phone 32 – sony xperia xz premium

one of the loan collaterals i liked the most, is this phone. and as of this writing, i officially own it. being released in 2017, got it about 4 years later, 2021. this phone is actually part of my upgrade story i mentioned on sony xperia 1 ii post. the main reason i skipped it before was that it is too early for me to upgrade. now that i have this phone, that is history.

battery test is mixed. for the charging part, i find it slow, even after comparing it to older sony xperia z5 premium. charging duration consumes 2 hours and 56 minutes. but the battery life impresses. it lasts for 5 hours and 14 minutes more than 2 days. since i am okay with 2 days or a little less than that, i was really surprised.

battery score card

music play is nothing different to xperias i bought in 2020, sony xperia xz2 compact and sony xperia 1 ii and i find the audio better than the previous ones, up to z5 premium. quite loud and immersive due to stereo front firing loudspeakers. same experience is also present on wireless audio and 3.5mm wired audio. nothing to complain about.

web browsing is also great, better than z5 premium; brighter. it also compensates well in dark rooms. it does not strain the eye even for longer use, despite of it being an ips display. texts and images are crisps. i also get higher resolution screenshots. so, i do not have to zoom in on web pages when i take screenshots.

gaming is also a joy on this phone. no stutters on subway surfer, even on the most recent. unlike my experience on z5 premium where some hiccups are quite obvious. not just on the raw performance, but the ips hdr display and stereo front firing speakers make it so immersive in game play.

photo shoots and video recording are great as well. the experience is similar to that of sony xperia xz2 compact. you might want to check that post.

video play is also similar to sony xperia xz2 compact. the only difference is that, this phone can play 4k videos, natively. in 2017, users enjoyed 4k hdr videos that are recorded using this phone. but, there are already a lot of contents in 2021 to maximize the use of the display, whether just the 4k contents or those that are in high dynamic range. even youtube is pushing 4k contents to phones not having a display to show it natively, making the users short changed, except for the higher bit rate that 4k contents on youtube has. for this phone, you will experience not only the higher bit rate but also of the real 4k goodness.

overall, this is still a good phone in 2021. i believe it can still do what most phones in 2021 do. whether it be media consumption, even creation and gaming. might be off for those requiring software and security updates. but if you are okay with that and just use this phone for media consumption without putting in sensitive information, this is still a capable phone. i even find the display and audio quality better than some phones released in 2021.