Event Coverage

Hands-on: The Sony Xperia XZ Premium has a Snapdragon 835 SoC and a 5.5-inch 4K HDR screen

By Liu Hongzuo - 10 Jun 2017

Hands-on: Sony Xperia XZ Premium at MWC 2017 - Page 2

The array to the right of the lens is its Triple Image Sensing technology.

Motion Eye and Predictive Capture

The Xperia XZ Premium is capable of creating super slow-motion moments that are shot at 960 frames per second (fps) within your regular footage. Sony dubs that feature as Motion Eye. In essence, your 720p video recording will have a tiny little icon which you can tap on, and the next 0.182 seconds of your footage will be recorded at 960 fps. You can press that Motion Eye button multiple times in the same recording. Once you are done shooting, the footage plays normally. However, during the Motion Eye segments, the phone will stretch those 0.182 seconds (Motion Eye segments) across six seconds at 30 fps instead. The end result is a regular footage with dramatic, super slow-motion segments within. Here's a preview of this feature as tested on the Xperia XZs (which also supports this same feature as on the XZ Premium):-

This feature was previously available on the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 IV and RX100 V premium compact cameras. Sony pays homage to the Motion Eye feature with a metallic ring design that wraps around the rim of the rear lens.

Predictive Capture provides up to four full-resolution still images that were taken around one second prior to the user hitting the shutter button. The camera will analyze the speed of the subject to decide on the final number of images. This feature is only available when photographing in Auto Mode.

All these features are possible because of the memory stacked Exmor RS sensor that backs the 19-megapixel rear camera. This memory stacked sensor enables it to transfer the image scan and data from the top of the sensor to the DRAM at 5x the usual speed (25Gbps). From the DRAM to the processor, however, is still at typical 5Gbps.

Despite shrinking the shooter's resolution from 23-megapixels resolution to 19-megapixels, Sony still managed to increase the pixel size of the sensor by 19% (bringing it to 1.22µm). The sensor now captures 19% more light, resulting in up to 50% less noise when compared to the Xperia XZ. The 2017 flagship still uses its predecessor's Triple Image Sensing technology (we've explained what Triple Image Sensing is here). The combination of these factors enables less distortion when taking still images of fast-moving subjects.

It's worth noting that the rear camera shoots at 17-megapixels (16:9 ratio) by default, and camera settings allow the user to bring the resolution up to 19-megapixels (4:3 ratio). Sony uses the Xperia XZ's front-camera system on their 2017 Xperia XZ Premium smartphones.

The phone packs 3,230mAh battery capacity, and its Smart Stamina Mode now uses machine learning software called Xperia Learning Engine. Simply put, the machine learning abilities will enable the phone to optimize your battery based on its usage patterns and behavior.

 

Availability

The Sony Xperia XZ Premium hasn't been officially priced, but Sony assures that it will be "competitive". The phone will be available from late-Spring 2017 onwards.

Updated on 25th May, 2017: The Xperia XZ Premium will officially retail at S$1,098 on 10th June 2017. The pre-order period begins on 26th May.

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