Gadgetory

we held off on producing a Sony camera review until we could get our hands on this bad boy here the Xperia X performance moves us up to a top-tier Qualcomm 820 chipset and this now represents the flagship offering since Sony retired the Xperia Z line of phones while Sony is streamlining the hardware and features on the Xperia X they aren't streamlining the price the smart phone faces intense camera competition so let's see if it lives up to the reputation of sporting a Sony badge buckle up folks we have a lot of ground to cover and I'm gonna move pretty quick first a little housekeeping the xperia x performance packs a 1 over 2.3 inch 23 megapixel image sensor with phase detect autofocus and f 2.0 aperture and a 24 millimeter equivalent field of view there's no Hardware stabilization but Sony does provide a software solution called steady shot the camera max is out at 1080p for video but we are uploading a UHD video file to preserve more still photo image integrity it's also worth noting here that this camera app defaults to an 8 megapixel resolution for stills the sony is using some fairly sophisticated pixel sampling to create better looking images though you can switch it back to the full resolution of the sensor and will note when we're using the 8 or 23 megapixel images now starting off with exposure this phone uses a matrix style metering so it doesn't pull exposure info from where you focus this isn't bad per se and for the most part this app will nicely balance your subject against the background but starting off with a white flower in daylight just forget about it in preserving the background we completely overexposed the subject we have to walk back the exposure to full stops in manual mode to rein in these clipped highlights the auto mode handles blues and greens wonderfully however punchy and saturated these are lush colors to play with and earthy colors browns are also well captured and warm while avoiding the trap of pushing too far into orange territory yellows are tricky as yellow objects are prone to over exposing because of the matrix metering but the JPEGs produced aren't oversaturated which helps retain detail and Red's are always tricky to pull but Sony is one of the better performers here and delivering a very even-handed exposure for these blossoms it's an eye-pleasing color and clip detail or become some weird magenta unfortunately there is no raw support built into the sony camera app nor does the Xperia fully support the camera API for third-party camera apps to save RAW files so we can't properly test dynamic range here finished JPEGs do deliver good range between shadows and highlights so we know sony has fitted this phone with a very high quality sensor but only saving JPEGs means we lose the editing flexibility we enjoy on other similarly priced phones now those JPEGs range in size based on resolution obviously but the eight megapixel stills will land somewhere around three to five megabytes per shot while full resolution photos will land closer to twelve megabytes per exposure the best quality video delivered by the Xperia is 1080p at 60 frames per second which results in file sizes around 220 megabytes per minute of video taking a tour around the camera software for as good as this sensor is this app is an unfamiliar way to shoot photos and videos sure it looks common enough modes are on the left hand side and shutter button on the right but the organization for options and settings requires quite a bit of memorization do you want to force the camera to shoot an HDR photo well you can't just toggle that from the main auto mode you have to go into manual mode hit the settings gear and then flip that switch from the menu speaking of the manual mode it's not really a manual mode we can adjust exposure compensation and again buried in the settings we can adjust the ISO but there are no options to control the shutter speed we have multiple scene options like landscape night scene pets food party and sports but almost all of those modes deal in some way with changing the shutter speed which you cannot do on your own I can change the white balance but I can't set up my own long exposure so there are no streaking taillight photos for this review no matter what you do the app acts as if it knows better than you do and it gets the shot wrong far too often to be this controlling the focusing system on the camera is a perfect example sony boasts that it's one of the fastest systems on any phone which it likely is but controlling when it focuses is an exercise in frustration in photos you can tap to set the focus on an object but pushing the shutter causes the phone to refocus immediately before taking the photo the slight movements from your hands or from your subject will regularly cause the camera to miss focus there is no way I can find to focus during video tapping on the screen does nothing unless you have object tracking on and even then the phone will randomly decide what it wants to track did you tap in the middle of the screen nah brah these trees on the corner of your frame are way cooler this device just absolutely never wants to be told what to do it's constantly fighting you for control and it seems to work best when you just leave everything on full auto and never touch the screen except for when you hit the shutter button these focusing issues make macro shots extremely painful to set up but when you do land a close-up shot you're treated to a gorgeous bouquet as objects in your background blur like soft watercolor paintings this image sensor can deliver some really photographic output like saturation white balance is also terrifically even-handed the Xperia uses afternoon light in a really pleasing way delivering warm images that capture the moment well and avoid looking too yellow but we should also mention here that there is a significant amount of sharpening applied in post while finishing off those JPEGs cropping in close means almost all of your shots will start to look like comic book panels the total image is usually quite pleasant but you don't get much room to crop in before things start getting funky now sony does a better job than most other androids a training in highlights for HDR photo though often this just makes shots look kind of dull as it seems to reduce contrast sometimes this can be used to help save a shot from being overexposed though while we see more petal detail on this flower the HDR output isn't exact nice this matrix metering means we're often starting from a point of overexposing a subject and it's exceedingly difficult to recover from that when we don't get raw files a panorama stitching is excellent the phone processes images quickly and in a busy scene like this we see few errors and piecing the shot together moving to the front of the phone DX performance includes a 1/3 inch 13 megapixel selfie camera which works well for the most part we're treated to the same color and white balance we enjoyed from the main camera on the back but this sensor struggles to land a crisp shot in shade now Sony SteadyShot software stabilization is available for selfie videos and it helps take some of the edge off but your handheld vlogs will still look kinda jittery now looking at low-light samples there's no Hardware stabilization but the larger sensor seems to soak up light well enough for reasonable shutter speeds most of our issues at night had little to do with holding the phone steady and more to do with making sure we were focusing on what we wanted to shoot busy street scenes proved very distracting to this phone and it would regularly shift from the building to a closer car or person walking around our creepy tunnel shot also shows that this isn't the sharpest lens we've ever reviewed on a phone a shame as we know Sony can make killer lenses in the experience to deliver one of the prettiest versions of our creepy date shot playing with the ugly yellow security light here and shifting it a bit more golden again very well handled white balance even if this is a bit romantic for such a normally gross scene and in almost no light the Sony would focus on this flower only if we never tried to tap on the screen it would only grace us with focus if it arrived on that focus on its own terms it wasn't going to be told by some lowly human where to focus so what's the verdict on video in a word disappointing it's already a bummer that we max out in 1080p resolution and the lack of autofocus makes this an extremely unreliable way to capture moments and memories but it's also just not very nice to look at there's a bit of sharpening applied here too which makes this output fuzzier year it was a bit headache-inducing editing this video review thanks in no small part to the terrible image stabilization okay steady shot so we don't have optical hardware stabilization but we do get this steady shot option all of our samples were shot using steady shot and it's not good there are no videos over multiple days of shooting which don't have some kind of twitch or movement to them even when bracing the phone against the ground and comparing footage of steady shot on and off while walking doesn't seem to show any differences in providing us smoother video checking out the Zil this is also a disappointment the Xperia has a 23 megapixel image sensor but will blow up an image well beyond the camera's resolution sticking closer to around half the total zoom range is a better way to preserve image integrity thankfully audio capture is excellent one of the better performers we've reviewed recently these mics capture scenes well and noise filtering doesn't overly degrade the feel of the scene now for an exposure test moving from dark to bright and back the Xperia handles changing light well it's a little slow to react for exposure but when it does shift it's usually a pleasant enough bloom the white balance here is really twitchy though we see fast shifts from bluish tint to warmer white balance during this pan when the camera can settle it usually nails the color temperature but in changing the light it tends to overreact before making the right adjustment and unfortunately the slow-motion video is bad too this just isn't fun to use at all compared to some other phones we've recently reviewed the only positive is that after finishing a slow-motion video at least the camera keeps the audio intact lastly we should also mention that this phone runs warm it's not as bad as the Xperia X which would shut off after around nine minutes of video indoors under air conditioning but it's closed as our X performance recorded for about 13 minutes before shutting the camera off and we started getting thermal warnings after five minutes of video again indoors under air conditioning outside a ninety degree heat in Southern California that thermal warning would sometimes come after twenty seconds of video and in between each shot we had to blast the phone with my car's AC to cool it down enough to get a couple minutes of footage before throttling us again so let's wrap this up where does that leave us with the camera on the sony xperia x performance what's really frustrating is how this whole phone is letting down one of the better image sensors we've tested this 23 megapixel sensor from sony is legit but the phone case can't keep it running cool for longer shoots the phone's screen is dim and hard to read in direct sun the lenses mid-pack and the software is almost arrogant in how it tries to remove you from the decision-making process even if we were to cop out like many other tech bloggers and say that regular people don't care about being pro photographers from their phones and ignored the fact that our audience is smart enough to follow us on a deeper examination than only shooting a handful of mediocre images in full auto even then we're still not able to completely trust that this sony would make good choices for you it feels like an anachronistic throwback to the ugly days of point-and-shoot cameras which would have a dozen scene modes but very poor basic controls and when we factor in the price this starts to look dire for Sony as this year we've seen incredible bang for buck options from Apple oneplus and ZTE we've seen HTC succeed with a much better offering than they've had in years LG and Huawei had invent we different takes on dual sensor phones and Samsung delivered something truly unique with the galaxy s7 Sony's brand still stands as a multimedia and entertainment juggernaut but the xperia x performance just doesn't have the goods to back up that reputation as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more coverage on the Xperia X performance and our other real camera reviews and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for PocketNow i'm juan carlos bag now some gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next review 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