Smartphone camera shoot-out

Sony Xperia XZ - more megapixels, more details

The Sony Xperia XZ has the best performance under indoor incandescent lighting in this round-up.
The Sony Xperia XZ has the best performance under indoor incandescent lighting in this round-up. PHOTO: SONY

Considering that Sony makes dual-camera systems for the likes of Apple and LG, it is surprising that the new Sony Xperia XZ still uses a single rear camera.

However, in this round-up, the XZ packs the most megapixels into its image sensor with its 23-megapixel 24mm rear camera.

The quality I got in daytime landscape shots proves that these extra megapixels translate into more details. However, while the pictures are sharp with rich details, the dynamic range can be better. The shadow areas in the images are a wee bit dark, compared with the others in this round-up.

The presence of a large amount of pixels has the undesirable side-effect of adding too much noise artefacts, even in low ISO settings. Thus, images look a tad soft.

Similarly, the night landscape shots also suffered from too much noise artefacts, resulting in loss of details and sharpness. Like the day shots, the night ones were also slightly underexposed.

  • TECH SPECS

  • PRICE: $998 (without contract)

    REAR CAMERA: 23-megapixel 24mm f/2.0

    FRONT CAMERA: 13-megapixel 22mm f/2.0

Selfies fared much better in terms of exposure and sharpness. But the phone does not have the "auto-beautification" function found in the Korean smartphones in this round-up.

On the other hand, the Xperia XZ has the best performance under indoor incandescent lighting.

Its automatic white balance is spot-on and it produced really natural skin tones in the images I shot without flash. Even with flash activated, the skin tones came across as natural-looking.

Trevor Tan

• Verdict: The Sony Xperia XZ might have too much megapixels for its own good, but its accurate automatic white balance under artificial light will please those who shoot mostly indoors.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on December 21, 2016, with the headline Sony Xperia XZ - more megapixels, more details. Subscribe