Sony Xperia XZ Premium, XA1 Ultra Official Hands-on, Launch in PH

Sony Philippines officially announced the arrival of the Xperia XZ’s bigger brother – the Xperia XZ Premium along with the Xperia XA1 Ultra.

Sony Xperia XZ Premium Official Hands-on, Price in the Philippines

As the biggest yet the sleekest among the Xperia products this year, truly, it goes beyond what most phones are capable of nowadays. Being the first to sport a 4K HDR10-compliant IPS 5.5” panel, the display is nothing to be scoffed at.

At a glance from a distance, one can easily mistake it for a mirror without borders. The reflective glass surface, covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 makes this possible. Even with its seemingly fragile look, it is rated IP65/68 for those accidental drops in the pool and sink or dusty environments. However, due to the surface’s non-oleophobic nature, fingerprints show up at the slightest of touch.

Following previous Xperia releases, on-screen navigation buttons are still present as the screen is sandwiched by stereo front-facing speakers with the 13MP front-facing camera on the upper left of the screen. Moving to the sides, the SIM and microSD hybrid tray is located on the left and can be extracted without an eject pin.

Read also: Sony Xperia XZ series official price, full specs

On the opposite side are the phone’s physical buttons, (from top to bottom) a 2-button volume rocker, the power button/fingerprint scanner, and a dedicated capture button placed well enough to encourage its usage for landscaped captures and selfies.

On the top is the 3.5mm audio jack that is backed up by a 24-bit/192kHz audio support. And lastly, on the bottom is a USB 3.1 Type-C 1.0 reversible port, allowing for up to 10Gbps of data transfer speeds.

At the rear is the second main attraction of this phone – a 23MP f/2.0 25mm shooter. It is a powerful camera that incorporates imaging capabilities of Sony Alpha and Cyber-shot™ cameras that led to the creation of the Motion Eye™, for capturing moments that no other smartphone can. Laser autofocus and EIS (via gyro) are also present, making users worry less over how good their shots will be and prepare instead for moments that may never come by again.

Two new main camera features were presented, with the first called as Super Slow Motion what a momentary 960FPS slow-motion capture, wherein the user will be able to make a fraction of a second’s worth of moment stretched to 5 seconds, thanks to the memory stack that is sandwiched between the main camera and the logic board itself, allowing for up to 25Gbps of real-time image data processing.

The second new camera feature is dubbed as Predictive Capture, which is almost always 4 frames ahead of you in terms of image capture. It buffers images when motion is detected even before you even click, framing moments in near-perfection.

Internals are no slouch either as it is also the first to be equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835, a 10nm chipset that is 35% smaller and uses 25% less power, allowing for a longer battery life. Also, it supports gigabit LTE speeds thanks to the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem. Along with this new chipset is an octa-core Kryo CPU (4×2.45GHz & 4×1.9GHz) that allows for a longer battery life when idle. Paired with it is an Adreno 540 to drive the 4K HDR display.

In the multitasking side of things, Sony was generous enough to insert 4GB of RAM.

The Xperia XZ Premium only comes in one capacity – 64GB internal memory. After all, the ‘Premium’ labeling is a dictation of what is inside. Powering everything up is a 3230mAh Li-Ion battery that will definitely be tested in various scenarios, considering the 4K HDR display.

A plethora of unmentioned connectivity options on Xperia XZ Premium is available, including 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, WiFi (802.11 b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/GLONASS, and NFC OTG support. Sensors on board besides the side-mounted fingerprint scanner are the accelerometer, barometer, proximity, and compass.

Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra Hands-on

Along with the Xperia XZ Premium, Sony Philippines also introduced the Xperia XA1 Ultra – a mid-range smartphone that ticks a lot of the high-end checkboxes and was built upon the success of last year’s XA models. It sports a 6” borderless display and a 23MP main camera with additional performance updates to keep in it top shape while being ahead of the mid-range pack.

The 16MP front camera is no joke either since it has an Optical Image Stabilizer to reduce handshake effects whilst improving low-light selfies, which would be a lot helpful while broadcasting or video calling. Added also is a flash made to naturally illuminate your face.

These two new Xperia products are now in the same boat as the Xperia XZs and Xperia XA1, finalizing Sony Mobile’s line-up that was announced in MWC 2017 3 months ago.

The Xperia XZ Premium will be available on June 30 with an SRP of Php 45,590 with 12 months 0% interest installment at your local Sony Centers, Sony Mobile Stores and authorized dealers nationwide in Luminous Chrome, Deep Sea Black, and Bronze Pink, with the last one to be made available at the end of July.

There is still no word on the pricing yet for the XA1 Ultra but Sony has already mentioned that it will be announced sometime in Spring of this year.

Sony Xperia XZ Premium Specs, Official PH price, release date in the Philippines