Sony Xperia XZ Premium Unboxing and First Impressions

Sony is making its presence felt in the Indian premium smartphone market with its all-new Xperia XZ Premium smartphone, which was launched at Rs. 59,990. Combining all the top-of-the-line specs, Sony has brought this phone to the market to compete against the mighty Samsung Galaxy S8, iPhone 7 and others.

Sony Xperia XZ Premium will be available across all major retail stores and on Amazon.in June 12 onwards. Pre-orders for the phone begin on June 2, and anyone booking the phone before June 11 will get a free Sony wireless speaker worth Rs. 8990. The handset box also includes a quick charger UCH-12 worth Rs. 3,490.

If the price of the Xperia XZ Premium has you startled, we'd suggest you take a deep breath as we walk you through its features and specifications before jumping conclusions. International Business Times, India, had the chance to experience the phone at the launch event, and here's what we think of it.

Design

Just another Xperia with that same old look? Well, Sony's new Xperia XZ Premium contradicts that statement. The company has carried forward its signature design in the Xperia XZ Premium that most of us are quite familiar with, but not without making some thoughtful changes.

The 2017 flagship by Sony has a glass unibody design with a sturdy metal chassis to add weight to the phone. The Gorilla Glass 5 wraps seamlessly around the phone to give it an infinite look, which we found quite refreshing even though the bulky bezels around the display take their rightful place.

Simplicity and elegance define this phone's loop design. Don't let the looks deceive you. The phone is dust proof and water resistant, so if you want to take it to shower with you or walk in the rain taking selfies, don't hesitate.

Display

It's 4K guys. Sony Xperia XZ Premium is the world's first smartphone with 4K HDR display. Clearly, it is ahead of others in this one. But is it really that big of a deal? Well, we will be comparing it with other flagships in the market, which have at least 2K display, to see the difference. But at first glance, we had no issues using the phone under bright sunlight.

We also played some pre-loaded videos on the phone, and it's quite impressive. Photos appear vivid and rich in colours. Overall, there's nothing about the display you could complain about.

Camera

Sony couldn't stop talking about it, and after testing it briefly we might be heading on the same track. Camera enthusiasts are going to love the Super Slow Motion in the Xperia XZ Premium, which captures at 960fps – equivalent to some SLRs. After testing the camera for shooting slow-mo videos and capturing photos under various lightening conditions, we must say it has the potential. It's worth nothing that working with Super Slow Motion videos can be challenging and require ideal lighting condition to get that perfect shot.

The Xperia XZ Premium features a 19MP rear-facing snapper with Motion Eye camera tech, which collectively provides improved low light capture, distortion free shutter and 5 times faster scan with its memory stacked Exmor RS sensor.

Below are some shots we took from the Xperia XZ Premium, but more will follow in the review of the phone in the coming days.

The bigger question is how good the Xperia XZ Premium camera is compared to Samsung Galaxy S8, Google Pixel and iPhone 7 Plus. We'll be sure to find that out in our review.

Performance and Battery

It's going to be a while before we give our verdict on this one. But we are confident about the Snapdragon 835 chipset and 4GB RAM in the phone to handle the most stressing tasks with ease. There's 64GB onboard storage and a dedicated microSD card slot for up to 256GB additional storage. Under that sealed glass body, there's a 3,230mAh battery and A USB Type-C port lets you charge the phone. We are going to be testing the phone's performance and its battery life over the next few days to give you a detailed review of how it really is under real-world case scenario.

But we did have the chance to experience a hint of the Xperia XZ Premium's Gigabit Class LTE connectivity. Although the networks in India are not supporting 1Gbps speeds, but it handset certainly gives a boost when it comes to browsing or downloading on a regular 4G network. We will also be comparing Xperia XZ Premium's fiber optics on-the-go with others to witness the difference. 

Add-ons

The Smart Stamina mode understands your use of the phone and boosts the battery life. The fingerprint scanner is placed at the side of the phone, within the power button for quick access. It works seamlessly, which is quite expected considering you'd be shelling out Rs. 60,000 for a smartphone. Do not expect any other biometric sensors such as Iris or Facial scanners. There are dual SIM card slots with 4G LTE support, and the handset runs stock Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box.