First impressions of Sony's new flagship smartphone

First impressions of the Sony Xperia XZ2 – in pictures

It’s been a long time since Sony made a truly great phone. The solution to previous mediocrity? Sony’s betting the house on High Dynamic Range. Everything from the Xperia XZ2’s display tech to its camera smarts have been built to go big on features that you’d usually expect from the big screen sat in your living room. Does the HDR ‘wow factor’ truly translate into the palm of your hands? We’ve had our hands on the Xperia XZ2 to find out.

SONY XPERIA XZ2 DESIGN

Having seemingly stuck with the same boxey aesthetic since the dawn of time itself, the Xperia XZ2 has gone for an all-new curved glass look, which is wrapped around an aluminium frame for added durability. Being bang on with recent trends, you also get the same reassuringly weighty build, shimmering lines of light across the phone’s backside, IP68 water-resistance and a fingerprint scanner that sits underneath the Xperia XZ2’s camera lens.

SONY XPERIA XZ2 DISPLAY

While the Xperia XZ2 doesn’t exactly stand out from the front, it does at least have something wholly unique to shout about: a 5.7in Full HD+ display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, and support for High Dynamic Range content. What’s more, the Xperia XZ2 has the power to convert standard dynamic range content into something approaching HDR. And do you know what? You can really see the difference.

SONY XPERIA XZ2 PERFORMANCE

Like almost every other flagship due to land this year, Sony’s Xperia XZ2 is powered by a top of the range Snapdragon 845 processor that promises to be faster, fitter, happier and more productive than its predecessor the 835. Worried about about what effect that screen will have on battery life? Those fears may be allayed by the Xperia XZ2’s 3180mAh capacity, which should be enough to see you through a working day.

SONY XPERIA XZ2 CAMERAS

Sony has worked to integrate an exclusive custom image signal processor (ISP) into its Qualcomm processor. What does this mean? If the XZ2’s 19MP camera with an ISO 12,800 sensitivity for photos is good in the first place, then it’ll allow for greater detail, contrast and all that good stuff. If not? Then it’s probably not gonna rescue things for the better. Elsewhere, the XZ2’s camera can also capture 4K HDR video and super slow motion footage at 960 FPS in a Full HD resolution.

SONY XPERIA XZ2 AUDIO

As with previous Sony phones, the XZ2 supports hi-res audio playback, but you’ll need a pair of wireless or USB-C headphones to hear this audio. Why? You guessed it. Sony’s ditched the headphone jack here and it’s up to you how annoying you’ll find that revelation. In more gimmicky but equally questionable news, Sony’s introduced a new rumble feature for with the Xperia XZ2, where the phone will vibrate along to the soundtrack of the game or movie you’re watching.

SONY XPERIA XZ2 INITIAL VERDICT

On first impressions, the Xperia XZ2 really feels like a phone that you’re going to have to live with to know whether it’s any good or not. With the right engineering it could end up being the dark horse of this year’s flagship phones, or it could being another Sony that didn’t quite cut the mustard. Compared to the Samsung Galaxy S9, the Xperia XZ2 does feel a little behind the pace – but only a full review will reveal the truth.