Sony’s smartphone lineup isn’t going well these days, though. Even the X series didn’t end up well into the competition. But it’s time for Sony to take up those downs and get back again in the race. With any luck, the new, unlocked Xperia XZ can change all of that. It runs with the same Snapdragon 820 and 3GB of RAM as the earlier Xperia X Performance, but Sony squeezed that horsepower into a new beautiful new body and added a few tricks for good measure.
The XZ feels incredible. It retains the sort of monolithic look and water resistance of other Xperia smartphones, but the edges of its metal-and-glass body are much rounder. The design is almost reminiscent of Nokia’s old Lumias, which is one of the highest compliments for a phone’s design I have.
It has a 5.2-inch 1080p display that looks just as good as Sony’s screens usually do, along with a 2,900mAh battery that Sony says is “optimized for all day use.” Throw in 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, a microSD card slot, and a USB Type-C port and you’ve got the Xperia XZ in a nutshell.
The XZ is fitted with a 23-megapixel Exmor RS sensor, not unlike the one in the X Performance. Rather than simply transplant that camera from one device to another, though, Sony added a laser autofocus system to help the XZ find its targets faster and a sensor that simultaneously captures RGB and infrared images to make sure we’re getting consistently accurate colors and white balance. Meanwhile, there’s a 13-megapixel camera sitting above the display that captured frankly great-looking selfies even in a room with bad lighting.
The improvements don’t end there, either. The camera now shoots 4K video, a feature that was conspicuously absent from the X Performance. Sony’s mobile team also worked with the people behind the company’s Alpha SLRs to improve the image stabilization here too, though we’ll see how well those claims bear out soon.
The pricing isn’t been available yet. But, if we know about that, we’ll update it here. Until then, stay with AndroidJunglee for more IFA 2016 coverage.
