Sony's Xperia XZ Premium just turned A LOT of heads at MWC 2017
Fancy picking yourself up a 4K phone in 2017? Sony’s got you covered with its Sony XZ Premium
The Sony XZ Premium is now official, following its launch at MWC 2017. This handset picks up where Sony’s last release left off. Yes, Sony is still pumping out handset in six month intervals.
But the Sony XZ Premium is a little different because, for the first time in a good long while, I am actually rather excited by this handset. It looks stunning and has specs to match.
It's so good, in fact, that it's already won an award. The Sony Xperia XZ Premium took "Best New Smartphone At MWC 2017" at the GSM Alliance awards at the event (the GSMA runs the MWC expo). Samsung already took best smartphone for 2016 award with the Galaxy S7 EDGE, but Sony's been awarded the forward-looking prize, beating the LG G6 which also launched in Barcelona the same week.
Sony still faces VERY stiff competition in 2017 with Samsung on form again with its Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, a decent release from LG, with the LG G6, and, of course, the incoming iPhone 8 and Google Pixel 2 phones.
Indeed, 2017 is a hugely competitive market space. More so than last year, so if Sony wants to score some new friends it is really going to have to promote the proverbial poop out of this handset.
To be fair, though, Sony has plenty to talk about with the Sony Xperia XZ Premium; it has a 4K display, advanced imaging capabilities and it looks positively stunning in the flesh – images really do not do this handset justice.
I’m still waiting for my review unit of this phone. And I am very much waiting with baited breath; this phone is a very exciting release for Sony and I cannot wait to see how it performs compared to the Huawei P10, Pixel XL, iPhone 7s Plus and Samsung Galaxy S8.
So what makes the Sony XZ Premium tick? Read on for a quick breakdown of all of its new features and USPs.
Sony Xperia XZ Premium Release Date & Price
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium is essentially Sony’s last ditch attempt at scoring some success in the fiercely competitive smartphone space of 2016/17.
The handset was launched at MWC 2017 and it took a lot of people by surprise. Myself included. Mostly because of the specs, but also because of how darn good it looks. I honestly didn’t think Sony had a phone like this in them.
The handset is now up for pre-order in Europe for the princely sum of €649 and, should you pre-order before April 2, you will get yourself a free £169 Sony SRS-XB30 speaker.
Amazon.co.uk has now begun accepting pre-orders for the handset which will begin shipping on June 1, it's listed with a SIM-free price tag of £649, but at present you can only buy the black coloured edition. Meanwhile Clove has the Xperia XZ Premium listed also for £649, and Unlocked Mobiles has it for the slightly reduced price of £640 - this latter retailer is the only one of the three with the Luminous Chrome colour variant listed as well as DeepSea Black.
Unlocked Mobiles has now updated its listing with a release date for the phone in the UK, allegedly it will arrive on May 22.
"Stock Update: Sony Xperia XZ Premium Launch confirmed by Sony for week commencing Monday 22nd May. All pre orders will ship as soon as stock arrives," says the site's product page. The price has been adjusted to £645.
Sony has now announced another colour option as well. Bronze Pink (which looks rather a lot like Rose Gold to us, but still) was revealed on Sony's official Xperia Twitter account.
Satoshi Aoyagi, the Xperia team's colour designer, said, "We wanted to find a colour that represented a feeling of warmth whilst at the same time exemplifying the premium features and design. The bronze metallic finish adds a feeling of depth to the glass on the front and back."
There's no word on availability yet, so we don't know if this will be a region or carrier exclusive. Sony's language on the subject implies it'll be universally available though. We are yet to see any retailers or networks listing the colour option via pre-orders, but will keep you posted if the situation changes.
Sony Xperia XZ Premium Design
Like all Xperia handsets before it, the Xperia XZ Premium carries Sony’s now trademark OmniBalance design that is perhaps best described as a sexy-looking slab of aluminium.
It’s svelte, delicate in the hand and exudes premium feel. The overall look and finish is exceptionally smart, so hats off to Sony’s design department for this one. It looks great.
Sony has added a couple of things in that really help set the Xperia ZX Premium apart from the handsets that came before it. The inclusion of 2.5D Gorilla Glass on the front and rear, when combined with the handset’s metal frame, results in a beautifully balanced look.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium is available in two colour options: Deepsea Black and Luminous Chrome. Both handsets are waterproof, as you’d expect from Sony, and both are very thin at just 7.9mm.
The only issue I do have with the Sony Xperia XZ Premium’s looks is its rather massive bezels which, to me, simply look ungainly and detract quite a lot, aesthetically-speaking, from an otherwise exceptionally attractive Android phone.
Sony Xperia XZ Premium Display
This is where shizz gets real. The Sony Xperia XZ Premium features a 5.5in 4K LCD display which nets you an INSANE 806ppi. The Sony Xperia XZ Premium also features HDR as standard, meaning what you have here is perhaps the most advanced mobile display on the planet right now.
The handset also features Sony’s Triluminos and X-Reality technologies, which are designed to improve image quality even further. And if that wasn’t enough, Sony has partnered with Amazon to bring a raft of 4K content to the Xperia XZ Premium, so you can take advantage of its 4K panel right away.
Sony Xperia XZ Premium Camera
Sony’s gone BIG in the imaging department as well.
The Xperia XZ Premium features a 19MP rear camera and a 13MP setup on the front for selfies.
The Xperia XZ Premium is the world’s first phone to feature Sony’s memory stacked Exmor RS sensor which delivers faster image scanning and data transfer – Sony says its 5X faster.
The pixels inside the 19MP camera are 19% larger compared to Sony’s previous flagship. As per usual, there’s a bunch of supplementary features like Predictive Capture, Anti-Distortion Shutter, and super slow motion video recording at 960fps.
Basically: this is one hell of a camera setup. I cannot wait to test it out properly.
Sony Xperia XZ Premium Specs & Hardware
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor,
- 4GB of RAM
- IP68 waterproofing
- 2,900mAh battery
- 13MP front-facing camera
- 19MP main camera
- Android 7 Nougat
- 64GB storage
- microSD-support – up to 256GB in size
The phone has now been spotted in Geekbench with the model number G8141. On single-core it scored 1943, while multi-core chalked up 5824. That puts it a bit faster than the Galaxy S8+ in single-core, but slower on multi-core, despite the fact both phones use the same CPU.
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from Sony this year. But the Sony Xperia XZ Premium is one hell of an update.
It has amazing specs, a brilliant camera and tons of utility.
The design is spot on and I cannot wait to see how this handset performs during proper testing.
My only concern right now is the battery – it’s rather small (and this phone has a 4K display).
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