Sony Xperia 10 VIII review

Camera is same as last year, and that's not a good thing

The Xperia 10 VIII straight up reuses the camera system of the 10 VII - the hardware is the same. That would have been great if the 10 VII was a solid cameraphone - for the money, of course - but it's not how we remember it.

The main camera is a relatively well-specced unit, with a proven (also old-ish, but hey) in-house sensor with a 1/1.56" optical format and a 50MP nominal resolution.

The other two cameras use SmartSens imagers with 13MP resolution on the ultrawide and 8MP on the front-facing one. Both lenses have fixed focus so you can forget about sharp close-ups with either one. The ultrawide is only moderately ultrawide, Sony insisting on the classic 16mm focal length, while the selfie camera lens is a bit narrow for modern trends, at 26mm equivalent.

• Wide (main): 50MP Sony IMX 766 (1/1.56", 1.0µm-2.0µm); 24mm, f/1.9, OIS, multi-directional PDAF; 4K30/1080p60 video recording.
• Ultrawide: 13MP SmartSens SC1320CS (1/3.06", 1.12µm); 16mm, f/2.4, fixed focus; 1080p30.
• Front camera: 8MP SmartSens SC820CS (1/4.0", 1.12µm); 26mm, f/2.0, fixed focus; 1080p30.

Daylight photo quality

Main camera

The main camera captures alright shots, but certainly not ones that will have you raving. Contrast is too high and dynamic range is lacking. Detail is generally very good and it's rendered naturally, but there's a fair bit of noise mixed in with it. Color rendition is on point, with a bit of a reserved take on saturation, that's not necessarily bad.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x)

Skin tones on human subjects are rendered well too. The Bokeh mode's results aren't too convincing, with occasional missteps in subject detection and an overall artificial looking blur.

Human subjects, main camera (1x): Photo mode • Portrait mode

Photos taken at 2x zoom have their flaws - foliage and other random textures look very digital, though more regular shapes remain pretty sharp. Not the best 2x shots, but pretty okay for a midranger.

Daylight samples, main camera (2x)

Bokeh mode doesn't work at 2x zoom, but you can still do some headshots in Photo mode. If you get lucky with the light, they'll be pretty decent, but our results were softer than we'd like most of the time.

Human subjects, main camera (2x), Photo mode

If you're into close-ups, perhaps the Xperia 10 VIII isn't quite the right fit. The main camera at 2x zoom is the only sensible option, and the quality isn't too hot.

Close-up samples, main camera (2x)

Ultrawide camera

There's not a lot to like in the ultrawide camera's photos. They're soft and noisy, and dynamic range is limited. Colors are probably the only thing that's not bad about it.

Daylight samples, ultrawide camera (0.7x)

Selfies

The Xperia's selfies are decently detailed, but also riddled with noise. Colors are mostly accurate, but quite lifeless - saturation could use a bump. Low-light selfies are pretty bad overall.

Selfie samples

Low-light photo quality

Main camera

The Xperia's rear cameras don't particularly enjoy darkness either. The main camera's colors are often off, perhaps partially due to auto white balance missteps and partially due to aggressive highlight restoration. Detail is decent in the well-lit areas, but it has a gritty digital rendition and there's also plenty of noise in there.

Low-light samples, main camera (1x)

The Xperia 10 VIII features automatic Night mode, which is indicated by a crescent icon that shows up in the viewfinder. You can turn it off in those instances, but there's no way to force it on if the phone doesn't decide it's needed.

At 2x zoom, things are just softer. There's an almost likeable 'I scanned a 30 year-old photo' quality to them, but they're just not objectively good photos.

Low-light samples, main camera (2x)

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide's low-light photos are pretty tough to look at. They're simply very soft and also quite desaturated.

Low-light samples, ultrawide camera (0.7x)

Video quality

Video recording on the Xperia is limited to 4K30 or 1080p60 on the main camera, while the ultrawide and the selfie camera max out at 1080p30, with no option for 60fps capture. The default codec is h.264, but you can opt for h.265 (HEVC) in settings.

You can hit '> play' below and use the '>| next' button to advance through the playlist of all video samples, or you can watch the full playlist on YouTube.

Daylight videos from the main camera are quite sharp and detailed and they also have pleasing colors. Contrast is dialed way too high though, resulting in crushed shadows and an overall low-end look. The ultrawide has a slightly different take on colors and it's also fairly soft, even for 1080p, plus it maintains the needlessly high contrast.

Video screengrabs, daylight: 0.7x • 1x • 2x

At night, both cameras struggle in terms of dynamic range and exposure and capture dark footage with blown out highlights and gloomy shadows. The main camera does maintain some semblance of sharpness, at least in the better lit areas, unlike the ultrawide, which is plain unusable.

Video screengrabs, low light: 0.7x • 1x • 2x

There's electronic stabilization that's toggled on globally in settings. It works really well on both the main camera and the ultrawide when you're shooting from a fixed position, panning is trouble-free, and even walking shake is handled quite well.