Sony had one of the most impressive new phones at the event with the new Xperia XZ Premium phone which has an UltraHD display and support for HDR. The phone has a very high speed (960 fps) camera system that is very impressive.
The display is a 5.5″ IPS LCD with Gorilla Glass 5 that has wide colour gamut and the company told us that it covers 138% of sRGB. It also supports HDR10 for HDR, but, unlike some of its 2017 TVs, not Dolby Vision or, yet, HLG. The phone was the only new handset at the show using the SnapDragon 835 chipset which, natively supports the DisplayPort Alt mode over the USB Type-C connector. Sony has adopted the Type-C connector, although staff in Barcelona could not confirm the DisplayPort support.
The camera which is a single unit uses a special 1Gb buffer built into the sensor, so that multiple frames are stored without needing to be processed and allowing the user to choose one of a burst of frames. Sony had a very good demo setup showing how the camera could be used to freeze ‘bubbles’. It was impressive. The camera has a 19MP sensor with predictive phase detection and laser autofocus and can record 2160p at 30fps. Memory is 4GB and storage is 64GB. The phone can be used with the PS4 for Remote Play and it will be released in the second half of Q2.
The XA1 is another phone that was launched along with the XA1 Ultra. The XA1 has a 5″ 720 x 1280 resolution display, while the Ultra has a 6″ FullHD unit, both of them IPS LCDs. The main camera on each is a 23MP unit with phase detection and laser autofocus. The selfie sensor on the XA1 is an 8MP unit, while the Ultra has a 16MP unit with optical image stabilisation (OIS). Sony pointed out to us that selfies are often taken at arm’s length when the hand might shake, so it’s a good time to have stabilisation. Both have Mediatek Helio P20 processors with 3GB and 4GB of memory and 32GB or 32GB or 64GB of storage respectively.
The XZs is an upgrade to the XZ. It has a 5.2″ FullHD IPS LCD and the processor is a Snapdragon 820 with 4GB of RAM and 32/64GB of storage. The main camera is a 19MP unit, while the front camera is a 13MP unit. It should be available in April.
Sony had its lifestyle products including the small projector, but we’ve reported on them several times.
A new product that we liked when we tried it was a set of earphones that do not block the outside sounds, so ideal for listening on the go or, for example, when cycling. They sounded very good, but didn’t block any of the ambient sound.
