Xperia 10 III adds 5G to Sony’s midrange

Sony’s new 2021 mid-range champion was announced earlier today in the form of the Xperia 10 III (Mark 3). The Mark 2 was a good all-rounder and Sony has built on that by adding a faster chipset, 5G connectivity, a bigger battery (+25% over last year’s model) and camera improvements.

The Xperia 10 III will be armed with the QualComm Snapdragon 690 5G chipset, 6GB RAM and 128GB of UFS internal storage. This compares to the Xperia 10 II (Mark 2) that had a Snapdragon 665 chipset, 4GB RAM and eMMS storage. The Mark 3 will once again support external microSD memory cards.

One of the biggest improvements is the sizeable jump in battery to a 4500mAh capacity solution – the 10 II Mark 2 used a 3600mAh battery. Even with the higher battery demands of a 5G chipset, the bigger battery will be welcome and should provide decent endurance for most users. Sony also claims a three-year healthy battery life using Xperia Adaptive Charging, as seen with the 1 III and 5 III.

With a bigger battery comes a slight change in dimensions and weight to account for this. The 10 III weighs 169 grams, which is a big increase from the 151 grams of the 10 II. However, dimensions are very similar (154 x 68 x 8.3 mm vs. 157 x 69 x 8.2 mm for the 10 II).

While Sony keeps its triple rear camera (12MP + 8MP + 8 MP) setup from last year, it has made some improvements. The main camera (12MP 27mm 1/2.8-inch F1.8 FOV 75-degree) has a brighter F1.8 lens, compared to F2.0 on the Mark 2.

The ultra-wide camera (8MP 16mm 1/4-inch F2.2 FOV 120-degree) and telephoto camera (8MP 54mm 1/4-inch F2.4 FOV 45-degree) are mostly similar to that found on last year’s model. The same applies to the front-facing selfie camera (8MP 1/4-inch F2.0 FOV 78-degree).

Auto mode now features animal detection, adjusting shutter speed and ISO Sensitivity to capture photos with less blur. The Mark 3 supports 4K video recording, including 720p 120fps slow motion recording.

Sony uses the same display as last year, which is a 6.0-inch 21:9 Full HD+ (1080 x 2520) resolution HDR OLED wide display. This has a traditional 60Hz refresh rate (120Hz reserved for Xperia 1 III and Xperia 5 III), as well as a 120Hz touch scanning rate.

Other features that carry over from last year includes IP65 and IP68 dust and water resistance, Corning® Gorilla® Glass 6 on front and back, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, DSEE, LDAC and Hi-Res audio support. Bluetooth has been updated to v5.1 (v5.0 used in last year’s model).

The Xperia 10 III will launch in early Summer 2021 with Android 11. The phone will be available in four colours (depending on region) which includes Black, Blue and White and Pink.

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