The pre-orders have started and the phone which costs $299 is available in black, gold, pink and white. It is already available in some European markets including Austria and you can get it in etail starting from €278.77 including VAT.

The phone has a very small side bezel and a 5 inch 1280x720 screen. The fact that it comes with Android 7.0 out of the box as well as Helio P20 64-bit octa core processor clocked at 2.3GHZ for the faster Cortex A53 cluster and 1.6 GHz for the power saving cluster and has a new faster 800 MHz GPU is definitely refreshing for this part of the market.

The phone supports Cat 6 LTE speeds up to 300 Mbps per second and comes with 3GB RAM and 32 GB internal memory + SD card support.

The 23MP camera with Sony technology is what it stands out in this phone. A Sony Exmor RS image sensor as well as Hybrid Autofocus which takes only 0.6 second for a quick capture will help make your phone better. A camera shutter button with Quick Launch will help to quickly capture blur-free photos. The camera has a 24mm wide-angle F2.0 lens with ISO6400 support for low-light pictures.

We had a chance to see Sony Xperia XA1 Helio P20 powered phones in early March at the Mobile World Congress and they did look appealing and quite good for the market they are targeting. The 16nm FinFET based SoC will definitely make a difference for both battery and performance.