The Sony Xperia XZ Premium comes with powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 MSM8998 64bits Architecture Octa-Core 10nm FinFET up to 2.45Ghz processor and a Adreno 540 Graphics processor packed into system on the chip [SoC]. It also comes with dual channel 4GB of Low-power DDR4 1866Mhz RAM. The phone packs with 64GB UFS 2.1 of internal storage that can be expanded up to 256GB via a microSD card. Xperia XZ Premium is IP65/68 water- and dust-resistant, so you can safely immerse it up to depths of 1.5 meters within 30 minutes and Dust-resistance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlboZNEP6bs
The Sony Xperia XZ features a beautifully laminated screen with 5.5-inch 4k (3840 x 2160) pixels with HDR display Gorilla Glass 5 of an IPS with pixel densities of 807ppi and comes with Sony famous technology display “Triluminous” & “X-Reality”.
When you are on the main screen or playing games and your screen resolution will remain as Full HD (1920×1080) 480 dpi, Sony did a smart way to reduce power consumption.
On the right side of the phone you can sport the signature of the Sony embedded fingerprint reader, volume control and the camera shutter button.
The Xperia XZ Premium supports a few of High-Resolution Audio codecs including LPCM, FLAC, ALAC and DSD. It also has automatic headset compensation, S-Force front surround stereo speakers and ClearAudio+.
Plug in a set of headphones though and the XZ Premium 3.5mm jack, thanks to its audio-enhancing technology and Automatic Headphone Optimization, which adjusts the sound output to suit the type of headphones you’ve plugged in.
Audio: 24-bit DAC, High-Res built-in for headset support.
- Qualcomm Aqstic Audio Codec
The Qualcomm Aqstic audio codec has an integrated DAC (Digital-to-Analog) converter that supports up to 192-kHz/24-bit playback. The audio codec also supports dual oscillators; the dual-clock design supports sampling frequencies 44.1kHz and 48kHz independently so your music files can be processed at native sampling rates without any conversion.
Once the analog signal is converted by the DAC, it still needs to be amplified for the headphone experience. The Aqstc audio codec is designed to deliver the amplification performance that is usually captured by impressive SNR and THD+N numbers. For audio geeks, SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) and THD+N (Total Harmonic Distortion + N) are specs that determine the dynamic range and signal purity.
- Qualcomm Amplifier
The Qualcomm Aqstic smart PA (Power Amplifier) is another piece engineered to deliver even more oomph to your external speakers. Your music can be loud and crystal-clear thanks to the wide dynamic range and low noise floor on the smart PA. It also features Speaker Protection that protects your speakers from damage when pushing volumes levels beyond normal range.
The dual speakers and smart amplifier that provides clear and defined sound. Users can enjoy Hi-Res Audio that provides up four-times-better sound quality than CDs.
If you have a high definition Bluetooth “aptX” headset and you will be able to enjoy on the Sony Xperia XZ Premium. Qualcomm aptX make use of the Bluetooth connection data pipeline to transmit bits of data between devices and the pipeline has a maximum width, it can flow large audio files to the device. AptX also solves the problem of sending pure audio wirelessly over Bluetooth by reducing the size of the audio files so they can be squeezed through the wireless pipeline without affecting the sound quality.
AptX supports music resolutions of up to 24-bit/96kHz which is actually better than the quality of audio stored on CDs which is 16-bit/44.1kHz.
Audio Settings:
You can enable Sony DSEE HX or ClearAudio+ feature.
- Enable DSEE HX will disable all functions of sound effects and dynamic Normalizer
- Enable ClearAudio+ will disable all functions of sound effects
Sony had already developed DSEE technology (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) – a signal processing technology which converted compressed sound such as MP3s to CD-quality sound by recreating the high frequency signal lost when compressing files. The technology converts both compressed sound and CD-quality sound (uncompressed or lossless 44.1kHz/16bit) to near Hi-Resquality sound by recreating higher frequency signals and finer signals (Sampling frequency up to 96kHz and bit depth up to 24bit if you’re a details person).
ClearAudio+ is a special sound field that detects a music tract that the user is currently playing, then selects the best sound field to deliver the best possible sound listening experience. Hence, you may hear a different sound effect whenever a tract with a different audio format is played.
If you plan to use two SIM cards will not be able to utilize a MicroSD card. A memory card is supported, but to do so, you will have to give up one of your SIM card slots.
With Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 on-board, the battery benefits from Quick Charge 3.0, which means it can quickly charge the battery with a compatible charger. However, the 3,230mAh battery inside is not removable, but the USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type C port allows you transfer file quicker than the previous model.
SONY BATTERY CARE
Charging your phone overnight is convenient, but if left plugged in after it’s fully charged, battery life degrades. Battery Care solves this by learning your wake up time. It charges to 90%, pauses, then tops up to 100% to start your day.
STAMINA MODE FOR WHEN YOU NEED IT MOST
When you really need to eke out your battery power, switch on STAMINA Mode. With three power saving levels to choose from, it automatically adjusts your settings to keep your phone active for longer.
The phone comes with a both side Gorilla Glass 5, scratch-resistant front, back and aluminium alloy metal at the side.
Xperia XZ Premium sports a brand new Sony Exmor RS IMX400 with Motion Eye 19-megapixel rear camera and f/2.0 aperture. It is capable of recording 4K videos apart from 1080p and 720p videos. It also sports a 13-megapixel front camera, f/2.0, 22mm, 1/3″ sensor size.
The Motion Eye feature can record 960 frames per second, for Super slow motion playback.
Sony triple image sensing technology & camera features:
Exmor RS 19MP Exmor RS for mobile image sensor – More details and less noise
- The high sensitive 1/2.3″ Exmor RS image sensor allows you to snap highly detailed shots with low noise
G Lens – 25mm G Lens with aperture F2.0 for bright photos even in dark conditions
- Praised for its light-gathering capthering capabilities, Sony’s G Lens excels in dark conditions. The main camera has 25 mm wide angle G Lens with a bright F2.0 aperture.
BionZ for mobile – For mobile image processing clearer photos with true colours
- Sony’s intelligent BIONZ imaging processor employs power full algorithms to generate beautiful images. Is suppresses colour and luminance noise for enhanced colour reproduction, richer tonal graduations and clearer photos.
An important feature of the Xperia XZ cameras is it’s 5-axis electronic image stabilization (EIS), laser auto-focus, phase detection AF (PDAF), Predictive Hybrid Autofocus technology and RGBC-IR sensor. It aims to reduce camera shakes, thus improving night shot quality with a longer exposed shutter speed, automatically tracks your object as it moves and accurately adjusts the white balance based on the light source in the environment.
Image sensor – Fast and accurate autofocus with the Predictive Hybrid AF capability to track objects for sharper photos of moving subjects.
Laser AF – Assists the main sensor to detect the distance to the subject even in low-light conditions to capture sharp images.
RGBC-IR – Adds accuracy to the main sensor’s auto white balance and lets it capture true-to-life colours in bright sunlight or poor lighting.
- Five-axis video EIS – Sony Xperia XZ is the first smartphone to support 5 – axis stabilization, reducing camera shake occurring in five different directions.
- PDAF function – The high speed auto focus technology.
This technology has the following merits compared with a conventional one (contrast AF)
Predictive Hybrid Autofocus
Camera AR effect
AR (Augmented Reality) effects to your pictures and videos! Take pictures and videos with virtual scenes and characters with the AR effect application.
There are many themes you can create pictures with growling dinosaurs, have fairies walk on your desk, attach masks to your friends’ faces, and much more.
Sony is heavily advertising the camera capabilities of the Xperia XZ Premium with the new triple image sensing and motion eye technology. On paper, the Xperia XZ Premium comes with the familiar f/2.0 19 MP rear camera with 1/2.3″ IMX400 RS sensor, which has the same specifications as the Xperia ZXs. Overall, how well does the camera perform and does it meet the demand of photography enthusiasts?
The wide angle lens field-of-view isn’t new to Sony Xperia phones, but will be well-appreciated by people who love landscape photography. Having a wide angle lens would also means that you don’t need to step far away from your subjects when taking group photos.
The addition of manual function in the camera application allows us to explore and expand our creativity, creating interesting shots that can’t be achieved with auto mode. For example, we can capture simple light trails along a busy road and introduce intentional motion blur to our photos. Through slower shutter speed, we can also capture images with minimal noise in low light situation due to eliminating the need for high ISO. However, the manual mode is not really entirely ‘manual’ but more of a shutter priority mode. The application allows you to manually adjust white balance, exposure compensation, shutter speed, and focus. For shutter speed, you can manually adjust it from 1/4000 sec to 1 sec.
Although 1 sec is sufficient for most of the time to capture night scene effectively with relatively low noise, I believe most photography enthusiasts would still love to be able to explore their creativity beyond the 1 sec limitation, such as performing interesting light painting or creating that silky smooth water in your images. This is something that I do hope Sony would consider implementing in future updates.
Camera resolution settings
I highly recommend configuring camera settings to 17MP (16:9) aspect ratio. You will spot the difference between 19MP (4:3) and 17MP (16:9) below. 
Daylight Photoshoot
Night Photoshoot
White balance and colour is generally very accurate and well managed even in tricky environments.
The JPEG image quality captured by the camera is very good in ample light situation. For higher ISO such as 1000 and above, images do suffer from loss of sharpness and detail due to JPEG processing and strong noise reduction effect being applied. Unfortunately, there is no option to shoot in RAW, which means that you won’t be able to bring back those lost detail and do your own processing instead.
Personally, I don’t see the need for such high megapixels, especially on a mobile phone. More pixels would means that the individual pixel size would be smaller. Smaller pixels are more sensitive to camera shake, as a smaller movement will cause the image to move across more pixels. However, if you are able steady your camera by using a tripod, I believe you’ll be pleased with the amount of detail the camera is able to capture in high megapixel setting. If you’re hand-holding the camera, it’ll be better to shoot in 12MP in low light situations.
Manual Mode 19MP, f/2 Shutter: 1s, ISO 100
The World’s First Super Slow motion
The Sony new Xperia XZ Premium can record videos in super slow motion at the recording speed of 960 frames per second. Using this feature, you can record videos 4X times slower than any other smartphone available in the market.
The motion eye feature has a limitation of resolution up to HD (1280x 720).
Full HD video recording
I am surprised by the audio recording, you can find two microphones on the top and on the button and it give you Stereo Recording.
Performance Benchmark
We will be testing the performance of the four devices “ASUS Zenfone 3 Deluxe, Sony Xperia XZ and XZs” against Sony Xperia XZ Premium.
| Model | Sony Xperia XZ | Sony Xperia XZs | Sony Xperia XZ Premium | Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe |
| Display | 5.2 inch | 5.2 inch | 5.5 inch | 5.7 inch |
| Resolution | 1080 x 1920 FHD | 1080 x 1920 FHD | 3840 x 2160 UHD | 1080 x 1920 FHD |
| Processor | Snapdragon 820 | Snapdragon 820 | Snapdragon 835 | Snapdragon 820 |
| Clock speed | 300Mhz – 2150Mhz | 300Mhz – 2150Mhz | 300Mhz – 2450Mhz | 300Mhz – 2150Mhz |
| Cores | 4 Cores | 4 Cores | 8 Cores | 4 Cores |
| Graphics | Snapdragon Adreno 530 | Snapdragon Adreno 530 | Snapdragon Adreno 540 | Snapdragon Adreno 530 |
| RAM | DDR4L – 3GB | DDR4L – 4GB | DDR4L – 4GB | DDR4L – 4GB |
| Memory | 64GB | 64GB | 64GB | 64GB |
| Android version | 7 | 7.1 | 7.1 | 7 |
PCMark for Android
PCMark for Android introduces a fresh approach to benchmarking smartphones and tablets. It measures the performance and battery life of the device as a complete unit rather than a set of isolated components. And its tests are based on common, everyday tasks instead of abstract algorithms.
3DMark for Android
3DMark is used by millions of people, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading technology companies. It’s the industry standard benchmark for graphics performance measurement, a professional-grade tool available to home users for free.
AnTuTu Bechmark
AnTuTu Benchmark is a comprehensive Android Benchmarking application. It includes “Memory Performance”, “CPU Integer Performance”, “CPU Floating Point Performance”, “2D and 3D Graphics Performance”, “SD card read-write speed”, “Database IO” performance testing.
AS SD Benchmark
Use A1 SD Benchmark your phone & tablet SD card, RAM and memory, to test IO read / write speed (Quick, Long, Random I/O and Accurate) and check media performance.
Vellamo Benchmark
Vellamo is designed to be an accurate, easy-to-use suite of system-level benchmarks for devices based on Android 4.0 forward. In Vellamo we want to enable performance enthusiasts to really understand their system, and how it compares to other systems, and our mission has just begun. Vellamo began as a mobile web benchmarking tool that today has expanded to include three primary Chapters. The Browser Chapter evaluates mobile web browser performance, the Multicore Chapter measures the synergy of multiple CPU cores, and the Metal Chapter measures the single core CPU subsystem performance of mobile processors.
GeekBench
Geekbench 4 includes updated CPU tests that model real-world tasks and applications. These tests are designed to quickly and accurately measure mobile CPU performance. Every Geekbench 4 CPU test is multi-core aware, allowing Geekbench 4 to measure the full potential of your device’s CPU.
