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Sony's Xperia XZ Premium shines, quite literally. The first thing you notice about the new phone is the mirror-finish that surrounds the device giving it a sparkly appearance that seems destined to require lots of polishing.
But the innovation in the phone is found below the surface. Its primary features are both firsts on a smartphone: a 4K HDR display and super slow-motion video.
The 4K screen is 5.5-inches across, which means it's small enough that the 4K resolution shouldn't make too much of a difference. On a large screen like a television, the extra resolution is immediately noticeable but on a small screen it's much more difficult for the human eye to discern the extra resolution.
But this is where the HDR comes in. Short for "high dynamic range," HDR is a technology that widens the dynamic range that can be displayed so both dark and bright areas of an image are represented equally well.
The tech has been in some cameras for a while and is now coming to video, with some downloaded movies from Amazon Prime featuring HDR information.
The super slow-motion is a fun feature that's the XZ Premium's party trick. Sony is branding it "Motion Eye" and it captures video at 960 frames per second. When played back at the normal 30 frames per second, the video appears slowed by 32 times so things that happen fast can be viewed in super detail. The video works at 720p resolution.
Other features of the phone, which will be available in the second quarter, include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, which is capable of 4G LTE data transfer at up to 1Gbps depending on the cellular network. There's a 19-megapixel rear camera, 13-megapixel front camera and 4K video recording.
The main interface to the phone is a USB-C connector compatible with USB3.1. There's also a headphone socket.
Sony didn't immediately announce a launch date or price for the phone.
