Sony Xperia XZ3 Review: Why Is No One Talking About It?

The Sony Xperia XZ3 is my favorite Sony smartphone to date. It has so much going for it, it has a great potential to be one of the best smartphones out this year. After using it for so long, the question I keep asking myself is why is no one really talking about it? I has all the latest tech we've come to expect from flagship devices now, but what seems to be reason why when the Note 9, S9, OnePlus, Pixel 3, iPhone 10s, Huawei are mentioned, i don't often hear or see the XZ3?

Let's have a look at the main specs that makes it stand out:

For audio, you get have stereo speakers with High-res audio support, the latest Snapdragon 845 chipset, the first OLED Sony screen on a smartphone, 4GB RAM, 64GB of internal storage with up to 512GB microSD card support, 3,300mAh battery, IP68 water and dust resistant, Gorilla Glass 5 front and back, wireless charging, 19MP F2.0 main camera, 960FPS super slow mo... the list goes on.


DESIGN

A bit more on design, it's available in black, white silver, forest green and the one in hand here, the bordeaux red. It's weighted nicely so it feels solid with a strong metal frame. It's curved so you can easily wrap your palms around it and it sits comfortably in hand whether held in portrait or landscape mode. It's curves also helps create and illusion that it's slimmer than it actually is, which is clever. If I have any issues with it, it would be the fingerprint sensor placement on the back, it's placed too low for use. I try not to mention the lack of 3.5mm headphone jack on phones lately, but just for information, it doesn't have one but you get a dongle in the box.

DISPLAY

For the XZ3, I think it's biggest stand out feature is the display. It's my favourite display on any smartphone I've tested this year so far. It's a 6 inch 1440 x 2880 OLED screen.

If I was to put the XZ3 display in front of a non-techie person, I believe they would be able to describe their experience as if they were writing this review. It offers deep blacks, vibrant colours, put on your favourite music video in even 1080p HDR, and you will be wowed and you would even question why Sony didn't do this before, why wait till the XZ3?

The XZ3 supports 1440p 60fps in HDR, better than the Note 9's 1080p with HDR with lots of settings to further tweak the colours and temperature to suit your viewing needs. you get HDR upscaling, Sony’s TRILUMINOS Display for mobile, X-Reality, and Dynamic Contrast Enhancer.

BATTERY

With a 3,300mAh battery, the XZ3 still manages to last the day on moderate use and even with its bright display, it's genius that it doesn't drain faster than it does especially when consuming media content on the move. Put it on full blast tho, everything turned on, doing more than most like capturing slow mo videos, playing games, social media etc, you will need to give it a boost late afternoon. On the bright side, it has wireless charging so you could keep it topped up throughout the day at your desk if you're like me.

CAMERA

Just like the screen technology borrowed from Sony's TV arm, I wish Sony would do the same from its camera business. Its camera UI is now streamlined to make it easier to find things, especially settings and modes. What I noticed with the XZ3 is that its problem is not capturing details, shadows, highlights and dynamic range accurately, it's its ability to be consistent with it. Most of the time, I find myself adjusting its exposure settings to get what I want, something that isn't ideal for situations when you just wanna quickly snap and go. For video, you can shoot 960FPS Full HD and 4K HDR videos which is quite impressive for content creators out there. Have a look at a couple of shots taken:

It's front facing camera is 13MP with bokeh and beauty modes available; it works well and I suspect for most people, you'll be happy with its results. There's also sidesense AI which can sense you pick up your device to quickly launch camera app for taking pictures.

SOFTWARE

While it's loaded with the latest Android 9 OS, It has some preloaded Sony apps on there, a few bloatware that can't be removed and it's 2018, however, where it could have stood out is Side sense; it allows you to tap on the side anywhere on both sides to bring up your frequently used apps which you can also modify

So why aren't we really talking about the XZ3?

For me, this is what the XZ2 should have been. It feels like Sony are playing catch up compared to everyone else that means by the time they released the XZ3, we've already experienced the S9, Note 9, iPhone etc enough for us to not think Sony. Having said that tho, I think if you put it in users' hands they would love it. It's stunning in terms of design, its display in my opinion is second to none, there's wireless charging, it's IP68 and it has one of the loudest and precise audio offered on a smartphone. What lets it down for me is side sense is buggy and its camera could be much much better than it is.