Sony Xperia XA1 Plus

Great Phone, Good Design, Good Specs

A very nice, shiny, sleek, and good phone. I like Sony's square design with its nice sharpish corners, although I would have liked it more if the sides were not curved but flat instead, giving it a more square finish, but very nice.

The box does not come sealed. So, you cant really tell if the phone is actually brand new or refurbished. (from experience, with a refurbished phone the least you'll likely to notice is the screen protector has been stripped off)

The phone is slim and sleek. It has a heavy weighted feel (but it doesnt feel expensvie or it doesnt have a premium feel like the XZ Premium). It feels like the top is made of real glass, which i am afraid to drop and break if it is. It is sleek and shiny with a nice smooth feel even on the back although the back is a matt finish. I havent noticed if it is a fingerprint magnet, which is good.

The finishing is so good, nice and shiny that when you look at a dark website or the phone with its standard black wallpaper when its sunny its only as good as a mirror.

I was gonna buy the XZ Premium which although is the same size 5.5 inches, it feels much bigger and flatter in the hand when you hold it but the battery life on that one is only 4-5 hours - what am I gonna do with 4-5 hours of battery life when I am constantly out and about and these days phones dont come with replacable batteries.

Pros

Anyway, the SE XA1 Plus is a mid-range size phone of 5.5 inches accross diagonally (corner-to-corner). Now that i have got the phone, it doesnt feels so much big even though it is. Compared to the XZ Premium its looks like the phone is more taller in terms of size rather than being 5.5 inches equally all over. I feel like getting the XA1 Ultra which is 6 inches but I already have a problem so I dont think I will be doing that. The 5.5 inch XA1 Plus fits tightly into my coat pocket and I had a little struggle getting it out. It fits perfectly in my trouser pocket (not jeans) with just a little bit of the corner exposed so, i guess if i got the 6 incher it wouldnt fit in my coat pocket on the side or in the trouser pocket; unless you have big square pockets. Also, since this a bigger phone than my last phone which was 4.5 inches and iphone 6s is more smaller at 4.7 inches you have to check if your phone is still there in your trouser pocket or has it fallen out.

I heard lot of people complain about the bezels but I dont mind because it gives me a place to hold the phone rather than block areas of viewing area on the screen when using the phone horizontally to play games or watching video.

Cons

When using the phone horizontally to play games its easy block the speakers with your fingers. The sound isnt always good, at times it can be slow even if you put the volume upto max but at other times it is ok.

To get back your full 32gb of internal storage back you definately need a microSDcard of reasonable size.

The sim-tray is a bit flimsy. If you're likely to change sim-cards often, there is a possiblity it could damage. The sim tray also does not have any locking mechanism to place the sim on the tray and lock it like other phones which doesnt seem secure as the sim(s) could fall out when putting it in. If you just drop the sim card in or place them on the tray, when you push the tray in, it wont close properly or the sim will try to pop out and get stuck when closing the sim tray so you have to hold down the card(s) with your finger and push the tray in. When inserting double sim cards it feels like there is somthing getting stuck inside or it might not come out again when pushing the tray in. Again, this is because there is no mechanism like other phones to lock the sim in place.

Another thing is, when you're not using the phone there is low network signal. I have connected my wifi and so far it is fine with no problems.

The phone does not come with a fast charger although you can get one. Without a fast charger its takes 3 hours and 20 minutes for a full charge, but if it does last 2 days like it says then theres no problem unless you are a heavy user.

To prolong battery life I charge the phone to 80% and recharge when it gets to 40% or 30%. If you charge from lower than those levels it takes longer to charge as well.

Battery was charged at 72% out of the box - first time when I got the phone (I wonder if someone used it or if it is refurbished), and lasted 12 hours and 15 minute doing everyday routines things such as chatting on WhatsApp, social media, youtube, browsing and 3D gaming. I'm not a heavy user neither am I a light user but I sure am a moderate user of all these things.

Sony has made a very nice phone, all their phones are a nice square design which I like very much however, what I dont like is the design of the round icons.

The camera is very good with crystal clear pictures with both the rear cam and the front selfie-cam although its not very good in poor light or indoors.

The notification LED flashes green instead of blue or amber as in other phones. (yuck!)

The price of the phone is a bit expensive. If you read the technical details you can read so much about it but when it comes to using a phone you wouldn't really be thinking whats under the hood and about all the those details, so this price range is irrelevant.

The phone runs nice and smoothly on 3Gb or RAM but not smooth and fast as an iphone 6s.

Althought the storage space is 32gb 11.11gb has been taken by the the OS Noughat and bloatware by Sony so, we only have 20.89gb for use.

Overall, its a nice good phone, haven't had any problems so far, which is good.

Good phone.

After Six Months - (the 6 month review) 

The Xperia XA1 Plus is the worst phone you could have. Apart from good looks, the phone is a useless piece of crap / rubbish.

1. When you press one thing another thing happens.

2 the phone is slow even with 3gb of RAM

3. The camera is complete utter rubbish - you cannot shoot holding the camera at different angles other than straight (vertical or horizontal), it will just not work. 

Processing or saving a photo takes a long time. It is just very slow and you cant use the camera to immeidately take another picture while it is saving.

4. The phone is so slippery that without a case you cannot hold it like any other phone. You need to remember to use different or same finger techniques to hold the phone. The worst culprit is the sides. The sides are rounded which makes it so slippery, there is no grip and it keeps slipping out of the hand when you hold it vertically but when you are holding slightly horizontally its a bit ok, but even then when you are out and about you have to be VERY careful because it has no grips unless you are using a case.

For example, reclining (not lying down, that would be a nightmare), in your nice comfy armchair its very hard to use the phone holding it vertically.

5. The app drawer slides horizontally which is a bit annoying. Who wants to slide through page after page of apps ?! rubbish! and you cannot change it. The only way is to install another launcher - if you do that, whats the point of getting a Xperia it kills the whole original xperia theme and without uninstalling the original launcher/theme/skin it will take up more RAM and slow the whole thing down further.

6. Whenever you're typing, the keyboard options for voice keyboard and keyboard settings keep popping up

7. Phone freezes, hangs, crashes frequently - on a good phone even with 1gb of RAM it wont do all this rubbish. My last phone was a huwawei and had none of these problems, i only wanted a bigger screen but thought would go for Sony because it has a nice squarish design.

8. Apps open randomly without being asked for them to be opened. Touch one thing on the screen and sometimes more than a few apps open in succession randomly.

9. Screen is so sensitive that when you pick up the phone by the edges either apps open or all the screen options open.

10. When holding the phone while standing or sitting or picking up the phone in one of these position, all the phones screen come on as if you are setting the main screens to be one of the home screens

Update: 26 July 2018
Phone crashed after finishing a call for a few minutes. No matter what I did, I was not able to restart the phone for a good few minutes - I was out and I thought thats it, finished, £329 gone in the bin because it does not even have a hard reset option where you can insert a pin to restart it - RUBBISH!

Update: 27 July 2018
Screen plays-up. Keyboard selection screen comes up any time randomly when typing anything.

Screen is sensitive if you hold it by the sides screen selection panels comes any time.

Some parts of screen dont respond when touched

DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE - IT IS CRAP!
SONY AND SAMSUNG NEED TO CONCENTRATE ON WHAT THEY DO BEST - PRODUCE TV'S. They are not original phone manufacturers.