Sony Xperia 10 VIII review

The competition

The Xperia 10 VIII is only available in a single variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of expandable storage. Same as last year's Xperia 10 VII. As you've seen throughout this review, the similarity to last year's model is a recurring theme.

What's not so similar this time around is pricing. The Xperia 10 VIII will launch for €600/£550, which is quite the price hike compared to the €450/£400 launch price of the Xperia 10 VII. Sony appears to have already discontinued the Xperia 10 VII, so we can't even recommend you get that one as a better deal.

Memory and storage prices are up, and this is the reality we live in. Midrange devices arguably have it the worst, as these increases make up a proportionally larger part of their overall cost. We'll probably see other manufacturers tackle the issue in different ways, like downgrading the hardware, for instance. Still, 150 bucks is a serious price increase, and we hope we don't see it across the industry this fall.

Even considering Sony's positioning as a premium brand, we don't think the Xperia 10 VIII makes sense at anything above €350.

As we already mentioned, there are unfortunately very few compact smartphones on the market today, at least from mainstream brands.

That said, the Google Pixel 10a does get as close as possible to these requirements. It is still a relatively compact device with a 6.3-inch P-OLED display that's brighter than the Xperia's. The rest of the specs are in the same rough ballpark as the Xperia 10 VIII, including a 5,100 mAh battery and a decent, if not incredibly powerful, Tensor G4 chipset. Even the Android approach is quite similar here, with a clean, near-AOSP look and feel. Arguably, the Pixel does more with its dual camera setup and extracts more through computational photography prowess, courtesy of Google.

Google Pixel 10a • Samsung Galaxy A57 • Xiaomi Poco X8 Pro • Nothing Phone (4a)

The Galaxy A57 may not be as compact, but it is quite a slim device. Some highlights, of course, include One UI and Samsung's excellent software support promise. You also get a larger and brighter display and a more potent chipset. And it can be found for as low as €310.

The Poco X8 Pro is kind of hard to ignore for its frankly great value proposition. Currently, you can get an 8GB/512GB unit for around €340, and thе storage bump is just one benefit in this case. You also get a very bright, 120Hz, 6.59-inch OLED display, a very powerful Dimensity 8500 Ultra chipset, stereo speakers, a large 6,500 mAh battery with fast 100W charging and a potent dual-camera setup.

Our final suggestion here is the Nothing Phone (4a). This one is interesting. It does have a dedicated 3x telephoto camera, which is pretty nice to see at this price point. And it's not like the rest of the specs are disappointing either. Sure, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 is not a powerhouse, but you do get a great display, pretty fast charging and a unique design.

Our verdict

The Xperia 10 VIII is a difficult phone to judge because, taken entirely on its own, it isn't necessarily a bad device. In fact, we could even call it rather unique. There aren't many phones left that combine a relatively compact body with an uninterrupted display, front-facing stereo speakers, a 3.5mm jack, expandable storage, a side-mounted capacitive fingerprint reader and a very clean Android experience.

You could argue that Sony's refusal to follow the rest of the industry is entirely deliberate. The Xperia 10 VIII certainly feels like a phone designed for a very particular kind of loyal Sony user, one who still values some of these increasingly rare features and doesn't mind the old-school approach to design and functionality. And viewed through that lens, there is a certain charm to the Xperia 10 VIII.

Unfortunately, charm can only carry a phone so far.

The biggest problem is that Sony has barely upgraded the phone this year beyond the max screen brightness and the speaker quality. Charging remains very slow by current standards, battery life is merely adequate, and the camera system was already struggling to stay competitive last year. Reusing all of it for another year only makes those shortcomings more apparent as the rest of the market continues to move forward.

There are still things we genuinely like. The phone is light and pleasantly narrow, has excellent ingress protection, its 120Hz OLED is sharp and now sufficiently bright outdoors, the front-facing stereo speakers work very well for multimedia, and Sony's clean software remains refreshingly free of clutter. The combination of a microSD slot and headphone jack is practically impossible to find, too, and the company's battery-care features remain among the more thoughtful implementations around.

None of that, however, comes remotely close to justifying the price.

At €600/£550, the Xperia 10 VIII isn't merely expensive for what it offers; it finds itself competing with phones that are faster, have better displays, substantially better cameras, larger batteries, dramatically faster charging and, in some cases, better long-term software support as well.

Had the Xperia 10 VIII launched somewhere around the €350 mark, we'd be having a very different conversation. At that sort of price, its compact dimensions and collection of increasingly rare features could make it an interesting niche alternative for the right buyer. At €600, though, it's practically impossible to recommend it. We can only hope the high launch price is temporary and gets adjusted in time.

The Xperia 10 VIII is not a bad phone. It is just an almost unchanged phone from last year, entering a market that most definitely hasn't stood still, while somehow asking substantially more money for the privilege. Sony loyalists who specifically want what only an Xperia can offer may still find enough here to be happy. Everyone else should look elsewhere.

Pros

• Compact and lightweight by modern standards.
• Sharp 120Hz OLED display with improved outdoor brightness.
• IP65/IP68 dust and water resistance.
• Front-facing stereo speakers with improved sound quality.
• 3.5mm headphone jack and expandable microSD storage.

Cons

• Expensive at launch.
• Almost no meaningful hardware upgrades over the Xperia 10 VII.
• Battery life is only average despite the modest hardware.
• Very slow charging by current standards.
• Overall camera quality is behind much of the competition.
• Refresh-rate handling remains crude, with especially strange behavior in games.
• Only 128GB of internal storage and no higher-capacity option.