Sony Xperia XA2

VERDICT

It’s got some rough edges (and sharp corners) but generally, the Xperia XA2 is a worthy mid-ranger

- Nathan Spendelow

SONY’S XPERIA XA2 was just one of a long, laundry list of smartphones to launch at this year’s CES, doing so alongside the plus-sized Xperia XA2 Ultra and the budget Xperia L1.

Take it out of the box and you’ll spot that the XA2 cuts a familiar figure, both to its new stablemates and to older Xperia phones. Aside from the smaller footprint, narrower top and bottom bezels and (slightly) more rounded edges, this looks identical to last year’s Xperia XZ1 (Shopper 359), which is no bad thing.

GETTING THE POINT

However, like the rest of Sony’s handsets, this design decision comes at a cost. While the XA2 adopts the same glinting chamfered edges at the top and bottom of the phone, and softly rounded edges, the corners where the two meet are – once again – hazardously sharp-edged, and primed to wear a hole straight through your pocket.

If that doesn’t bother you, or if you carry your smartphone elsewhere about your person, there’s not much to complain about in terms of the layout of ports and buttons. There’s a solitary USB Type-C port with Quick Charge 3.0 support on the bottom of the handset, complete with a volume rocker, circular power button and dedicated camera shutter button on the right-hand edge. The microSD and nano-SIM slots are on the left, beneath a removable flap.

At the top is a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a circular fingerprint reader is placed just below the camera on the rear of the phone.