Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium flagship can shoot video at up to 960 frames per second, and a recent promo video shows the phone’s slow-motion camera by exposing a magician’s sleight of hand. Specifically, the phone breaks down the skills of famous London magician known as “The Chelsea Joker.” In the video, three classic tricks are laid bare, their magic brought low before the detailed reality captured by the Xperia XZ Premium’s slow-motion camera. The “crazy man’s handcuffs” effect is shown to boil down to a quick and discrete release of a key loop in the rubber band structure, the sponge ball that seems to disappear is shown to actually stay in the magician’s right hand, and the quick-flick card changing trick is shown for what it is; a display of impressive skill and dexterity that sends a card up a magician’s sleeve and exposes the one behind it faster than the human eye can see.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium is not the only phone that can record video at more than 60 frames per second, but it is part of a somewhat small group that still mostly consists of recent flagship devices from larger OEMs. Even as the field of phones that can perform slow-motion recording expands, the Xperia XZ Premium can still call the ability to record at 960 frames per second a unique selling point, and is the only phone to pair that capability with a 4K screen, powerful processor, and a premium body.
The Xperia XZ Premium essentially takes the 4K phone concept introduced with the Xperia Z5 Premium and gives it the powerful processor and distinct feature set worthy of a 2017 flagship. 4K content is still somewhat rare in the mobile world and the phone cannot render its user interface in true 4K as it instead opts to upscale a 1080p version of the user interface in order to conserve battery life and other resources. Underneath the 5.5-inch 4K screen, you’ll find Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon 835 mobile chipset, capable of things like x86 computer instruction emulation and on-board machine learning, paired with 4GB of RAM. The back camera is a 19-megapixel affair, while a 13-megapixel unit is featured by the top bezel of the Xperia XZ Premium which also ships with a 3,230mAh battery and 64GB of expandable storage space.