Most new midrange phones offer decent performance for a reasonable price, but camera quality tends to vary between medicore and average.
The unlocked Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra ($449.99) is a 6-inch phablet with a greater than average focus on the imaging department.
It has a crisp 23-megapixel rear camera, dual wide-angle selfie cameras with optical image stabilization, and the ability to record 4K video at 30fps.
It takes strong photos for the price, though it isn't quite as strong overall as the Huawei Honor View 10, which offers a sharper display, more RAM, and a faster processor for $50 more.
Design, Features, and Display
The XA2 Ultra sticks to Sony's established Xperia design language, with a much more rectangular look than most phones on the market.
The sides are made of aluminum and the back is a polycarbonate that comes in black, blue, gold, or silver.
It's not quite as sleek the View 10 or Motorola's Moto X4, but unlike previous, bezel-heavy Xperia phones, the screen stretches from nearly edge to edge.
The Ultra is very much a phablet, at 6.4 inches by 3.2 inches by 0.4 inches (HWD) and 7.8 ounces, significantly thicker and heavier than the View 10 (6.2 by 3.0 by 0.3 inches, 6.1 ounces) and Moto X4 (5.9 by 2.9 by 0.3 inches, 5.7 ounces).
Even with settings for shrinking the display and moving the keyboard, it's hard to use easily in one hand.
And despite the screen being edge-to-edge on a horizontal level, there's still plenty of bezel at the top and bottom.
There's a clicky volume rocker, a circular power button, and a camera shutter button on the right side, (the latter of which is useful for shooting in landscape mode).
A USB-C charging port is at the bottom, and a 3.5mm headphone jack is up top.
The left side has a SIM/microSD card slot that worked fine with a 256GB card.
The back is home to a fingerprint sensor that works in the US (previous models shipped with fingerprint sensors that were disabled in the US market).
The front of the phone is dominated by a 6-inch, 1,920-by-1,080 IPS display.
At 367 pixels per inch (ppi) the screen isn't quite as crisp as the 5.2-inch Moto X4 (424ppi) or the 6-inch View 10 (403ppi).
On close inspection, you can notice some scant pixelation, but it looks perfectly acceptable at a typical viewing distance.
Color reproduction is good and there are options to increase saturation or change white balance.
Screen brightness could be a bit higher, as the panel isn't visible under direct sunlight.
There's also some mild washing out when viewed from the sides.
Network Performance and Connectivity
As with all Sony phones, the XA2 Ultra is sold unlocked and is compatible with GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile.
It supports LTE bands 1/2/4/5/7/8/12/13/17/25/28/29/66, for good network connectivity on those carriers.
We saw decent speeds on T-Mobile in heavily congested Manhattan with 6.9Mbps down and 16Mbps up, which is par for the course where we test.
Connectivity protocols are comprehensive, including NFC for mobile payments (a frequent omission among midrange phones), Bluetooth 5.0 for audio playback on two devices, and Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.
Call quality is mediocre.
Though the earpiece is loud and clear, transmissions are muddy and there's added interference when noise cancellation kicks in.
You can still carry on a phone conversation in a noisy environment, but it's not the most pleasant experience.
Processor and Battery
The XA2 Ultra is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor clocked at 2.2GHz and 4GB of RAM.
In the PCMark benchmark, which runs a number of tasks like browsing, video editing, and data manipulation, it scored 5,037 for overall work performance, which is better than midrange phablets like the ZTE Blade Z Max (3,709), but not up to par with the Kirin 970-powered View 10 (7,066).
We experienced generally smooth performance for most tasks, with little to no slowdown for multitasking and launching apps.
When it comes to gaming, however, the XA2 Ultra can't compete with the View 10's GPU.
In GFXBench's Car Chase on-screen test it managed just 6fps compared with the 23fps on the View 10.
It addition, it was only able to run PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds at a low level of graphics and suffered from stuttering and dropped frames.
See How We Test Cell Phones
Battery life is average at 6 hours, 2 minutes of streaming video over LTE at maximum brightness.
That's not far off from the View 10 (6 hours, 19 minutes) or the Moto X4 (7 hours, 25 minutes).
There are the standard battery-saving modes, as well as support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, but you'll need to buy a Quick Charge-compatible power adapter separately.
Camera
Camera performance is where the XA2 Ultra distinguishes itself.
The rear sensor is a sharp 23 megapixels that takes crisp photos in good lighting, as well as in more challenging conditions such as cloudy weather.
It can handle shadows and details without suffering from the nosiness that plagues other midrange phones, and does well at adjusting the exposure.
That said, autofocus can be a little hit or miss in lower light, resulting in the occasional blurriness.
Color reproduction is accurate, though post-processing can make some shots look oversmoothed and artificial.
Front sensors sometimes feel like an afterthought, but not so with the XA2 Ultra.
It boasts dual 8- and 16-megapixel sensors that are capable of taking 120-degree wide angle shots.
The 16-megapixel sensor boasts optical image stabilization.
In both brightly lit and dim settings, the camera captured facial features and skin tone with accuracy and minimal noise.
Barrel distortion sometimes creeps in, however.
The rear sensors doesn't have optical image stabilization, so while you can record 4K video at 30fps, it can be jittery.
It also supports slow-motion recording at 120fps.
Software
The XA2 Ultra comes running Android 8.0 Oreo, which is reasonably up to date for a midrange phone and based on Sony's track record, there's a decent chance of future updates.
It does run Sony's custom skin, but visual changes are pretty minimal aside from some app icon and menu designs, so the UI will be familiar to anyone who's used stock Android.
Bloatware is minimal.
You get AVG Protection, two Amazon apps, the Sony PlayStation app, and Xperia Lounge.
None can be uninstalled, leaving you with 17.5GB of free storage out of a total of 32GB.
That's a reasonable amount of space to download more apps, but if you plan to take a lot of photos and video you'll want to use a microSD card for more storage.
Conclusions
The Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra offers decent overall performance and above-average camera capabilities.
But at $450, it's in the same price category as the Motorola Moto X4, which gets you dual rear cameras, compatibility with all major carriers, and some extra bells and whistles like waterproofing for $50 less.
For $50 in the other direction, you have the Huawei Honor View 10, which boasts a sharper display and a more powerful processor.
There's also the upcoming OnePlus 6 to think about, which will likely offer even more power than the View 10.
Ultimately, despite being a capable phone that can snap nice photos, the XA2 Ultra feels a little lacking for the price.
Pros
The Bottom Line
The Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra phablet pairs a large 6-inch screen with impressive camera capabilities, but it lags behind the competition in terms of processing power.
