This is where Xperia XZ2 is better than Galaxy S9
Sony took the plunge, and finally changed the aging design of its Xperia flagships to something more palatable in this day and age of phones with 80%+ screen-to-body ratio. The Xperia XZ2 and Compact are outfitted with the trendy (and now de facto standard) 18:9 aspect ratio, and, while they do have plenty of top and bottom bezels to play with, it's a far cry from the Inch High monstrosities of yesteryear.
Sony's new phones have all the hallmarks of a 2018 spring flagships, too, like Snapdragon 845 chipsets, waterproof certification, HDR displays, and very capable cameras that can do amazing things with slow motion effects. Heck, in some areas they even surpass the fresh flagship of the world's largest brand name Android maker, Samsung. Yes, the Xperia XZ2 takes the Galaxy S9's lunch in these aspects:
True 10-bit HDR capture
Back when the Galaxy S9 was announced on Sunday, Qualcomm immediately put out a press release that claimed "The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform, featuring Ultra HD Premium capture for cinema-quality video and Gigabit LTE for lightning-fast connectivity." well, scratch the UHD part, as the press release was subsequently edited to simply say "featuring an immersive camera experience and Gigabit LTE for lightning-fast connectivity."
The reason that Qualcomm was so quick with the trigger is that the 845 processing power is capable of supporting true HDR video capture, but for some reason Samsung may have decided to leave that out of the otherwise pretty amazing Galaxy S9 camera set. While we can only guess that the reason is to put the features of the Snapdragon 845-equipped S9 on par with those of the Exynos 9810 models, it now leaves only the Xperia XZ2 as the first phone capable of 10-bit HDR video recording in the backward compatible HLG format.
960fps Super Slow Motion at 1080p video
Oh, the times we live in, when phones have dedicated camera sensor memory fast enough to store the whopping amounts of frames needed for a few seconds of amazing slow-motion video effects to spice up your footage. The Galaxy S9, however, does 960fps slow-mo at 720p, while the Xperia XZ2 does the same at 1080p, which is much more usable as an end result. Sony, after all, pioneered this field with the 1000fps sensor it put in the Xperia XZ Premium a full year before Samsung's current effort.
Better battery life, more RAM, lower price
The Xperia XZ2 packs a 3180mAh battery, and, while that's just marginally higher than the 3000mAh unit in the S9, the XZ2 has FHD+ vs QHD+ display resolution, which usually adds 20-30% to the battery life at the same capacity and chipsets. Moreover, Sony is renowned with its battery stamina, and we don't mean the dedicated power-saving mode only.
Our recent tests of the Xperia XA2, for instance, which has a 3300mAh battery inside, returned more than 10 hours of screen-on time. That is a record for this capacity in our benchmarks, and we have no doubts that the battery endurance of the XZ2 won't fall far behind. To add insult to injury, the XZ2 has 6GB RAM vs the 4GB on Galaxy S9, and costs less, at least in Europe, though by the time it actually launches, the prices may be on par.
That's why it's not surprising that in our latest poll, more than 40% of the 4500+ respondents said they prefer the Xperia XZ2 before the Galaxy S9. Too bad that it's not known if and when the new Xperias will be officially supported on a US carrier.
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