Sony Xperia XA1 SIM-Free Smartphone - Black

I had no intention of buying this phone. I had a phone I was happy with and it was working fine. However when my wifes phone needed replacing and I purchased her a Sony Xperia XA1 - I was impressed. Light weight, slender form, great camera, good performance, etc. this for me was a really good handset for the money. When Prime Day came and I saw the phone I thought was good value at £230 was now £170 - I bought one for myself.It would be unfair to compare the XA1 with a flagship phone, but if you were, it wouldn't do terribly. It has a premium feel to it (even the plastic back merges well enough with the metal sides you could mistakenly believe it was all metal) and the camera would have been in a flagship phone last year. It's not just the quality of the images that's impressed, the shutter speed is faster than a lot of phones, even more expensive ones.Ideally, the battery would have been bigger. It won't quite get through a day of intensive use, but there are various battery saving modes that can get you through, albeit with some functionality disabled. Also, the screen, it's only 720p. 1080p would really have been the sweet spot but it's not to say this is a problem. The 720p screen does have less pixels, and this does help the battery eke out a little more life. Also, the colours, the white and the blacks are very good. I compared the my old phone (an Honor 6x) with the wife's XA1 playing the same videos on YouTube side by side. At 720p - the XA1 won hands down - better colour and image quality. Surely the 1080p Honor 6x would slaughter the XA1 when it was showing a 1080p video versus a 720p one? No. I'd put it down to a narrow XA1 win. The richer colours and slightly smaller screen really helped defy the pixel superiority of the 6x.The more slender design means one handed phone operation is a reality again and a bit of extra real-estate in your pocket is freed up. The performance is decent, the Helio P20 CPU is a decent mid level performer, it won't go toe to toe with the flagship CPU's but will perform well in day to day use.There is some Sony bloatware installed, and by default it can be slightly intrusive, but this can be dealt with leaving a pretty stock Android experience - at least as close as you generally get these days.I really like this phone, and the wife loves hers. I've got to give it 5 stars because of what you get and how impressed I've been. For most users this phone will be great, for "Power Users" the battery and lack of 1080p screen may be a no-no.In the box:Phone, charger (cable + plug), misc documents and a pair of basic Sony headphones.ProsExcellent camera, especially for the money.Great colour reproduction.Type C USB connector.Slender buildLow price.ConsSmall Battery720p screen (but it's a really good one)No fingerprint scanner

As mentioned elsewhere in at least one review (that I missed when ordering this phone), it's not possible to have BlueTooth and Wi-Fi working at the same time without a host of problems. This issue is well-documented on Sony's own forums (search for "sony xa1 bluetooth wifi problem"), and there's no resolution being offered that I can find.The "answer" is to switch off Wi-Fi when using BlueTooth (not great for streaming music from the internet!) and switch off BlueTooth when using Wi-Fi (not great for convenience when getting into the car or wanting your fitness tracker to sync). When things do lock up, toggling Airplane Mode on & off typically provides a period of stability.Another deal-breaker should be the intrusive bloatware, particularly the "What's New" app, that allows your mobile network to push crap to your SIM-free device(!), and which Sony does not allow you to permanently get rid of. To be fair, I've used an Xperia before and was familiar with Sony's bent for pushing apps on you that you are unable to set the phone to permanently ignore; however, allowing a carrier to infest a phone that was not bought from them is a step way too far.It should be pointed out that the phone itself is great - the screen is a good size, and it's pin-sharp; the camera works really well, and the whole device is snappy and responsive. I'm actually keeping it, having invested a lot of time in setting it up and working out how to live with it, plus the additional money I've spent on a device-specific case and new charging cables.Overall: this phone can NOT be recommended due to the BlueTooth-related flaws which Sony has been well-aware of and is refusing to publicly acknowledge.UPDATE (March 2018):The Wi-Fi/BlueTooth connectivity problems have been remedied through a firmware update that arrived in February; however, the responsive of the screen has degraded significantly.For example, I unlock the phone using the "Pattern", which requires a swipe from dot-to-dot-to-dot - this is frustratingly difficult to carry out, because the screen loses "connection" to my finger mid-pattern, necessitating multiple attempts nearly every time I pick up the phone.As another example, I use "gesture typing", where text is input by keeping the finger on the keyboard and spelling out words by swiping - again, the phone thinks the finger is being listed and usually types two or three short words in place of the intended word.Another problem with the screen that's become apparent is the edges don't register touch 99% of the time; this means the notification shade can't be pulled down from the top of the screen. The area of the screen where I first noticed this is the right-hand edge, when I realised that trying to use the Backspace ("delete") key wasn't working. I've been into two phone shops and verified that their display models have the exact same problem by going into the in-built drawing app and trying to fill a blank canvas with colour - you're left with neatly-defined strips of white along each edge of the screen.I'm going to start the (probably fruitless) process of returning this device that I've had for two frustrating months. Despite the phone's great camera, snappy performance, and sound-feeling build quality, I'm completely turned off Sony products now, particularly given the time I've lost in trying to get this device to work and the money I've lost on buying a case and new charging cables.

After 4 or 5 days of waiting at home, including receiving 2 empty broken seal boxes and the 3rd package being delivered to some mystery person instead of me, I received my new phone to replace my failed old Samsung S3.After a little over a week's use, and a few initial hiccups, I am happy to report that all is well. The screen is fantastic, the camera is fantastic even in low-light. The phone itself seems fast. I only make one or two calls per day and check emails and messages now and again and the battery only goes down by about 25 % PER DAY even with Bluetooth turned on. In comparison, my old S3 battery was dead before bed every day. One of my main motivations for choosing this particular phone, besides price/spec, was their claim that it can be used with one hand. This has tuned out to be quite true, which is brilliant, because my old S3 was just a tad too wide to do this. The only negative, related to one-handed operation is that it is REALLY slippery in the hand. Of course, I need to find a case that fixes this issue...With the phone as-received, the Bluetooth audio did not work with my Huawei Watch 2 smart watch, and I was on the verge of returning the phone. However, luckily, after doing the software update that it kept reminding me to do, it all works nicely and I can make phone calls just using my watch.Gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because of Sony's VERY ANNOYING choice of a non-standard mini USB connector. This means that I have to carry the included USB cable everywhere, or buy additional cables for home/work/car etc.Overall, very pleased with this purchase! Just need a good case...