The basics

The XZ2 is one of many smartphones we'll see this year that use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 chipset, paired here with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. (Most versions of this phone will take microSD cards as large as 400GB, but some will use a dual SIM setup instead.) In our limited time together, the XZ2 felt as fast as the Galaxy S9 when launching apps and frantically multitasking, and it's nice to see that Sony's custom interface doesn't bog things down noticeably. Curiously, Sony says its implementation of Qualcomm's X20 modem features more RF antennas to help it reach peak download speeds as high as 1.2Gbps.

The XZ2 also runs Android 8.0 Oreo, and you'll take in all of those software flourishes on a 5.7-inch Full HD+ HDR display. Sony hasn't confirmed why it didn't use a higher resolution screen, but considering its 3180mAh battery, concern over power consumption is a safe bet. That screen also has one fascinating new trick we haven't had much chance to test yet. Thanks to Sony's XReality engine, the XZ2 will up-convert standard SDR videos into HDR on the fly, a trick that's been a part of televisions for a few years now already. Given how nice the screen is to look at under normal circumstances, consider us cautiously optimistic about how well this actually works.

Look and feel

If you've picked up a Sony phone in the past few years, there's a very good chance it looked and felt like many of the devices that came before it. That's because Sony has been using the same aesthetic — "OmniBalance," they call it — since the launch of the Xperia Z more than five years ago. Well, no more. For its new flagships, Sony has embraced a curvier, arguably more organic approach you can also spot hints of in the company's PlayStation 4 controller and, erm, its robot dog Aibo.