Sony’s target audience in India has been quite clear from the beginning – the high-end segment – and the company is not looking to make an exception with its Xperia XZs. The premium device is a successor to last year’s Xperia XZ smartphone, and costs Rs 49,990. For Sony, which doesn’t really worry about the number of devices it announces in a year, the focus is clearly not on quantity.
Sony Xperia XZs
Sony Xperia XZs has a 19MP rear camera, which comes with triple image sensor and 5-axis stabilisation technology introduced with the Xperia XZ. The smartphone features the same Loop design and is a minor upgrade to its predecessor. Sony has introduced a new super slow motion mode for the rear camera, which allows for shooting videos at 960 fps. We’ve used the Xperia XZ smartphone for a little over a day and here’s our first impressions:
Design and Display
Sony Xperia XZs features the same Loop design, which makes it easy to hold. I liked the placement of the fingerprint scanner on the left side, making it easily accessible. The smartphone features Sony’s familiar rectangular shape, which isn’t ground-breaking to be honest. But it does give Sony’s phones a uniqueness.
The USB Type-C port for charging is at the bottom. There’s a shutter button on the right panel as well along with volume rocker keys. The single SIM slot is on the left side, while a 3.5 mm jack can be found on top.
The display is 5.2-inches Full HD panel, one that is vibrant and has good viewing angles. I didn’t have to struggle in sunlight to look at the screen and the icons are sharp. We’ll have more on the display, and how it performs after we are done with an in-depth review.
Processor, battery and memory
Sony Xperia XZs has a Snapdragon 820 processor coupled with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal memory (expandable up to 256GB via a microSD card). The phone seems fast in the limited time that I have used the device. The apps opened quickly and there were no visible lags, even while switching between multiple tabs.
The smartphone has a tendency to get hot pretty quickly, say within 6-10 minutes of playing games such as Asphalt-8. This is a problem given the smartphone falls in the premium category. We’re yet to run the full set of benchmark tests on this phone, and we’ll have details of those in our review.
The battery is 2,900mAh, which comes with Qnovo and Quick Charge 3.0 technologies. It took two and a half hours for the smartphone to charge from 20 per cent to a 100 per cent, which is a long time. So far, I’ve easily gotten through the day with 100 per cent charge on my phone.
Camera
The rear camera is capable of clicking some really good pictures in bright outdoors. The pictures have quite a lot of details in them. They appear sharp and colour reproduction is pretty good. It didn’t have issues while focusing on a subject, and output in most cases were close to real. I’ve clicked all of these pictures on Superior Auto mode. We’re yet to test the rear camera in low light settings.
I liked the front camera as well as it produces good colours and accurate details. Both front and rear camera have AR Mode, which is fun to play with, but again a bit gimmicky. There are a number of effects such as dinosaurs, underwater etc.
My major issue with the camera is it makes the phone warm within 3-4 minutes of use. The AR effect has the worst impact, as Xperia XZs will start to get really hot within seconds of using the mode. In fact, every time I re-opened the camera app after using AR mode, it showed me a warning saying Xperia XZs needs time to cool down.
The super slow motion has a dedicated icon besides recording button in the camera app. The rear video camera is capable of recording super slow motion videos at 960 fps, which the company says is the first in a smartphone. Unlike iPhone Slo-Mo mode, you can’t just point and record to get a slow motion video. Instead, you start a video and tap of the super slow motion icon, which appears in red colour when a video is bring shot, to capture specific moments in super slow motion in a regular video.
Super slow motion, true to its name, can really make things look super slow. For example, I shot a fan at super high speed and in super slow motion mode, the fan started rotating so slow that I could see little details like screw placement, marks on the blades etc. This is great and could could have a number of innovative use cases.
Apart from the usual heating issue within 30 seconds of using the camera app for super slow motion mode, I found videos to be super grainy in low light. I could see a hazy layer on top of videos, which seemed pretty weird. We’ll have more of super slow motion mode in our review.
Software
Sony Xperia XZs runs Android 7.0 Nougat. It’s good to see Sony launch with Nougat at this kind of pricing, although it is unclear if and when updates to the Nougat 7.1.1 will be rolled out.
Verdict
Sony Xperia XZs looks like a compact device with a great camera, but it looks like the old heating issues are still here. However, the price tag remains a problem for Sony, considering phones like OnePlus 3T with Snapdragon 821 processor are available at a much lower price.
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