SONY XPERIA XZ PREMIUM

By now, the current-generation Xperia devices hold no surprises for seasoned Android users who have followed since the Xperia Z days. The agship Sony Xperia XZ Premium uses a slate-like form factor called Loop Design, with angular corners and a monolithic appearance. At nearly 8mm and 195g, it’s quite a bit thicker and heavier than our other phones. The front panel is a Corning Gorilla Glass 5 display, paired with a metallic rear beneath the 2.5D curved glass. Other familiar button placements are its ngerprint-detecting power button, volume, and physical camera shutter, laid out in a neat row on its right side.

While sticking to a tried-and-tested look is a safe choice, there’s hardly any physical innovation like the LG G6 or Samsung Galaxy S8.

The Sony agship uses a 5.46-inch, 4K 3,840 x 2,160 pixels resolution (~807ppi) HDR IPS display. According to Sony, Amazon Prime‘s HDR videos are compatible with the device. It is also compatible with some 2160p YouTube videos.

The phone’s headlining features are camera-centric. Motion Eye is a slowmotion segment inside your regular 720p video footage. Every time you tap its tiny little icon during video-recording, the next 0.182 seconds of your footage will be recorded at 960 fps. During playback, those segments are stretched across six seconds at 30 fps. Motion Eye requires a good sense of timing to maximize its eBect.

Predictive Capture is a useful feature that will ensure you never miss a moment. It does this by buBering up to three full-resolution images at all times, and only capturing them, as well as a fourth shot, when you actually press the shutter button. Think of it like a fail-safe for folks with slower reexes.

Like the U11, the XZ Premium runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor. However, the XZ Premium has 4GB RAM, compared to the U11’s 6GB. The XZ Premium is powered by a 3,230mAh battery that is compatible with Qualcomm’s QuickCharge 3.0. While this is slightly larger than many other similar size smartphones, the XZ Premium’s 4K display is a big drain on battery life.

The 19-megapixel rear camera is supported by a new memorystacked sensor that makes Motion Eye and Predictive Capture possible.

Unique to Sony, the ngerprint scanner is located on the side power button.