Sony Xperia 10 V review - A light smartphone with tremendous staying power

The Sony Xperia 10 V is available in the colors Black, White, Lavender and Sage Green. It is slightly larger in both length and width with height remaining identical. The camera setup juts out a mere 0.95 millimeters from the case.

The Xperia 10's matte frame consists of plastic but still manages to make a premium impression. The same applies to the rear side but our black review device was very prone to attracting fingerprints. The front is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.

The build quality is impressive, the gap dimensions are tight and even, with the buttons sitting firmly in their recesses and having a clearly defined pressure point. The Sony smartphone resists attempts to twist the device without flinching. The device feels good in the hand thanks to its slim display and low weight.

Another practical feature is that the card slot can be easily opened without the need for a tool. The card tray can hold a nano SIM as well as a microSD card. The Xperia smartphone offers IPX8 splash protection and, as well as being IPX5 waterproof, it is also dustproof (IP6X).

The Xperia 10 V can take microSD cards of up to 1 TB that have FAT, FAT32 or exFAT file systems. These can only be used as additional storage and not as internal storage. In our copying test, the card slot turned out to be a bit of a slowcoach, however, by contrast, it performed quite well in the Cross Platform Disk Test (CPDT).

The Sony Xperia 10 V possesses decent frequency coverage and supports all modern mobile communication standards including 5G Sub6. In big city environments, reception is good. 

In terms of Wi-Fi, the Xperia has a little surprise in store. Using our Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 router, it is only half as fast as the Xperia 10 IV. Sony has probably sacrificed the additional antenna for the second speaker or just simply omitted it. It's a pity because at this price you would be right to expect Wi-Fi 6.

The Sony Xperia 10 V can rely on a nano SIM card or eSIM meaning anyone who requires dual SIM can also use both options. For calls, every contact can be assigned an individual SIM and, as an alternative, only one SIM can be used for calls or a request can be made before every call. A dual-messenger function is not implemented in the system, neither is the management of your own SIP accounts. However, functions such as VoLTE and Wi-Fi calls are supported.

When held to the ear, the voice quality is very good but disruptive ambient noise is only partially filtered. By contrast, using the speaker mode, voices sound a little muffled but, otherwise, it works well. 

Under controlled lighting conditions, the Sony Xperia 10 V's camera delivers good imaging performance. The test chart can only be captured in 12 MPix due to the missing 48 MPix mode but remains sharp and detailed regardless, right to the edges of the image.

The ColorChecker's colors are captured comparatively naturally with the Sony smartphone only having problems with pure white.

The Sony Xperia 10 V comes without any accessories to speak of – neither a USB cable nor a charger. However, this can be purchased optionally from Sony. In addition to the smartphone itself, the slim cardboard box only contains many small, folded booklets in various languages.

The guarantee is for 24 months and cannot be extended.

When it comes to GPUs, the Adreno 619 is a real dinosaur and has been on the market for over three years. It debuted as part of the Snapdragon 400 series SoCs. This is noticeable in benchmarks with the Xperia 10 V finding itself at the bottom of the table, without exception. 

When surfing the web, the Sony Xperia 10 V scores well and manages to guide its users speedily through the internet. In the benchmarks, the smartphone is placed in the middle of the pack.

In tests, the Xperia 10 V's UFS memory showed itself to be very slow. However, that can be traced back to the SoC's memory controller rather than the memory itself. 

Even under load, the Sony Xperia's surface temperatures remain very low and only occasionally tiptoe over the 40-degree mark.

In addition, in the 3DMark stress tests, the device remained consistently stable and had access to its full power. 

The Sony Xperia 10 V's two speakers provide pleasant sound output with balanced mids and highs even at maximum volume. In spite of this, the sound still comes across as muffled and lacks volume. 

In the meantime, an audio jack - which in this case is also good (SNR: 73.82 dBFS) - is something that can not be taked for granted nowadays. Alternatively, Bluetooth 5.2 is available and it supports a wide range of audio codecs, including LC3.

If we already managed to describe the Xperia 10 IV as economical, the Mark V goes one better. That is especially impressive and is even better than the Pixel 7a. Although, it must be said that that device has around 150 cd/m² less brightness at its disposal.

The difference to its predecessor under load can be traced back to the benchmark switch since we now use Burnout which puts the system under significantly greater stress. 

The 5,000 mAh battery supports USB PD. With a suitably compatible charger, a full charge still takes around two hours. The final 20 percent requires a lot of time since reaching the 80 percent mark only takes around 78 minutes. The focus here is on the battery's durability. Wireless charging is not supported.

The battery runtimes are nearly identical to last year's model which is not surprising considering the use of the same SoC and identical-sized battery. It was only in the Reader’s test (with minimum brightness) that the Xperia 10 V displayed its further reduced consumption, allowing it an additional four hours of battery life. By contrast, the device's staying power sank under full load because the Burnout benchmarks drain the energy storage.

The two Sony smartphones leave the competition far behind.