Sony Xperia XZs first impressions: Good phone but not much of an upgrade

Sony announced two new flagships this year at Mobile World Congress this year including the Xperia XZ Premium and the Xperia XZs. While the Premium will launch in a couple of months in most markets, the company has launched the XZs in India.

The Xperia XZs is a bumped up version of the Xperia XZ which was launched last year including a new camera, an more RAM. While most of the features remain the same, I was tempted to try out the new camera features. So here is a quick look at the new Xperia XZs.

Body and design

Sony is probably one of the few companies that try to be different when it comes to designing their smartphones. Having said that, there aren’t any prominent changes. The design and looks are exactly the same as the Xperia XZ. This means you get Sony’s new Loop design language which honestly looks impressive. Its a flat design with rounded edges, giving you a nice grip.

Sony uses a patented Alkaleido metal for the back which just a fancy term for a kind of aluminium it uses. It gives of a slight plastic feel just like the XZ but it is definitely a premium handset.

The front is all glass with the 5.2-inch display sitting underneath it. The front also has a loudspeaker slit, the earpiece, front camera and the usual light and proximity sensor. At the back is the new 19MP camera with an LED flash, an RGB light sensor and laser AF. The curved right edge houses the power-button with an embedded fingerprint scanner, the volume rocker and a dedicated camera shutter button. The head phone is at the top, the hybrid SIM tray is on the left edge and the USB Type-C port is at the bottom.

Sony has got new colours. While the XZ came in Mineral black, Platinum, Forest blue and Deep pink, the new XZs comes in Black, Warm Silver, Ice Blue. Of course it is also dust and water proof with IP65/68 certifications.

Display

There is no change in the display. You still get a 5.2-inch Full HD IPS LCD panel with Sony’s Triluminos display and X-Reality Engine technologies. The resolution is Full HD (1920×1080) with a pixel density of 424ppi. Sony boasts about how they have got their TV display technology onto smartphones, and it shows. The display quite good and sharp. Colours look excellent and even brightness is good even when using outdoors. Even the glass on top of the display has a nice finish and the touch response is on spot.

Chipset, Storage and RAM

The Xperia XZs borrows most of its hardware from its predecessor. So you get a 64-bit, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 (MSM8996) chipset clocked at 2.15GHz, but there is 4GB RAM on this one compared to 3GB on the last one. An Adreno 530 GPU takes care of the graphics. Internal storage remains at 64GB which is expandable up to 256GB via the hybrid SIM slot.

We are moving from Snapdragon 821 to the 835, and I know sometimes specifications matter, but there is a population which just ignores a smartphone if it has older hardware. Something to think about.

OS and Software

The Xperia XZs arrives with the latest Android 7.1.1 Nougat update with Sony’s light skinning on top. The UI runs smooth is a breeze running on the hardware. Sony has mentioned to have added new ‘Actions’ feature which basically automate certain features by learning the users habits. For instance it can turn on do not disturb mode when you are at a certain location or at certain time of the day, or turns on/off roaming when you are going abroad.

Sadly Sony still has loaded the OS with a lot of bloatware which can be annoying for certain users.

Camera

Here is where the real changes are. Sony has got a brand new camera which is also loaded on the Xperia XZ Premium. Its a 19MP sensor (1/2.3-inch) with a 25mm f/2.0 lens, a dual-tone flash, predictive and laser auto-focus and an RGBC-IR sensor for natural colour rendering. This new sensor which the company calls ‘Motion Eye’ comes with super slow motion video recording at 960fps which is the first on a smartphone. This lets you shoot slow-mo videos that are four times slower than traditional smartphone cameras. Apart from that there is predictive capture which can shoot a moment and three frames right before you hit the shutter button.

I tried out these features and they are actually good. The super slow-mo can get tricky as it requires a well lit environment. The predictive capture feature is pretty good and I managed to get some moving subjects without missing the moment. However, the overall quality of the pictures was not as good as a flagship smartphone should be.

The primary camera can also record 4K video with SteadyShot 5-axis digital stabilisation. The front camera is the same as last year, a 13MP (1/3.06-inch) sensor with a 22mm wide-angle lens.

Battery and connectivity

The smartphone still gets a 2,900mAh battery with support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 and Sony’s Qnovo battery tech which elongates the battery’s life. There is also Sony’s Stamina mode that lowers performance to increase the battery time. I need to properly test the battery before I can comment about the performance.

As for connectivity you get a dual nano SIM hybrid tray, 4G LTE with VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, FM radio, USB Type-C with OTG support.

Conclusion

Sony has been struggling with its smartphones even though they seem to offer an interesting handsets. The updated Xperia XZs doesn’t seem like a game changer to me and I think it would take a beating from most of the flagships out there. I am not saying this is a bad smartphone and I need to test it thoroughly to come to a conclusion. My initial few hours with the handset have been decent but not as good as one would feel with a flagship phone.

And then there is the price. At Rs 49,990 it isn’t cheap. Considering its package, it sounds a par with a few flagships, but can it match up to them? Stay tuned for my full review.

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