Sony Xperia XZ Premium shoots super slow motion video

As part of its Mobile World Congress keynote, Sony unveiled its latest flagship smartphone: the Xperia XZ Premium. Ostensibly a larger, shinier version of the Xperia XZ Sony released just a few months ago, the Xperia XZ Premium's been upgraded with a few nifty features. The most impressive of these is a new optical system Sony calls Motion Eye. 

Thanks to Motion Eye, the Xperia XZ Premium is able to shoot super slow motion video at 960 frames per second. This means you're essentially able to slow down video by 30 times. There is a catch though: you're only able to capture 0.2 seconds of super slow motion video at a time, which ends up extending out to six seconds, and only shoots in 720p. You can however put multiple slow motion bursts into one clip. 

The Xperia XZ Premium will also be one of the first smartphones to ship with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 processor. While the chip will obviously offer performance gains, it also means the device can theoretically achieve download speeds of 1Gbps on compatible 4.5G networks. 

Sony's also crammed a 5.5-inch 4K HDR display (running at 3840×2160 pixels) into the Xperia XZ Premium. While the resolution would be great for virtual reality headsets like Google Daydream, the XZ Premium isn't Daydream compatible due to lower LCD response times. However, much like the Z5 Premium, the XZ Premium will run at 1080p to conserve battery life whenever it is being used for applications that don't support 4K. 

Other than a mirrored chrome finish and a slightly bigger body to accommodate the larger screen, the Xperia XZ Premium makes use of a very similar design to the Xperia XZ with rounded edges and all. 

Key specifications include a 5.5-inch 4K display, a Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of expandable storage, a side-facing fingerprint reader, water-resistance, a 19MP camera, and a 3,230mAh battery.  

Sony has yet to confirm when the Xperia XZ Premium will launch, and how much it will cost. The Xperia XZ cost $999 at launch though, so we're expecting more. 

Alex Choros

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Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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