Sony may be facing a decline in demand for its mobile phones, but the Japanese electronics giant continues to succeed in other departments, including its gaming and camera sensor divisions. Following the Sony Xperia Z5 range, the company has continued to develop its smartphone lineup, and announced a new flagship 'X' range of smartphones earlier this year at MWC 2016.

This brings us to its latest flagship device: the Sony Xperia X Dual. Priced at Rs. 48,990, the Xperia X Dual is firmly positioned among the bigwigs. Although the phone isn't quite as well-specified as many other more affordable options, Sony hopes to make up by packing in plenty of camera technology that it claims will help you take fantastic pictures. Does the Sony Xperia X Dual have what it takes to live up to its price tag? Find out in our review.

Look and feel
We would have expected the change in naming conventions to mark major overall changes, but the design language of the new phone closely resembles that of the Sony Xperia Z5 (Review). From the block-like shape to the curves around the corners, the Xperia X Dual sticks to Sony's tried and tested styling, and looks great as a result.

The all-metal body helps with this, and also gives this phone a truly premium and solid build. The Xperia X Dual is also a little bit smaller than its predecessor, with a 5-inch screen in place of the 5.2-inch one on the Xperia Z5. It's also extremely well balanced, with equal heft no matter how you hold it. This makes the Xperia X Dual particularly easy to hold and grip.

The front of the phone has an unspecified scratch-resistant glass which curves off at the edges to appear to blend into the sides. There are two speakers for stereo sound. The front camera, Sony logo, and proximity sensor are all at the top.

The back of the phone features a dull metallic finish with an etched Xperia logo, and the camera and flash at the top-left. The top has the 3.5mm socket; the right has the power button, an inconveniently located volume rocker, and camera button; the bottom has the Micro-USB port; and the left has the hybrid dual-SIM tray. You don't need an ejector pin to open the tray; your nails will do the trick. It's also worth mentioning here that the Xperia X Dual is not water-resistant, with Sony ditching one of its previous phones' biggest selling points.

The Sony Xperia X Dual has a fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button, just like the one on the Xperia Z5. The sensor does not work in standby mode, and you will first need to wake the phone to use it. This can be done by simply pressing down the power button and keeping your finger in place for a fraction of a second. This sometimes works well and quickly unlocks the phone, but not always.

We can say from experience that this isn't the best spot for a fingerprint sensor, and we had some issues with it. Because of the small size and narrow shape of the button itself, it's often tricky to get your finger in place properly, and this led to many failed attempts to unlock the phone. You need to grip the phone in a particular way with the right finger on the sensor, and we found it all a bit inconvenient. Additionally, a light touch won't do it; you really need to keep your finger firmly on the sensor to unlock the phone. It's nowhere near as quick and accurate as the one on the much less expensive and more powerful OnePlus 3 (Review).

The device has a 5-inch full-HD IPS LCD screen with a pixel density of 441ppi. It's a bit smaller than the 5.2-inch screen on the Xperia Z5, but you won't really be able to tell the difference between the two at a glance. It's naturally capable of going brighter than the Amoled screens on the OnePlus 3 and Samsung Galaxy S7 range, but suffers a bit when it comes to contrast, black levels and colour range.

However, on its own, the screen of the Xperia X Dual is decent. It's got good black levels for an LCD screen and a commendable brightness range. Colours are clean and realistic. Sony also has some useful tweaks that help improve the picture quality, with a decent adaptive brightness mode, X-Reality engine which sharpens images, and a super-vivid mode which makes the colours more vibrant. The latter isn't quite as good as it sounds, making colours look a bit too unrealistic. There's also the ability to adjust the colour temperature. Basic functions such as smart backlight control and double-tap to wake are also present. At this price though, a 1440p screen should really be a given.

Specifications and software
While other smartphones in this category, including the much more affordable OnePlus 3 and Xiaomi Mi 5 (Review) are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC, the Sony Xperia X Dual uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 650, along with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. Interestingly, the Snapdragon 650 is also used by the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Review), a smartphone which costs less than a quarter of the Sony Xperia X Dual's asking price.

There's dual-SIM 4G connectivity with a hybrid SIM slot, support for up to 256GB of expandable storage through microSD cards, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, and NFC. The phone has a 2620mAh battery, and supports Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0 technology, although our review unit came with an ordinary 7.5W charger in the box. Sony's popular Stamina and Ultra Stamina modes are also present, which will let you stretch your battery life longer in situations where you need it.

The Xperia X Dual runs on Android 6.0.1, with Sony's Xperia UI on top. The basic look and feel of the interface hasn't changed over the years, maintaining its sense of order and clean layout. The notifications shade and quick toggles menu are similar to the ones in the stock Android launcher, and the system retains a dual-layered UI that keeps things uncluttered and allows for better use of widgets. However, there are far too many pre-installed apps on the phone, and a lot of this is bloatware that cannot be uninstalled.

This includes Amazon Kindle, AVG Protection, Clean Master, Hungama Play, Sony Liv and a handful of games, which can be disabled but not removed altogether. Sony Liv was particularly bothersome, constantly pushing notifications that could only be blocked through the system settings. The impression that we get is that Sony is trying very hard to push partner apps and services to you, which can be annoying considering you've already paid a lot for the phone and shouldn't have to be subjected to this.

The app drawer is a bit different, with some added features integrated into it. Apart from being able to search for specific apps and control home screen settings, there's also a separate screen to the left of the app drawer where apps you use frequently are grouped together. You can also activate app recommendations from Google Play, although there's often no logic to the recommendations. Services that aren't available in India such as Spotify Music, T-Mobile and Lyft, as well as other apps that aren't particularly relevant to us were recommended, and you're unlikely to use this feature much as a result. On the whole, while the software is efficient and works well for the most part, we aren't particularly impressed with some of Sony's additions, which are more bothersome than helpful.

Camera
The Sony Xperia X Dual has a 23-megapixel primary camera and a 13-megapixel front camera, both using Sony's own Exmor RS sensors. The rear camera has LED flash, and both are capable of shooting video at up to full-HD resolution. The rear camera can go up to 60fps for ordinary video and 120fps for slow-motion. 4K shooting is a notable omission, which is strange for a phone at this price level which touts photography as its main feature.

The camera app is fairly well laid out, with quick controls for the flash, camera switcher, settings and gallery access. The standard shooting mode is Superior Auto, but you can also switch to manual or video mode quickly. A fourth option in the menu gives you access to the camera apps, which includes AR Effect, Sweep Panorama, Timeshift (slow motion) and more. You can also install additional camera apps through Sony's 'What's New' app and Google Play. The settings menu lets you control various things, including how the quick launch button reacts, resolution, object tracking, and more

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Sony Xperia XZ detailed specifications

GENERAL

Release date	September 2016
Form factor	Touchscreen
Dimensions (mm)	146.00 x 72.00 x 8.10
Weight (g)	161.00
Battery capacity (mAh)	2900
Removable battery	No
Colours	Mineral Black, Platinum, Forest Blue
SAR value	NA

DISPLAY

Screen size (inches)	5.20
Touchscreen	Yes
Resolution	1080x1920 pixels

HARDWARE

Processor make	Qualcomm Snapdragon 820
RAM	3GB
Internal storage	64GB
Expandable storage	Yes
Expandable storage type	microSD
Expandable storage up to (GB)	200

CAMERA

Rear camera	23-megapixel
Flash	Yes
Front camera	13-megapixel

SOFTWARE

Operating System

Android 6.0

CONNECTIVITY

Wi-Fi	Yes
Wi-Fi standards supported	NA
GPS	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
NFC	Yes
Infrared	No
USB OTG	Yes
Headphones	3.5mm
FM	Yes
Number of SIMs	2
SIM 1
SIM Type	Nano-SIM
GSM/ CDMA	GSM
3G	Yes
4G/ LTE	Yes
Supports 4G in India (Band 40)	Yes
SIM 2
SIM Type	Nano-SIM
GSM/ CDMA	GSM
3G	No
4G/ LTE	Yes
Supports 4G in India (Band 40)	Yes

SENSORS

Compass/ Magnetometer	Yes
Proximity sensor	Yes
Accelerometer	Yes
Ambient light sensor	Yes
Gyroscope	Yes
Barometer	No
Temperature sensor	No