Sony releases Android 13 for an all-too-rare affordable Xperia

Sony smartphones don’t really enjoy any meaningful market share, but that hasn’t deterred the company from continuing to produce handsets withsome standout features. After pushingAndroid 13out to many of its higher-end models from the past two years, Sony is now delivering its latest update for the Xperia 10 IV.

In mid-December,Sony started rolling out Android 13to its 2022 flagships, the Xperia 1 IV and theXperia 5 IV, along with the previous year’s Xperia 1 III, the Xperia 5 III, and the Xperia Pro-I. A little over a month later, it’s now the Xperia 10 IV’s turn. This mid-ranger first came out early last year with some decent specs and a price to match.

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Sony is currently distributing the Xperia 10 IV’s Android 13 update as build number 65.1.A.4.8, which includes the December 2022 security patch, according toXDA Developers. you could expect to seesome of the best Android 13 featureslike enhanced privacy controls and Material You integration. Sony’s software implementation is visually pretty close to what you get with Google Pixel handsets, but our experience with its version of Android 12 on the Xperia 5 IV left us wanting something with a little more polish — which we hope the company is able to deliver with Android 13.

The update is rolling out in certain Southeast Asian markets for the locally sold dual-SIM variant of the phone, but it shouldn’t take long to reach more users around the world in the coming weeks. While the Xperia 10 IV never made it to the US officially, we’ve still got plenty of other options amongthe best budget Android phonesthat are worth checking out.

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