Gadgetory

what defines a flagship smartphone few years ago if I were to ask you the same question the quick response would have been a phone that has the top-of-the-line specs a great camera a long-lasting battery good build quality and great design and the last piece of the equation its price we've seen plenty of phones over the past few years that have performed great and are still performing great despite their age every year when a company launches their flagship device people start looking for reviews and if it stands out from the competition they start to look towards upgrading their existing phones even if their current device works just fine trust me I'm one of those guys but this year Sony did something a bit different with their Xperia lineup toshiba now offering ocz products that are awesome and affordable like the RD 400 TR 150 and vt1 80 that are backed by advanced warranty program now stronger than ever under toshiba if you recall our xperia x review i had some mixed feelings about this phone because priced at $550 the build and the design was excellent and the display was nice the battery life was outstanding but the camera wasn't that great and that was unacceptable considering the slightly low price point meet the $700 xperia x performance in simple words this phone is an exact replica of the xperia x except with some minor specification differences on the inside and a slight change of texture on the outside specifically at the back you now get a brushed metal finish over the simple plain design on the Xperia X internally is where all the differences happened and those higher specs are what you pay an extra $150 for there's a Snapdragon 820 quad-core CPU and a slightly bigger battery we're talking 80 million powers more to compensate for the more power-hungry processor but that's it it still has three gigabytes of RAM 32 gigabytes of internal storage that can be expanded the same camera sensor and the same 5-inch 1080p IPS display but do those specifications who really change the experience or are they just about achieving higher benchmark numbers to tell you the truth my experience using this phone hasn't that much coming from the xperia x for everyday tasks this thing feels just as fast with snappy screen transitions it still feels like a premium device - and given the compact form factor it should be a good size for users with small hands I did notice to display on the Xperia X performance was a bit on the warmer side compared to the regular xperia x the dual front-facing speakers performed just like the Xperia X and I always appreciate this feature since it makes content consumption a lot more pleasing when the phone is being used without attached headphones another cool feature is that this phone comes with an IP 68 water-resistant rating so that should prevent damage from accidental spills which the xperia x does not have and once again just like its little brother that's where my positive thoughts on the phone and I'm sad to report the camera quality on the X performance is just as bad as DX the lack of detail along with poor focusing is disappointing and it does not feature 4k video recording seriously Sony paying $700 for a so-called flagship which doesn't meet today's standards for some entry-level devices just feels odd I also have bad news for battery life it was significantly worse than the regular X I could blame this on the 820 CPU but theoretically speaking the 1080p display should have balanced daily usage without having it to plug it in in the middle of the day and to be honest I didn't notice a massive speed difference between the X performance and the X from my daily usage app open times are the same webpages load at the same time and the same story applies when multitasking makes me wonder if paying an extra $150 or where the regular X is even worth it I'm gonna stop here for a second and touch base on current value oriented phones that offer excellent features for the price let's start with the 1 plus 3 priced at $400 it's got a Snapdragon 820 CPU 6 gigabytes of RAM 64 gigabytes of internal storage that can't be expanded a massive 3000 milliamp hour battery and a 16 megapixel camera that features raw support and 4k video recording in his review Dmitry loved to build the display the battery life and the camera was surprisingly good and even though he had some minor quirks with YouTube playback issue that was fixed with a software update not to mention it's 300 bucks than the xperia x performance moo-hyun - phone that has been trending lately as a budget smartphone the ZTE axon 7 also priced at $400 you get a 5.5 inch quad HD display Snapdragon 820 CPU 4 gigabytes of RAM 64 gigabytes of storage that can also be expanded via microSD a 3,250 milliamp hour battery a 20 megapixel camera that can also shoot 4k video now I can go and talk about phones that cost less than the xperia x performance and even the xperia x but my point is you don't need to spend a lot of dough on a phone to get an amazing long-term experience the important word here is experience and as we've seen here ultra high and specifications without accompanying features leads to poor value specs aren't everything if you already invested into a flagship phone that costs more than $600 chances are it's gonna last you a while and I don't feel like the regular xperia x would offer any less future-proofing than the more expensive performance model let me give you an example I bought my Nexus 6p last year around this time and I absolutely love using it the display is clear and sharp and since it's AMOLED it helps a lot with battery life I'm still getting a full day of usage and sometimes even more and it still feels lightning-quick even with today's slightly more demanding apps I cannot live without the dual front-facing speakers either the camera still performs great and it's still my primary shooter for Instagram and Twitter pics and best of all stock Android has always been my cup of tea given the operating systems usual excellent memory management without any unwanted bloatware it's still performing like a champ as a matter of fact I'd almost say that Sony's Xperia U I like Samsung's TouchWiz could cause these phones to feel dated before their time is up due to usually slow updates to Google's newest operating system versions perhaps the best part is that I haven't felt a need to upgrade this phone to a flagship offering from Samsung or any other manufacturer that sports the latest and greatest specs I use the Nexus 6p to write scripts when I'm traveling check email and watch videos and yes I did try editing videos on it and it just worked fine there are plenty of great phones out there that cost less than the experience performance and offer flagship like features I feel like this phone was a disappointment because for one the camera was not that great I mean I'll be honest I was expecting a upgraded and great camera over the Xperia X plus the battery life was not worth $700 and if you're willing to spend that much money for just a few hardware internal upgrades you're much better off looking at the s7 series from Samsung or maybe even an iPhone recently an ephah Sony announced the Xperia XZ that's supposed to feature a revolutionary camera and a unique body design I don't mind taking another shot at it when it's in the studio but until then I would hold off on pulling the trigger on current experience from Sony so are you satisfied with your current phone or are you looking to upgrade in the next few months how long have you had your current phone for let us know in the comments down below I'm Ebert with hurricane axe thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next one