does at least get object-tracking functionality, so shots of moving targets should still be easier to take than with conventional smartphone cameras. The sensor itself produces 13MP images, and in the well-lit Sony booth images looked pretty good, at least from a distance. Things got a bit more smudgy as I zoomed in, but we'll have to take a closer look at its indoor performance when it we get it in for testing.
The Xperia XA is a very tempting-looking mid-range smartphone. No pricing has been announced, but based on specifications alone I'd put it at around £250, which puts it in a competitive space alongside this year's other mid-range phones, such as those from LG, the X-Cam and X-Screen.
^ The handset will be available in a range of colours, though they're not really to our tastes
