Although Sony seems to focus on just a small range of smartphones these days, the OEM is taking long to release both its mid-range smartphones, as well as its flagship handsets in the United States. The company is aiming to keep a small portfolio and reduce overcrowding to a minimum, as well as brand dilution. For instance, the Xperia XZ Premium, which was marketed as the first smartphone to come with Qualcomm's latest chipset Snapdragon 835, hardly got the time to get pre-orders at Best Buy and Amazon.
The smartphone, although claimed to be the first to house Snapdragon 835, came out in June several months after the release of Samsung's Galaxy S8 series, which also houses the same processor.
Another smartphone from Sony that has been launched recently in the U.S. after much delay is the Xperia XA1 Ultra, the bigger version of XA1. Although the smaller version, i.e. XA1, was up for purchase at the beginning of May (after debuting at the Mobile World Congress 2017 in February,) the larger and sharper version of the same took quite some time to come to the country.
Xperia XA1 Ultra comes to Best Buy
At long last, the Xperia XA1 Ultra is available and up for purchase from Best Buy. The handset is available in four different colors of white, pink, black, and gold. However, regardless of which color one chooses, the consumer will have to pay $399.99 for the unlocked handset. The unlocked handset will work on GSM-based operators such as T-Mobile, AT&T, Cricket Wireless, Net10, H2O and Simple Mobile.
Other than that, the XA1 Ultra will also function on MVNOs that use the networks of the above-mentioned carriers.
What about its features and specifications?
The XA1 Ultra boasts a 6-inch edge-to-edge Full HD display with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. The Sony smartphone is powered by a MediaTek's Helio P20 chipset containing eight cores and clocking at 2.3GHz.
In terms of memory, the Xperia XA1 Ultra houses 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. However, a user has the option of expanding the memory to up to 256 GB by deploying a microSD card. The device comes pre-loaded with Android 7.0 Nougat. Camera lovers will not be disappointed as it is equipped with a 23 megapixel rear mounted and 16-megapixel front facing snapper. The device also houses a powerful 2,700 mAh battery.
Whether the handset will catch the fancy of consumers in the US and draw them away from other Android smartphones remains to be seen.
