DxOMark has revealed its results for the first Sony device to be tested under its newest testing protocols which were announced earlier this month. The device in question is Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium and although it showed plenty of strength in a couple of areas, it utterly failed to impress in several others, leading the firm to grant it a somewhat underwhelming overall score of 83 points. That’s the average score between video and photo tests – which resulted in scores of 84 and 82 points, respectively.
The areas where the smartphone really came into its own were in autofocus speed, which scored an 88 for photos, and stabilization for video, which scored 87 points. DxOMark lists pros for shooting photos with the device as including good exposure for both indoor and outdoor settings, low noise-generation in low-light circumstances, accurate and fast autofocus, and limited “flash falloff” when the flash is used in combination with indoor lighting. On the video side of things, the organization says Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium performs relatively well in terms of stabilization, honing in on an acceptable exposure under most conditions, and maintaining a level of white balance that is both accurate and stable. Unfortunately, the mediocrity of those things is prevalent in the scores across the board and in the negatives DxOMark has listed for the device. For photos, the tests showed that the Xperia XZ Premium is prone to flare, irregular textures, limited dynamic range, color overcasting under both indoor and outdoor conditions, and problems with exposure when the flash is used alongside indoor lighting. Videos didn’t fare much better, with prevalent issues in terms of inconsistent levels of white balance when shooting indoors, unneeded automatic refocusing, and “frame-to-frame” problems with clarity and sharpness when shooting while walking.
As to the scores, aside from the scores already covered above, DxOMark lists 14 additional benchmarks – six for video and eight for photos. For photos, categories scored include Exposure & Contrast at 83 points, Texture rendering at 68 points, and Noise at 58 points. Meanwhile, image Artifacts earned the Xperia XZ Premium just 49 points, while Zoom and Bokey ratings only came in at 32 points and 20 points respectively. Color and Flash scored 74 points under the photo side of the equation. On the video side, the categories include the Artifacts category scored much higher, at 80 points, while Color did slightly better than in photos with a score of 79 points. Autofocus netted the handset Autofocus 78 points. Working down from there, Exposure & Contrast, Noise, and Texture earned just 73 points, 69 points, and 47 points, respectively. DxOMark concludes that although the Sony Xperia XZ is “capable” if used in the right lighting conditions, it just can’t stack up to many of the top-tier devices from other companies. It also has an added novelty factor with the capability of shooting super slow motion – at 960 frames per second – but simply doesn’t produce the better images many users have come to expect, even among some much less pricey options.
