After releasing some decent mid-range phones this year Sony is getting ready to drop its big one the best the XPERIA lineup has to offer.
Hey guys, I'm Will for GSMArena today we're reviewing the XPERIA XZ Premium.
High-end phones this year are all about the screens and Sony is trying to raise the bar with the XZ Premium
Not only is it's screen 4K
But it's the first in natively support HDR10 video. If you haven't heard about HDR video before?
It's because it's pretty new. Both hardware manufacturers and content creators have only recently started going in this direction
The High Dynamic range is supposed to be the next level of visual quality, so of course. We're eager to try it out
We use the phone to play back the same 4K video in two different versions one in SDR. And the other in HDR
It turns out that unless you're directly comparing them side by side
It's really hard to spot the difference in quality, so this wouldn't be a must-have feature for us when shopping for a new phone
but since it's already there why miss out on trying it for yourself once the XZ Premium launches?
You should be able to get fresh 4K HDR content on the Amazon Prime video app which will come pre-installed on the device
The five and a half inch display has a commendable brightness and contrast ratio so even without HDR video. It's a joy to use
The XZ Premium is also the only phone that we know of that can play YouTube videos in 4K resolution
The only shortcoming, we notice is that the display is more reflective than usual. So you might struggle with it in bright Sun
With high quality video you'd be right to expect great audio too and the XZ Premium has you covered with some nice stereo speakers
Sony claims that the two speakers have a much improved balance and we agree
It's not going to replace your home theater though, our test to give it a loudness rating of below average
Design wise the XZ Premium is attractive, but maybe a little too shiny smudges are pretty visible
We do like how the glass on the front and back makes a seamless transition to the plastic sides
It feels almost like a continuous surface only the top and bottom are made of metal, but we really like the distinct double anodized edges
Granted the bezels above and below the screen are a bit large, but we're used to seeing this on Sony's phones
Well Sony could have done better here is trim the side bezels
Like it did on the XPERIA XA1 Ultra the minimal side bezels make it screen look gorgeous and much more modern
Even though the XZ Premium is a large phone, it's still comfortable and pretty sturdy and how many phones you know that could do this?
We shouldn't forget to mention the expandable storage
There's also a IP68 dust and water resistance just in case you get caught in bad weather
The XZ Premium does come with the fingerprint reader here on the right but not on the US model
Inside we have a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 835 chipset with 4 Gigs of RAM in Benchmark tests it perform great
Comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S8 and with normal use it feels pretty smooth
It also stays nice and cool even when playing 4K HDR video you won't fry any eggs with this one
The XPERIA XZ Premiums battery is a bit smaller than it's competitors
Battery life is on Par with the LG G6 though not quite as good as the Samsung Galaxy S8
The XZ Premium does have Qnovo adaptive charging technology which should extend the battery's Lifespan
The XZ Premium comes with Android Nougat 7.1
And if you're familiar with Sony's take on the OS won't find anything too different here
But previously Sony's screen enhancement modes only concerned albums and movies
But now they also apply to the home screen and third-party apps
On headphones the Audio player is able to upscale your
MP3s and streaming audio giving you potentially higher quality, the audio player can also fetch you lyrics
and Youtube videos for the tracks that you play
The XZ Premium comes with Sony's latest camera innovation, a 19 megapixel sensor with a larger and faster memory buffer
it's actually the same camera is on the recently release XZs
A neat feature is predictive capture it detects moving objects in the Viewfinder and automatically takes four photos before you click the shutter
giving you more options to choose from
when it comes to photos
We're quite happy with the image quality that the camera is able to produce, sure at 100% zoom you'll notice an over sharpening
But if you're not the pixel peeping kind of user you'll be really pleased with the results you get from this camera
Photos come out clean and sharp the colors in the dynamic range are good as well, and it's hardly any corner softness this time around
In Low-light though
It's a different story
unless you force the use of a lower ISO on a longer exposure time
The photos don't come out as sharp and detailed as we would like
we definitely see this as one of the camera's short comings
On a more positive note, the front-facing 13 megapixel camera has Autofocus which really helps to take a nice quick shot
It took selfies with a decent amount of detail
One of the cameras headline features is the ability to take slow-motion video at 960 frames per second
Taking good clips takes a lot of light and you need some practice
Only a fraction of a second gets slowed down at the press of a button so your timing needs to be really precise
The camera can also record regular 4K videos just as you'd expect
The videos have plenty of detail great contrasts and accurate colors the XZ Premium runs fast, the build quality is great
There's dust and water resistance and the camera has some cool features
So is the XZ Premium Sony's big comeback?
Well, it isn't perfect. It's a really strong contender in it's price range and shows that Sony is ready to fight back
But as they say it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll
Thanks for joining us make sure to check out our full review over at GSMArena.com