Sony’s Xperia 10 IV is as light as 5G phones get
No 5G-ready mobile with a battery as big manages to tip the scales like this
Sony’s smartphones have never been heavyweights, but the Xperia 10 IV has still been on a bit of a crash diet. This latest mid-range model is the world’s lightest 5G phone – or rather the world’s lightest that also has a 5000mAh battery.
At 161g, it’s not going to drag your jeans down whenever you slip it in a pocket. Sony has shaved off 8 grams compared to last year’s Xperia 10 III, and the new phone is 1mm shorter and 1mm narrower. It’s all change underneath though, with uprated cameras, an improved screen and a new CPU.
The three-lens rear lens setup returns with 16mm ultrawide, 27mm main and 54mm telephoto shooting. Optical image stabilisation is new for ’22, which should make for sharper, blur-free snaps. HDR has been improved across the board, with extended dynamic range for the wide and zoom lenses. Other software tweaks, inspired by Sony’s Alpha camera division, include optical steadyshot video recording and a scene-recognising superior auto camera mode. An AI face sharpening system should keep your selfies looking sharp, too.
Sony has added Triluminos display tech to the 6in screen, a first for the Xperia 10 range. It’s still an OLED panel with a 2520×1080 resolution and 21:9 aspect ratio, but is now 1.5x brighter than before. Gorilla Glass Victus should help keep it scratch-free.
Power boost in all the right places
It’s firmly mid-range territory inside, with a Snapdragon 695 CPU and 6GB of RAM. There’s 128GB of on-board storage, plus microSD card support. Other Xperia must-haves include 1P65/IP68 dust and water resistance, a 3.5mm headphone port, and side-mounted fingerprint sensor. The overall design is pretty familiar, too.
The battery is 500mAh larger than last year’s effort, and Sony’s adaptive charging makes a return, so it should handle well over 24 hours of use between charges. Sony’s sustainability push means there’s no power brick or USB-C cable bundled in the box, so you’ll need to supply your own.
The Sony Xperia 10 iV will be arriving in Black, White, Lavender and Mint colours. It will set you back £429, a slight bump over the asking price of the old Xperia 10 III. Pre-orders open May 11.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor 
