Sony is a Japanese electronics company which has a strong hold on the global market. one of the products of this global electronic giant is smartphones. Sony was one of the first cellphone manufacturers that came up with unique designs and a better camera quality. Its XZ series is still a go-to among the flagships.
This year’s MWC witnessed various top-notch inventions and Sony Xperia XZ2 was one of the many that really caught our attention. Not much after that Sony has announced the Xperia XZ2 premium. Is it really ‘premium’? Let’s find out.
Design
The Sony Xperia XZ2 premium comes with a design what Sony calls as an Ambient Flow. Incorporating the Ambient Flow design language, XZ2 Premium possesses a curved body, a metal frame, and a 3D glass back, with Gorilla Glass 5 used both on the front and back. The glass body coated with corning gorilla glass 5 has definitely given a premium look to the handset. In addition, the Gorilla glass 5 plays a vital role in offering a better resistance to the cracks and scratches during the falls. Despite the introduction of a new design language in the smartphone community, the smartphone still looks a bit outdated for a 2018 phone. We can tell Sony could’ve done a better job in its design department.
Display
The Xperia XZ2 premium stands 5.8-inches tall. It has a very impressive 4K (3840×2160) Triluminos HDR IPS LCD with a 16:9 aspect ratio. With the 4K display, the phone packs 760 pixels in every inch offering a remarkable sharpness. Sony has also claimed that the XZ2 premium is 11% taller and 30% brighter than its predecessor, the Sony Xperia XZ Premium. It also features Sony’s BRAVIA technology, X-Reality for mobile, to up-convert content to near HDR for a “more cinematic contrast, color, and clarity.” The phone can capture 4K HDR video. This feature has made the XZ2 premium the only smartphone that can both capture and view a 4K HDR video.
Camera
The camera part is said to be the biggest upgrade this time around. The smartphone comes with dual rear cameras placed horizontally and the fingerprint sensor placed right below the camera. It has a monochrome camera sensor and the other is the color camera sensor.
The primary rear camera with the color sensor is 19 MP. It is made of Sony’s ‘award-winning’ G lens. It is called the motion eye camera as when the camera shifts to low-light the size of the pixels increase. This also captures 3 other frames except for the picture clicked. Whereas on the secondary rear camera is of 12MP and this also consists of G lens. The point of having a monochrome camera is for the sharper contrast of black and white. The selfie camera has a 13 MP lens and Sony claims this is one of the fields which it has worked on upgrading.
The AUBE signal processor combines the data from both the sensors to make the pictures look better in the low-light as well. This smartphone from Sony will also have a bokeh effect. Sony states that detail from both sensors is then processed by the AUBE fusion ISP in real time, which enables ISO 12800 for videos and ISO 51200 for photos. According to the company, the ultrasensitivity with “clean, noise-less images” was previously only possible in interchangeable lens cameras. The live viewfinder is said to be a bright and accurate one as well.
As far as the video is concerned, the lens on the XZ2 premium shoots super slo-mo HD and Full HD videos up to 960 fps. This has been possible because of the memory stacked image sensor. The Motion Eye dual camera on the phone can also pull out Bokeh effects for defocused backgrounds. Furthermore, users can also take monochrome pictures with “smooth gradation between black and white.”
Moving on from the camera portion, the Xperia XZ2 premium is powered by the powerful Snapdragon 845 processor which is one of the reasons we can assume that the smartphone will have a smooth processing. Android Oreo is the Operating system the Xperia XZ2 plus.
It has 6GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage with impressive 400 GB of expandable storage. It consists of 3,540 mAh of the battery which seems pretty average considering the 4K display. We wish Sony had considered a bigger battery for elongated battery life.
The smartphone is IP65/68 certified and this makes it water and dust resistant. The Xperia XZ2 Premium supports USB type-C charger for the fast charging. It also supports wireless charging and along with it comes the dock charger. However, the smartphone has 3.5mm headphone jack missing.
The smartphone will be available in two color variants i.e. chrome black and chrome silver. The phone will be priced above $850 if rumors are to be believed.
Sony has come up with nice specifications but these are certainly not out of the box.
Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium Specifications
Dimensions and weight | 158 x 80 x 11.9 mm, 236g |
Software | Android 8.0 Oreo |
CPU | Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 (4x 2.8GHz Kryo 385 Performance + 4x 1.8GHz Kryo 385 Efficiency) SoC |
GPU | Adreno 630 |
RAM and storage | 6GB of RAM with 64GB of storage |
Battery | 3540mAh |
Display | 5.8-inch 4K (3840×2160) HDR Triluminos IPS LCD with a 16:9 aspect ratio |
Wi-Fi | 802.11ac |
Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.0 |
Ports | USB Type-C (USB 3.1 Gen 1 – 5Gbps), Dual Nano SIM slots |
Rear cameras | Motion Eye 19MP RGB camera with 1/2.3″ Sony Exmor RS memory-stacked sensor, 25mm G-Lens with f/1.8 aperture, 1.22-micron pixels, and 5-axis SteadyShot stabilization;
12MP monochrome camera with 1/2.3″ Sony Exmor RS sensor, 1.55-micron pixels, G-Lens with f/1.6 aperture AUBE fusion image signal processor, BIONZ processing engine, 4K HDR video recording, super slow motion 960FPS capture in HD or Full HD resolution, Predictive hybrid autofocus, ISO 51200 for photos and ISO 12800 for videos, triple image sensing technology, Bokeh effect, Monochrome effect |
Front-facing camera | 13MP front-facing camera with 1/3.06″ sensor, f/2.0 aperture, 22mm wide-angle lens,
Display flash, ISO 3200 for photos, ISO 1600 for videos, SteadyShot 5-axis stabilization |