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Sony Xperia XZ2 Review: Multimedia Monster

Jamie Inocian

Let’s Take a Closer Look at Sony’s Newest Flagship!

We first caught a glimpse of Sony’s new flagship smartphone during our annual trip to Mobile World Congress earlier in the year. One of its predecessors — the XZ Premium — was awarded 2017’s Best Smartphone at the Biggest Show in Mobile, so we were quite eager to test out the new iteration of the Japanese brand’s flagship and see if it’s a solid option to consider over a stacked lineup in 2018.

Let’s find out.

Sony Xperia XZ2 Specs

A New Look that Honors the Old

The first thing we noticed when we saw the device on the floor of MWC was that Sony has finally bid farewell to its signature design, which gave the device pretty tall top and bottom bezels. Embracing the current 18:9 display trend, the XZ2 definitely looks very different from the devices that came before it but is still very recognizable as an Xperia device by maintaining nearly the same silhouette. The back is curved making the phone pretty thick; measuring in at 11mm at its thickest point. While that’s about 3mm more than most smartphones we’ve been handling, it feels really good in the hand, its weight certainly makes it feel solid but is evenly distributed throughout the device.

While it is comfortable to hold, the problem we’ve had with the device is when you slip it into your pocket or place it on the table. Aside from being a fingerprint magnet, that glossy sheen plus the way the XZ2 tips the scale makes the device pretty slippery. Our review unit has slid out of our pockets on numerous occasions and has almost slid off tables that were a bit askew as well. You can put the device face down but you run the first of scratching up the display over time even if it is protected by Gorilla Glass 5.

There’s also the issue of placement of the fingerprint scanner. Sony has typically embedded it on the power button of the device that worked perfectly in past iterations but has decided to put it towards the center of the device. This means that your index finger would almost naturally gravitate towards the camera, therefore smudging up the lens, instead of unlocking the device. We’ve been using the device for over a week now and we still find ourselves wondering why the phone isn’t unlocking, only to realize that we need to wipe down the glass on the rear camera yet again.

A Device Built for the Ultimate Multimedia Experience

As mentioned earlier, Sony employs the use of a display with a little extra real estate. The XZ2 has a 5.7-inch Full HD IPS LCD panel that may leave some of you scratching your heads since most flagships use an OLED screen to give you really crisp image quality with deep blacks as its base. That’s true but the Japanese company gave the XZ2 support for HDR to give you a wider range of colors that have a nice punch to them; something that you can see with the pre-loaded trailer of the latest Jumanji movie on the phone.

Trouble is, aside from that, HDR content still isn’t widely available. True, there are some Netflix Originals that are offered with HDR but that option isn’t available on mobile devices just yet. One way to enjoy HDR content is by making it yourself since the XZ2 can shoot videos up to 4K with HDR but we’ll talk about that more in the camera section.

One thing that Sony has always done right with their flagship devices is audio. The XZ2 still features a front firing speaker, hidden in its earpiece and a tiny slit on the bottom of the screen, to give consumers a really good experience when watching movies of the phone or listening to music with pretty good sound quality too.

One of the things they were harping on at MWC was the phones Dynamic Vibration System. It’s essentially like having Playstation Dual Shock Controller where the device would interpret lows in what you’re listening to and make the phone rumble a little bit. It’s a cute feature to have but we can’t help feel that it’s a bit of a novelty that you might want to have on every now and then but generally something you want to keep off to maintain battery life. We’re just not feeling it. Yes, pun intended.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Gets the Job Done

The XZ2 wouldn’t be a flagship device if it weren’t running the best SoC available at this point in time. Under the hood, you’ve got a Snapdragon 845 that’s paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. As expected, everything ran very smoothly on this device tackling the day-to-day with no hesitation and apps launched in nearly an in an instant too.

Here’s a look at a few benchmark results.

As you can expect, gaming on the XZ2 isn’t a problem at all. You can run all the latest titles on Google Play at the highest settings available.

Software Needs a Bit of an Update

The Sony Xperia XZ2 runs on Android 8.0 with the familiar skin from the Japanese brand on top of it. Unlike other UI overlays, the one that Sony uses almost feels like stock Android. There are a few of the company’s pre-installed apps but nothing too obscene. We did run into a few apps crashing here and there, which we’re hoping an update to the latest version of Oreo will fix or a quick jump to Android P when the time comes.

So-so Cameras for a Flagship

Let’s talk cameras. The Sony Xperia XZ2 is equipped with a 19-megapixel camera at an aperture of f/2.0. You still have their Motion Eye tech that captures photos just before you hit the shutter key to give you a selection in case someone’s eyes are closed or when trying to take photos of little tots. Overall image quality is alright but not quite on-par with other flagships we’ve handled recently. You’re still getting nice picture quality when subjects are lit well and we like how colors seem to pop but it’s a little disappointing to see the XZ2’s camera trip up a little in low-light or when exposure is a little tricky given the company’s prowess in putting out some pretty solid cameras.

The 5-megapixel front camera does a good job as well but has the same weaknesses as the rear shooter.

One of the big things about the XZ2’s rear camera is its ability to take 4K video with HDR. This is great if you like making videos on your smartphone since the dynamic range will make your footage look a lot better. We should warn you that the resulting video with HDR on will look a little flat but you can go into editing software to liven up the colors. One thing we think they could have done better on the rear camera though is giving us OIS instead of just relying on EIS. We would still highly recommend getting an Osmo Mobile 2 or another 3-axis gimbal if you take your mobile videography seriously.

Another thing Sony improved on the resolution for taking slow-mo video; increasing it from just HD to Full HD, which is another tool to have handy to get you more interesting footage when on a trip with friends and family. You do have to have to be in an extremely well-lit environment to get the videos look really nice and noise-free though.

The Right Amount of Juice

The Sony Xperia XZ2 is powered by a 3180mAh battery and we’ve found that it has enough juice to last the day with moderate use. We’ve had a little string of bad luck running our usual benchmark tests as of late to give you guys an actual number but it really does have enough lasting power to be used the entire day with maybe a little pick me up before you leave the office on a particularly heavy daw of using the XZ2 extensively with mobile data on. If you do need to top it up, it’ll take a little over 2 hours to do so.

Verdict: A Whole Lot of Bells and Whistles

The Sony Xperia XZ2 definitely gets a lot of things right. It has a great processing package in the Snapdragon 845, the display (albeit being an LCD panel) performs better than most and has HDR for even better image quality if you can find the content, and offers a ton of option for taking videos on your mobile device but there are a ton of features that are a little niche and may throw off your average consumer. We would recommend this device to those who are looking for a device that packs a punch and can shoot awesome videos too with a lot of options for interesting footage or for those who consume a ton of content on their mobile devices.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 is priced at Php 43,990.

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