UPDATE: Sony Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact are now official in Malaysia. Price starts from RM2,899.
Not interested with the Samsung Galaxy S9? Does the Huawei P20 not light a fire in your loins? Well, there is good news because next week you’re going to have another brand new smartphone vying for the precious ringgits in your wallet. Who’s excited for the new Sony Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact?
Actually, it doesn’t really matter if you’re excited for it because it’s coming anyway. Today we received an invite from Sony Mobile Malaysia to the launch of their brand new flagship handsets which will take place next week on the 22nd of March 2018. That’s Thursday, by the way.
You may be thinking that if it’s a Sony phone, there’s probably nothing to be excited about because they’ve been recycling the same design for some time now. But that’s where you’re wrong because these new Sony handsets come with a brand new refreshed design.
Both the XZ2 and XZ2 Compact have ditched the anything-but-timeless loop design and fat bezels for a slim bezeled tall affair with — in the XZ2’s case — a brand new glass body. Yeah, unfortunately, it’s just the XZ2 that gets glass, the XZ2 Compact receives a plastic polycarbonate shell instead. At least they’re both still IP68 dust and water resistant.
Nevertheless, I haven’t been this excited about a Sony phone in a long time because besides the glass body and smaller screen size, these two phones are nearly identical. Nearly.
Let’s start with specs because both phones feature top-of-the-line flagship hardware with a Snapdragon 845 processor at the heart of it, mated to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. They’ve also got bigger batteries than their predecessors, with the XZ2 and XZ2 Compact packing a 3,180 mAh and a 2,870 mAh cell respectively. Both will also have support for fast-charging via USB Type C using Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology.
Meanwhile, the screens on these devices have also been brought into the modern era as they both feature gorgeous 18:9 aspect ratio displays. The one on the XZ2 is 5.7 inches while the one on the XZ2 Compact is 5 inches. Both push a resolution of Full HD+ and both support HDR using Sony’s BRAVIA TV and X-reality technology for mobile.
What’s more, both smartphones come with excellent stereo speakers that are the loudest ever on any Xperia handset. There’s also support for Hi-Res audio playback with DSEE HX technology that’s used to upscale existing audio content.
For photo and video recording, the smartphones feature identical 19MP MotionEye cameras that can record 4K HDR videos, shoot 960fps super slow motion at Full HD (instead of 720p like last year, but at half the duration), and feature an improved 3D creator tool.
However, since they can really only have one “true” flagship, the XZ2 gets a couple more goodies than its smaller sibling. The first of which comes courtesy of the XZ2’s glass body where this phone now supports wireless charging on the Qi standard. The second is something called the Dynamic Vibration System.
In a nutshell, it works kind of like Sony’s DualShock controller on the PS4 where the phone will analyse the sound being piped through the smartphone’s speakers and vibrate the handset along to that. I honestly loved this effect when I got to test it out at MWC 2018 earlier this year because it added another layer to watching videos on your smartphone which is something I do a lot. My colleague, wasn’t so impressed because he doesn’t hold his phone in his hand when he watches videos — he puts it down — so he’s worried the vibrating will send the phone careening off the table.
So, it looks like your reception to this new feature will depend on your usage habits. Good thing is that you can turn it off and change its intensity as you see fit.
In any case, I’m definitely looking forward to next week’s big launch. Are you? Let me know in the comments below.
