Sony has updated its mid-range Xperia 10 line with the Xperia 10 VIII, but the latest model brings few major changes while costing significantly more than its predecessor.
The Xperia 10 VIII keeps the same 6.1-inch OLED display with a 2340 x 1080 resolution, although Sony says the panel can now get 50% brighter. Under the hood, it also uses the same Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 processor, 8GB of RAM and 5000mAh battery as the Xperia 10 VII. Storage remains at 128GB.
The camera setup hasn’t changed either. You still get a 50MP f/1.9 main camera alongside a 13MP ultrawide, while the front-facing camera remains an 8MP sensor.
Sony has made a few smaller changes. The Xperia 10 VIII has speakers that are 15% louder than the previous model, while a double press of the power button provides quick access to digital payment tools. It also gets a translucent rear panel and comes in Frozen White, Frosted Grey and Misty Lilac.
That’s a fairly modest list of upgrades for a phone that is considerably more expensive. The Xperia 10 VIII will cost £549 in the UK, which is £150 more than the Xperia 10 VII’s launch price. That’s roughly a 38% increase, despite the core hardware remaining largely unchanged.
Sony’s higher price comes at a difficult time for the mid-range phone market, too. The company has also stopped selling Xperia phones in the US, so the Xperia 10 VIII won’t be an option for American buyers.
The phone is due to go on sale in September. Sony hasn’t made any major claims about transforming the Xperia 10 range with this generation, and the specification suggests a fairly conservative update.
The brighter display and louder speakers could make the Xperia 10 VIII a little nicer to use day to day, but the unchanged processor, cameras, battery and storage make the £549 price difficult to ignore. For a mid-range phone, that’s a sizeable jump for what looks like a relatively small upgrade.
The post Sony’s updated Xperia 10 gets a big price hike – and not much else appeared first on Trusted Reviews.