Sony Xperia Xz premium
Son y’s XZ Premium lets you en joy 4K movies and reco rd in st unn ing 960fps supe r slow mot ion
Sony has pulled an ace from its sleeve with its latest smartphone, packing the most advanced tech on the market, including a 4K HDR screen.
We’ll cut to the chase right away: the Sony Xperia XZ Premium is an excellent flagship smartphone. It gets the core components of a top-end handset right, from its stunning display and premium performance, to the fantastic camera and robust battery life.
This is the best phone Sony has made in a long time, and one which will please loyal fans of the brand.
It’s packed full of features, including the world’s only 4K HDR smartphone screen, as well as a 960FPS slow-motion camera, high-res audio and a heap of power.
You’ve got to see this
Let’s kick off with the phone’s main attraction – the 5.46-inch 4K, HDR display. You won’t find this screen on any other smartphone – it has a higher resolution than the iPhone, Galaxy S8, LG G6 and… well, every other phone on the market.
What that means is you can enjoy 4K movies, TV shows and video at their native resolution for a fully immersive visual experience. And trust us when we say the results are incredible. It needs to be seen to be truly believed.
People look lifelike – as it they were literally sitting behind the layer of toughened Gorilla Glass 4 that protects the stunning screen – and the general imagery has fantastic detail and clarity.
The only frustration with the 4K HDR screen is finding content that takes full advantage of it. Both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video offer 4K HDR content – but the selection is limited for now.
There’s a wealth of free 4K and 4K HDR footage on YouTube if you want to show off the display’s clarity to friends – but if you want to settle down for a movie or TV binge at the maximum resolution, you’ll have to head to the streaming services.
The libraries will only increase with time though, which means the XZ Premium is somewhat futureproofed as 4K content becomes more readily available over the next few years.
While the screen is rather special, it’s housed in a body that doesn’t quite match up to the display’s high standards. It’s by no means ugly, but when you compare it to the minimal bezels and full metal/glass designs of the new Galaxy S8 and LG G6, the XZ Premium looks bulky and honestly a little outdated.
The sides of the phone are also plastic – rather than metal – which slightly cheapens the feel of the phone in the hand. It’s by no means a deal breaker, but we’d have liked to have seen a little more premium finesse to the overall look and feel.
It’s also a little fiddly to access the SIM-tray, hidden behind a flap on the left side of the phone, which protects a microSD card slot. You need to use your nail to hook the SIM tray and draw it out.
The inclusion of a microSD port enables you to build on the 64GB of internal storage if you need extra space for your 4K movies and TV shows – an option you don’t get on Apple’s iPhone handsets. You may find the expandable storage essential if you stock up on 4K content too, with a one-hour show taking up between 6GB and 7GB.
There are some design highlights, though, including the side mounted power/lock key, which also houses
the fingerprint scanner, making it easy to hit and unlock the handset, while below that a dedicated camera shutter key makes opening the app and snapping shots easier.
The XZ Premium is also dustand water-resistant, and it’s able to survive a plunge into fresh water to a depth of up to one metre, which is reassuring if you want to watch your 4K movies in the bath.
Slow it down
It’s rare that we praise a camera for being slow, but in the case of the 19MP snapper on the back of the Xperia XZ Premium it’s well warranted. And that’s because it boasts the world’s slowest slowmotion capture.
In fact, the Super Slow Motion setting on the Xperia XZ Premium can capture footage at a staggering 960FPS. When compared to the Samsung Galaxy S8 and iPhone 7 Plus – both clocking in at 240FPS – you can see the Sony phone leaves them in the (slowly swirling) dust.
It requires patience, and fast reactions, to grab the perfect Super Slow Motion video, but when you do get the timing spot on, you’ll be thoroughly impressed with the results you get back.
The XZ Premium can either capture a five-second Super Slow Motion clip in the middle of a standard speed video, or if you’re looking for a slow-motion finish only, you can opt for the one-shot setting which lets you snap five seconds of eye-popping 960FPS.
A word of warning, though: the Super Slow Motion recording doesn’t cope particularly well in low light or indoors, so you’ll want to keep snapping pictures outside on a bright, clear day.
But it’s not just the video capture that’s impressive (the Xperia XZ Premium can also shoot in 4K), because the phone also delivers a top-notch camera experience.
Sony’s Intelligent Auto mode ensures you get great pictures no matter the location of lighting, with a strong low light performance that does a great job at brightening darker areas, and with predictive phase detection, moving objects can be kept in focus as the phone tracks them across the display.
For those of you looking for more granular control over your finest shots, the XZ Premium also offers a comprehensive manual mode, where