Sony Xperia XZ3 First Impressions

Roydon Cerejo, 31 August 2018

HIGHLIGHTS

• The Sony Xperia XZ3 features a redesigned body and AMOLED screen
• It uses the same Snapdragon 845 SoC as the Xperia XZ2
• The touch sensors on its sides trigger a menu of frequently used apps

At a press conference held at the ongoing IFAelectronics trade show in Berlin, Sonyannounced a bunch of new products across multiple categories. One of them was its new Xperia XZ3 smartphone, which succeeds the Xperia XZ2 that launched earlier this year. The company hasn't announced any pricing details yet, but says its latest flagship phone will be available towards the end of September in select regions. We managed to snag some hands-on time with the Sony Xperia XZ3 and here's what we think.

The first thing that caught our attention was the new design of the front of this phone. The screen's sides are prominently rounded, making this phone feel a lot like the Google Pixel 2 XL (Review) and even the Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Review). Sony has also ditched its long-standing love of IPS panels in favour of a vibrant OLED panel. The 6-inch screen has an 18:9 aspect ratio and QHD+ resolution with HDR. We found the colours and brightness levels to be quite good, although we couldn't test this phone outdoors under sunlight.

Another thing that immediately struck us was the reduction in bulk. At 193g, the Xperia XZ3 felt quite light compared to Sony's recent offerings. This phone weighs less than the Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Premium, and is also a lot slimmer at 9.9mm. The glass back does make it quite slippery though, and fingerprints were a huge problem.

The main specifications of the phone are similar to those of Sony's previous flagships. It's powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 mobile platform and has 4GB of RAM as well as 64GB of internal storage, which is expandable. It's IP65/ 68 certified for dust and water resistance, and features the same 19-megapixel Motion Eye rear camera that can shoot slow-motion video at up to 960fps at 1080p. This worked pretty well when we tried it, but understandably, you need ample light to avoid a strobing effect in videos.

The Xperia XZ3 will ship with Android 9 Pieout-of-the-box, which makes it one of the first devices announced to do so. The new Xperia UI skin is quite minimalist and we're introduced to a new feature called Side Sense. The upper parts of the sides of the XZ3 have touch sensors, and you can double-tap either side of the phone to reveal a little pop-up menu for apps. Sony says that this feature will use AI to learn your usage patterns and suggest different apps depending on your location. You can add apps to this list manually too. It takes some getting used to, as your finger needs to hit just the right spot, or it won't work. You can adjust the sensitivity of touch recognition if needed.