Tech a look at me now
Sony has packed its latest flagship with attention-seeking specs, but will that lift it into the top tier? Andrew Williams spends a fortnight finding out
£650 / stuff.tv/xzpremium DAY 01
Ever wanted to go to a restaurant and ask for everything on the menu? The steak, the crab, the chicken and the ribs? Tell them it’s your birthday when it’s just a normal Wednesday? This sort of excess is what the Sony Xperia XZ Premium is about.
It has a 4K HDR screen, one of the fastest phone processors currently available, 64GB of storage and a 19MP camera. The only downside, other than the Samsung Galaxy S8-style price, is that a few elements have a whiff of fast food about them.
The XZ Premium seems to have a mission statement to blow up the competition with eyeball-melting extra tech… but its shape, for a start, is pretty familiar. Where the Galaxy S8 pushes its screen right into the corners, this is a classic sharp Sony rectangle. There’s glass on the front and back like the Z5 Premium, but while there is a curve, it’s ever so slight.
Maybe it’s time Sony looked at moving on from this phone design style. It’s wider than the Galaxy S8 and the LG G6, yet has a smaller screen than either of them. Still, there’s a very good finger scanner below the power button and solid water-resistance.
DAY 02
The best argument for a 4K phone screen right now is VR, so I’ve been trying out two of the best Daydream VR apps: Coastiality and The Lost Future. It’s quickly clear that these apps do not render at 4K: side by side with the Oneplus 3 you see the same ‘jagginess’. But you also see much less of the space between pixels when using a VR headset, thanks to Sony’s mammoth 807ppi pixel density. It makes a real difference.
This is one of the first phones to support HDR video too, and here the LCD screen is handy because its top brightness is pretty powerful. In fact this is one of the most impressive IPS LCD displays you’ll find. It can deliver colours that’ll make your TV look weak – though you can rein this in if you like things more natural.
DAY 04
I’m getting on fine with the custom interface that this phone runs on top of Android 7.1. It adds loads of Sony services – video, music, Playstation, the lifestyle drill sergeant Lifelog – but doesn’t feel bloated because they’re just Sony takes on Google apps.
Sony’s trademark swooshiness is back too – the default Loops live wallpaper flies about gracefully as you move through the interface. The main change is that, instead of using a long scroll of apps like normal Android, the XZ Premium’s apps menu comes in pages.
DAY 08
Sony has maxed out the spec of the XZ Premium’s rear camera, a 19MP rear unit with a 1/2.3in sensor. That’s the same size as your average compact camera, and more megapixel-packed than the Galaxy S8’s. But I’m not blown away by the results.
Using the camera on a sunny day tends to overexpose parts of photos. Dynamic range is not the best, and Sony’s processing isn’t great. It’s far too aggressive, making natural patterns of grass and leafy trees look fake and fizzy.
This smartphone’s real boasting point, though, is video. It can shoot in ultra-slo-mo, right down to 960fps, which plays back real life at 1/40th of its normal speed. Playing around with this is loads of fun, as long as you choose your subjects carefully. The results can look very cool, even if the quality isn’t mind-blowing.
DAY 11
As you’d hope, the XZ Premium feels fast. It has a Snapdragon 835 CPU with 4GB of DDR4 memory. This is an octa-core CPU with the latest Kyro cores, four at 2.45GHZ and four at 1.9GHZ. I’d love to tell you how its benchmark scores compare with other phones, but Sony blocked the relevant apps from being installed on our review device. Handy, that.
DAY 14
So, do all those extra pixels kill the battery life? Well, I’ve never once had to top up before bedtime. With normal use, and perhaps a few hours of audio streaming, you can expect the XZ Premium to last until mid-morning on day two. It’s not exactly a gold standard, but it’s good enough… which is sort of how I’m left feeling about the phone in general. It just doesn’t quite compete with the best handsets where it really matters.