Introduction
The Internet can be a scary place with its billions of users, but modern smartphones have a way to let you leave your mark - the selfie camera. That's exactly what the Sony Xperia XA Ultra is all about.
It's one of only two phones to feature optical image stabilization on the front-facing camera. And what a camera it is - a dedicated LED flash and a large 1/2.6" sensor of 16MP resolution. That's the same sensor size and resolution as the main camera on the Galaxy S6!
Unboxing the Sony Xperia XA Ultra
The retail box is visibly larger than previous X boxes, and you should be excited to know that the phone just barely fits in, it's that big. There's not much else other than the phone, though - a charger and a microUSB cable, a few notes of paper tucked in at the bottom, that's it.
A big box with few items inside: phone, charger, cable
We got the 1.5A charger, however Sony packaging varies by region and the US market usually gets a fast charger. Be sure to check before you buy and if there isn't one, look for a charger that supports MediaTek's Pump Express 2.0 standard and not Qualcomm's Quick Charge.
Sony Xperia XA Ultra360° spin
The Sony Xperia XA Ultra measures 164 x 79 x 8.4mm, making it the narrowest 6" phone in our database. It beat the Xperia C5 Ultra by 0.6mm in that department.
The XA Ultra isn't as dainty in the other directions, though. There are shorter, thinner and lighter 6" phones around. To be fair, width and weight are the most important factors for comfort when holding a large phone, but at least that thickness and weight could have come with a large battery.
Hardware
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra was one of the earliest - and one of the best - big phones. Seriously, that thing had a 6.4" screen back in 2013! It was super thin too, 6.5mm, and yet had a 3050mAh battery (bigger than XA Ultra's). It had a metal frame and a glass back, a round button on the side.
The T2 Ultra came later on in 2014 and C5 Ultra in 2015, and gradually Sony began having one of these 6" monsters every year. This year they're also continuing another feature from the C5 Ultra - the focus on selfies. The C5 Ultra had a 13MP selfie cam with its own LED flash.
The Sony Xperia XA Ultra's selfie camera is much better, of course. The sensor is bigger and of higher resolution, it has OIS too. The new Ultra is a more premium offering with a metal frame, even though it fills in the same midrange niche. None of that ugly glossy plastic on the back either, it's smooth, good quality polycarbonate this time around and we very much appreciate the change.
All this history lesson is to say that Sony has been doing large phones for years and if you liked the previous Ultras, you'll love this one too.
The 79mm worth of width is okay to hold with one hand, but to use the phone, you'll need both hands, which is understandable for such a big phone.
The whole thing is heavier than expected, which makes it more tiring to hold for long periods. We wish it weighed less. As it is now, it weighs as much as the 6.4" Xiaomi Mi Max and that thing is fully covered in metal and has a 4,850mAh battery as well.
Credit to Sony, however, for doing what it could to keep the phone as narrow as possible. In fact, as far as our research went, the XA Ultra might very well be the narrowest 6-inch phone there is.
The side bezels around the display are spectacularly thin. Any less than that and you'll be triggering unintentional touches from just holding the phone.
The front glass has beveled edges (aka 2.5D glass) and it is scratch resistant, though Sony doesn't name any brand. The curve flows smoothly from glass to rounded metal sides which felt great. What's more the curved edges look great as well.
Sony Xperia XA Ultra is a lot of screen in one handful
The sides themselves are made of metal, but the top and bottom parts of the phone frame pieces have a different finish than the side frames. That's a minor complaint, but they would have looked much better if they were of the same color.
The sides have a different finish, a small blemish on the polished look
Besides the front camera, above the display there's the selfie flash, the earpiece, and the proximity and ambient light sensors. This camera, of course, is the highlight here and it is visually much bigger than a typical selfie cam, one glance is all you need to know that it means business.
Next to those, a bit harder to spot, is a LED notification light.
There's nothing below the screen - no keys there. Too bad that Sony missed the opportunity to put their traditional stereo speakers on such a big phone where there sure is room to spare.
The massive selfie camera means business • Stereo speakers would have elevated XA Ultra's status
The single loudspeaker is on the bottom of the phone, to the left of the microUSB port and one of the mics.
The other mic is on the top of the phone, next to the standard 3.5mm headphone jack.
Bottom firing loudspeaker • microUSB 2.0 port • Long live the headphone jack
All hardware buttons on the Sony Xperia XA Ultra are on the right side. This includes the volume rocker, stuffed between the Power key and the shutter key. The keys are nice and responsive.
True, we're not big fans of this arrangement in most recent Sony phones as it places the volume rocker too low for comfortable use. But the XA Ultra is so large that its placement actually works out okay this time.
The Power key is the trademark round aluminum key we know from the Z series, there's no fingerprint readers on the XA duo. Sony says the fingerprint reader would not have fit onto the thin bezels and it kind of makes sense but we would still have liked to see one on a phone in this price segment.
No fingerprint reader, but the buttons offer a solid press
On the left side is a flap that covers the card slots. There is no water-ingress protection on the XA Ultra so there is no extra seal on the flap.
Behind the flap there is a solid-looking tray for the SIM card and a slot for the microSD card.
There are dual-SIM XA Ultras as well but we didn't have one available to us. On those models the SIM card tray is longer so it holds two cards. No hybrid slots here, you can keep using a microSD cart (and you'll probably need one).
The flap is purely aesthetic, there's no waterproofing on it
The back of the phone is made of satin finish plastic. It feels nice to the touch and it looks really nice. It's also less of a fingerprint magnet than the shiny plastic on the C5 Ultra but still, it would get smudged up quite fast in every-day use.
The camera and flash are tucked into the top left corner and the NFC antenna is a bit down and to the right. Some recent Sony phones have it on the front, which is somewhat inconvenient, so we're glad it's on the back now.
Classy material, but does need to be wiped occasionally • NFC is on the back, next to the camera
Overall, the Sony Xperia XA Ultra has the look and feel of an expensive phone and we're left with quite positive impressions.
The look of the thin bezels is strikingly impressive, which is a rarity these days. The metal sides make this huge phone feel rock solid so build quality is on par with the looks.
The rest of the Xperia XA Ultra is quite similar to the smaller XA, which (it is no secret) is our favorite looking phone of the new Xperia X line. Aside from the screen, of course, Ultra is Sony speak for a 6" screen.
It has a higher resolution, 1080p, which makes it sharper to boot. And slender it is too - the narrowest 6" phone in our database, despite its metal sides.
Sony Xperia XA Ultra key features
- Monster of selfie camera: 16MP 1/2.6" sensor, optical image stabilization, LED flash
- Narrowest phone with 6-inch screen
- 6" 1,080 x 1,920px LCD with 367ppi, Mobile Bravia Engine 2; 2.5D scratch-resistant glass, oleophobic coating
- Android v6.0 Marshmallow with Xperia launcher
- MediaTek MT6755 Helio P10 chipset, octa-core 2GHz Cortex-A53 CPU; Mali-T860MP2 GPU; 3GB RAM
- 21.5 MP camera with 1/2.4" sensor; 1080p@30fps video recording and hybrid autofocus
- 16GB of built-in storage and a microSD card slot
- Single and dual-SIM variants
- LTE Cat.4 (150Mbps); Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n; A-GPS/GLONASS receiver, Bluetooth v4.1, FM radio with RDS
- Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
- 2,700mAh non-removable battery (Pump Express 2.0 charging supported)
Main cons
- Tiny battery for the size, and not particularly efficient 28nm chipset
- No fingerprint reader
- OIS on selfie camera, but not on the main camera. Go figure
- No increased water protection
The front-facing camera on the XA Ultra is impressive, more impressive than the main camera on the small XA. So the back camera had to be upgraded too, it got a 21.5MP sensor (1/2.4" Exmor RS IMX230, if you're keeping score). We don't want an Oppo F1 Plus situation where the selfie cam is better than the one on the back, do we?
The Ultra model also gets an extra gig of RAM and a bigger battery too, but that's where the differences end. It's the same chipset, same software, even the battery isn't that big - actually, at 2700mAh it's downright tiny for a 6" phone. Especially one that's 8.4mm thick.
Sony Xperia XA official images
Well, we did love the XA and we are fans of big screens, so we're diving into the Sony Xperia XA Ultra a positive attitude (and a few worries).
Display
The Sony Xperia XA Ultra comes with a 6" screen - even by today's standards that's big! And it has 1080p resolution, giving it a pixel density of 367ppi, sharper than the 720p screen of the small XA (294ppi). We are really happy with how fine details look on the screen and we think this sort of resolution is quite adequate for pretty much anyone - not to mention the power efficiency and graphics performance benefits.
The panel used is an IPS LCD and it has great viewing angles. It doesn't have Sony's Triluminos panel tech like on the Xperia X lineup but honestly, we can't tell just by looking at it and without comparing it directly to another display that has it.
Color accuracy is average with an average deltaE of 7.4 and a maximum of 13.4. Those are similar readings to the Xiaomi Mi Max, for example, but worse than some large AMOLEDs (e.g. Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016) or Oppo R7 Plus).
The main culprits are the white balance, which is on the cool side, and the red channel. There are sliders to adjust the screen's RGB channels separately, but eyeballing a more accurate result is next to impossible. Just get a color balance you like and stick with it.
Two additional screen modes are Mobile Bravia 2 and Super Vivid. Bravia applies image processing - noise reduction, sharpening, etc. in the gallery and video player - while Super Vivid boosts the gamma curve to make images pop. Neither screen mode affected the maximum achievable brightness or the color accuracy.
Speaking of brightness, the Sony Xperia XA Ultra screen is very bright, brighter than most screens its size. It went up to 530 nits while keeping the contrast relatively high at just over 1,000:1.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0.38 | 523 | 1376 | |
| 0.50 | 531 | 1071 | |
| 0.37 | 422 | 1144 | |
| 0.00 | 351 | ∞ | |
| - | 351 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 427 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 609 | ∞ | |
| 0.46 | 424 | 922 | |
| 0.30 | 426 | 1444 | |
When you go the other way, push the brightness slider to minimum, the display put out 6.7 nits - low enough that you can use it in the middle of the night.
Sunlight legibility is surprisingly good. AMOLEDs still offer a slightly better performance, but most LCDs in this price range - and several flagships among which the Xperia Z5 - don't do quite as well on a bright sunny day. Sony gets top marks for the XA Ultra display.
Sunlight contrast ratio
Connectivity
The Sony Xperia XA Ultra comes in single and dual-SIM variants. It has LTE connectivity, Cat. 4 150Mbps/50Mbps, and HSPA+. Other Internet connectivity options include Wi-Fi a/b/g/n (150Mbps speed, there's no ac).
Bluetooth 4.1 has both the Low Energy option and the high-quality aptX audio streaming codec. NFC is on board as well.
The microUSB 2.0 port handles charging and data, obviously, but it also supports USB OTG so you can hook up external hardware. If you're going to use flash drives, make sure to install a file browser first as there isn't one out of the box.
Sony's Video & TV SideView app shows an electronic program guide and can control Bravia TVs via Wi-Fi (there's no IR blaster to control regular TVs or other appliances).
FM radio is available for old-school entertainment. Like with TV, Sony has added some Internet smarts and built TrackID into the radio app.
Battery
The Sony Xperia XA Ultra has a tiny battery - just 2,700mAh. We're not being overly harsh, the C5 Ultra is about this size (a bit thinner, actually) and it has a 2,930mAh battery. Hell, even the Xperia Z5 Compact has a 2,700mAh battery. Yes, the 4.6" phone!
Considering that battery life was the major weak point of the Xperia XA, which had a similar-sized battery (2,300mAh), the same chipset and a smaller screen, we just didn't expect much before we started the following battery tests.
It turns out things are better than expected, a decent step up from the 5" XA (not so much the endurance as the performance in the web and video tests). However, endurance hasn't improved since the C5 Ultra and is fairly average for 2016. Other recent 6" phones (and bigger) push up against the 100h endurance rating mark and can last close to 20 hours of browsing the web. We're not afraid to take those to even the longest tech conventions, but with the XA Ultra we will pack an external battery.
The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
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