Review: Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium – bulky and overpriced niche smartphone
WATCH: Featuring a 4K LCD display and a new fingerprint reader, the Xperia XZ Premium is sure to excite tech geeks, but its size, design and poor battery life will turn away the everyday user
After years of losing money in the mobile division, Japanese electronics giant Sony finally found a way to stop the bleeding by significantly downsizing its mobile line and narrowing its scope to focus on just the premium markets, where devices sell for higher margins.
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Of course, merely not losing money is hardly a formula for success, and Sony’s smartphones remain mostly a niche product, with almost no market penetration in the US, Europe or China. Sony’s latest release, the Xperia XZ Premium, is not likely to turn the tide.
Design and hardware
Despite the entire industry trending towards sleek, curvy, small-bezelled phones, the Xperia XZ Premium opts for the absurdly large top and bottom bezels and a blocky, rectangular build. The chrome finish, on this mostly glass phone, is highly reflective, and light bounces off the chamfered top and bottom edge in a pleasing way.
Is the Xperia XZ Premium more comfortable to hold than a Samsung Galaxy S8 or LG G6? Heck no! The 195g weight is a wrist strainer, the hard corners dig into your palm, and the phone is harder to fit into a male trouser pocket than any other 2017 release so far. However, you almost have to respect Sony engineers for sticking to their guns and keeping its years-old “Omni-Balance” design language, despite trends and popular opinion.
Another deviation from the norm here is the location of the fingerprint reader. Every other phone either has it on the front, below the screen, or on the back, below the camera, but here it’s on the right side of the device. It looked quite awkward at first but after 30 minutes of use, I quite like the location. It’s easy to reach no matter which hand you hold the phone with, and the scanner accuracy is excellent.
