Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium comes as a much-needed update to the XZ2. Priced at Rs. 57,990, the Sony Xperia XZ2 works on the display to set itself apart in terms of the competition that it arrives in.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 holds incredible power, along with a bright display to compliment it. However, the phone fails to provide the battery for such a capable screen and struggles with its dated design as well. In general, it is a better phone to go for than Xperia XZ2 if you can deal with an average battery life.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium arrives with quite a dated look. It has a thickness of about 80mm and a weight of about 236g, making it look like a giant. But the screen comes with huge bezels, making the phone look stouter than it is. However, the phone does have some excellent touches. It has a curved Gorilla Glass 5 and shiny aluminium sides, which make it look expensive. The curved glass makes it look slim as well.

The fingerprint scanner is not located at an ergonomic position, sitting quite low on the rear panel. The XZ2 Premium comes with IP65/68 water resistance, making an accidental dunk ineffective to damage the phone. Plus, like the XZ2, you will not be getting the headphone jack. The phone looks quite cumbersome and odd in hand.

The Xperia X2 Premium comes with a 5.8-inch Triluminos LCD screen with 380 x 2160 resolution. Plus, it has an aspect ratio of 16:9. It comes with an incredible 765 pixels per inch, while the Galaxy Note 9 comes with 519ppi. The colours are vibrant, bright and quite accurate as well.

The benefit is with VR, since, although the screen does not come with 4K, the high pixels allow you to have an immersive experience. Using Super-Vivid mode can max out on the Triluminos screen. The phone also offers HDR so that you can watch HD content from Netflix.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium comes with the same 845 chipset as the XZ2 model, and it remains a killer performer. It is paired with an Adreno 630 GPU.

Gaming works like a breeze on the phone, with loading times almost negligible in games like PUBG. The phone runs smoothly and does not falter when it comes with app switching or running multiple apps. Since the phone arrives with 6GB RAM, it handles applications wonderfully.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium comes with an impressive dual camera setup at its back, with a 19MP sensor and an f/1.8 aperture and a 12MP sensor which only clicks monochromatic pictures. It does not have optical zoom and the second camera only enhances the image quality, especially when clicked in low-light. Huawei has the same technology but does a better job at it.

In daylight, the camera can take detailed shots with very less noise. The colours are punchy, and they have very less dynamic range. Plus, there is Bokeh Mode which lets the background blur fit seamlessly with the subject.

However, the mode is a bit slow, and you can see the outline between the blurred background and the non-blurred subject. In low light, the pictures have a bit of visual noise, and they lose some details too. Colour reproduction can go haywire also.

In the front, it has a 13MP camera which produces brilliant photos but sometimes gets muddy due to indoor lighting. You can use to screen flash for better results.In Videos, the phone can beat competitors like P20 Pro and Samsung Note 9 with punchy colours and fantastic quality to capture motion. However, due to lack of Optical Image stabilisation, night videos falter.

The XZ2 Premium comes with a 3540 mAh which just a 360 mAh upgrade from Xperia XZ2. As a result, it still performs poorly in battery tests. Playing a 90-minute video on the phone with maxed out brightness results in a loss of 30% battery where only 12% is lost on the Galaxy Note 9 and 9% for Huawei P20 Pro. The screen drains a lot of battery with 30 minutes of Real Racing 3 at 50% brightness taking away about 11% of the juice. The phone may last about a day with moderate use.

However, it does come with fast charging taking 22 minutes to go from 0% to 30%. The fast charging could have been faster. Plus, the phone comes with wireless charging which is a plus.

The Xperia XZ2 Premium is an accomplished set, but it lacks behind when it is compared with its competitors. It has an old display and design which will not catch the attention of people looking for a premium model. However, Sony has a distinct fan base who would love to have this Premium model for them. Otherwise, there are better performing handsets in the market like the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 or Huawei P20 Pro.