| Pros | Cons |
| + Amazing screen | - Average battery |
| + Great video camera | - Fingerprint magnet |
| + Eye-catching design | - Likely expensive |
"The Sony Xperia XZ Premium has the sharpest screen we've seen on a smartphone and a great camera. It's arguably overkill in some ways but undeniably great."
The Samsung Galaxy S8 might be the biggest name Android flagship of 2017, but the Sony Xperia XZ Premium is in some ways more exciting.
It’s jam packed full of tech, starting of course with its amazingly sharp screen, but also including camera innovations and plenty of power.
But how well does it all come together? And is the Sony Xperia XZ Premium the premium flagship to buy? Read on to find out.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium has a 5.46-inch 2160 x 3840 display. That amounts to 807 pixels per inch and makes it the sharpest smartphone screen around, rivalled only by its predecessor, the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium.
But as well as being ludicrously sharp, the Xperia XZ Premium’s display also supports mobile HDR. That seems to be the new flagship feature this year, with the likes of the LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy S8 also supporting it, but neither of them are this sharp.
The actual design of the screen is less innovative than some rivals – it’s flat rather than curved for example, but it’s edge to edge and looks great.
Arguably the 4K resolution is overkill, and there isn’t much HDR content yet, but if you want the sharpest screen possible, and one which also happens to be among the best, the Xperia XZ Premium is for you.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium is at once familiar and eye-catching. It’s familiar because the overall shape is a lot like previous Sony handsets, but it has a mirrored glass back which looks unlike almost any other phone out there. It’s shiny, reflective and looks great, at least until it inevitably gets covered in fingerprints.
There are lots of little touches in the design too, like a stainless steel camera lens ring and diamond cut top and bottom edges.
While it’s perhaps not quite as good looking as the Galaxy S8, it’s not far off.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium is set to be one of the most powerful phones of the year, as it has 4GB of RAM – which is the flagship standard, coupled with a Snapdragon 835 chipset.
It’s this that’s the real highlight, as few phones yet have that and it’s the latest and greatest Snapdragon chip. It has eight cores, four of which are a blisteringly fast 2.45GHz and four of which run at 1.9GHz.
Power is one area that we’re starting to see diminishing returns on, as most high-end handsets and even many mid-rangers now offer almost perfectly smooth performance. But that’s exactly what you can expect here, and that’s likely to continue to be the case right up until your next smartphone upgrade.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium has a 19MP camera with a lot of clever features. For a start, it can record slow motion footage at 960fps, which is a smartphone first.
It also has a Motion Eye feature which starts buffering images one second before you press the shutter button, meaning you can capture moments before you physically even take a snap, leaving you with up to four images to choose from.
It also has larger pixels than previous Sony phones, for improved night time shots, so there’s a lot to like here.
It’s not quite the best for point and shoot photography, but take a few pictures and at least one of them is sure to be great.
The XZ Premium also has a 13MP front-facing camera, so you can take more detailed selfies than most rival phones are capable of.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, which is ideally positioned to line up with your finger when you’re holding the phone.
Plus, the Sony Xperia XZ Premium is IP68 certified, which means it’s dust proof and water resistant to 1.5 metres deep for up to 30 minutes.
But perhaps the biggest feature that we haven’t covered elsewhere is its support of high-res audio, so you can get the best out of your music.
There’s a 3,230mAh battery in the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, which is fairly standard for a phone of this size. Of course, the XZ Premium also has a very sharp screen, which can suck down battery juice fast. You’ll still get all day life, but likely need to charge the phone at night if you use it moderately or more.
Like some other Sony handsets, the XZ Premium is clever there though, as it uses Qnovo Adaptive Charging to monitor your phone’s battery health and make sure it isn’t overworked. Essentially this means that it won’t wear out as fast. You also get fast charging of course, so you never need to stay plugged in for long.
Memory comes in at 64GB, plus a microSD card slot with support for cards of up to 256GB, so there’s plenty of storage space.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium also supports Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium is a tremendously full-featured phone, with a screen that no rivals can match, a great camera and lots of power.
It’s sure to be expensive, and it doesn’t stand out in all ways – the battery is fairly average for example and the design, while striking, is also something of a fingerprint magnet.
But it lives up to the name. If you want a premium handset and aren’t afraid to pay for it the Sony Xperia XZ Premium comes highly recommended.
Dimensions (mm): 156 x 77 x 7.9
Weight (g): 195
Battery capacity (mAh): 3230
Colours: Luminous Chrome, Deepsea Black, Bronze Pink
Screen size (inches): 5.46
Resolution: 2160 x 3840
Pixels per inch (PPI): 807
Processor: Octa-core 2.45GHz
Processor make: Snapdragon 835
RAM: 4GB
Internal storage: 64GB
Expandable storage up to (GB): 256GB
Camera: 19MP (13MP front-facing)
Operating System: Android 7.1
