A great phone for watching movies, but Sony’s Xperia 10 Plus is poor in many other areas
- The 21:9 aspect ratio on the Xperia 10 Plus delivers a quality cinematic experience, with none of the letterboxing found on similar devices
- But the camera performance is well below that of similarly priced phones, while chipset speed and battery life are also unimpressive
The ultra-wide aspect ratio of 21:9 used to be a sign of prestige in the golden age of Hollywood cinema, when epics such as The Ten Commandments (1956) and The Robe (1953) used the widescreen, anamorphic format to combat the emergence of television.
Even today, the 21:9 format is used across almost all forms of media. Films that aim to evoke a sense of old-school grandeur by using the format – 2016’s La La Land, for example – go out of their way to highlight the fact with a “CinemaScope” logo that rolls just before the movie starts.
That sense of spectacle is what Sony had in mind with this year’s updates to its long-running Xperia line of smartphones. Announced at the Mobile World Congress last month, the line consists of a flagship Xperia 1 and a pair of mid-tier handsets, the Xperia 10 and 10 Plus.
While the 1 and 10 models differ in processor and build material, all three share the same 21:9 aspect ratio that makes the phone extra tall when held conventionally, or extra wide when turned sideways. We put the mid-tier 10 Plus to the test.
Design and hardware
The Xperia 10 Plus keeps Sony’s boxy, rectangular form factor from previous phones and stretches it vertically. Sony has eliminated almost all of the chin bezel, but there is a sizeable forehead bezel that houses the selfie camera and earpiece (at least there’s no notch).