Sony has unveiled their first ever smartphones to come with 18:9 displays, the Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact. The unveiling was done at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018. This launch now hopefully add sparks to Sony’s not so interesting smartphone lineup.
Although both phones carry a similar rectangle design language from its Xperia brothers the curved sides and arching back — which Sony calls “Ambient Flow” design — is what differentiate it. This now officially axes the past Xperia’s edgy form factor and welcomes the fitting shape of a phone for human palms.
And just like its major design tweaks, Sony has also placed the fingerprint scanner at the rear. The glossy glass back on the Xperia XZ2 is protected with Gorilla Glass 5 just like the front, while the Compact variant comprises of a similar protection at the front but the rear is a polycarbonate body with a matte finish.
Talking about the front, the Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact come with an eye-catching 18:9 display with a size of 5.7-inch and 5-inch respectively. Both displays are Full HD+ in resolution and support HDR content. Thanks a huge leap, especially for the XZ2 Compact as opposed to the XZ1 Compact’s 720p display. And of course, both phones are IP 65/68 rated.
Optically, Sony’s phones had been an ok-ish performer in the market, despite lending their technology to other giants [which have done better than them]. Both phones have a similar 19MP Sony IMX400 lens with Motion Eye technology, f/2.0 aperture, 5-axis stabilization, burst autofocus, predictive hybrid, phase detection, and contrast autofocus, IR sensor, and a dedicated camera key. That’s some serious tech there. However, that’s not the only thing the camera has to offer. Sony, this time, has collaborated with Qualcomm to create a BIONZ image processing hardware and algorithm. TL;DR both phone’s camera will capture excellent images overall.
The rear camera can also capture 4K HDR videos, the first of its kind on a smartphone. Likewise, the Sony has upped their game in terms of slow-mo captures. The XZ2 and XZ2 Compact are now capable of capturing 960 fps slow-mo videos at 1080p. However, there’s one bummer here. Due to the lack of Sony’s custom ISP RAM buffer, the camera can only capture half 1080p slow-mo of what it used to do in 720p.
Now let’s talk about some of the let-downs here. Either of these phones doesn’t have a headphone jack, though, there are stereo speakers. Whereas, Qi Wireless charge support is nowhere to be found in the XZ2 Compact, which can be seen inside its bigger brother.
The sigh of relief here is that Sony has implemented a similar hardware on both of these phones. Inside is the new Snapdragon 845 chipset accompanied by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage which is expandable. Internals aside, there’s NFC, Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band WiFi, USB 3.1 Type-C port. The only difference being is in the battery size. The Xperia XZ2 comes with a 3,180mAh battery, whilst the Compact has 2,870mAh inside.
As for the availability, both phones will go on sale from late March or early April, while the pricing is yet to be known. And judging by the previous act, both of these smartphones are due for a late launch in Nepal. If in case you are wondering to buy any of these phones, just keep your purse tight.