Underwater 4K video recording just became a selling point --
Sony has announced its next flagship Android smartphone is the Xperia Z2, which records video Ultra HD movies at 55Mbps in a waterproof body.
Wired.co.uk went hands-on with the device ahead of its reveal at
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week. The phone features a 5.2-inch display (up from the Z1's 5-inch screen) although is marginally thinner and lighter than its predecessor, and it maintains the same overall feel -- rugged and sturdy, but not as svelte and rounded as Samsung's Galaxy S4.
Inside is Qualcomm's latest high-end processor -- the quad-core Snapdragon 801 -- which is clocked in this device at 2.3GHz and paired with 3GB of RAM. This will aid a number of the phone's features, particularly the real-time encoding of 4K video from the device's 20.7-megapixel rear camera. The Z2 will record 4K at almost the same bit rate (55Mbps) as Sony's recently-announced AX100E 4K camcorder, which itself captures at 60Mbps.
The result? Ultra HD videos you'll actually want to keep. A demonstration shown to Wired.co.uk by Sony revealed the 4K footage, running at 3,840x2,160 pixels and with 30 frames per second, to be extremely detailed in our early estimation. It was enough for us to feel excited by the prospect of capturing home videos in 4K for preservation into a time where we actually own 4K televisions (not that soon, let's be honest).
Two downsides stand out here: 4K video eats up far more storage space than HD does; and although the phone's display is extremely sharp with 1,920x1,080 pixels crammed into just over 5 inches, 4K frames are too large to be played back. Instead, an HD version is what will be seen on the display. Anyone with a 4K TV can copy those Ultra HD videos off the device or play them back directly via an MHL cable.
Slow-mo videos can be captured at 120fps on the Z2. Much like the iPhone 5S, it's possible to select which part of the captured video should be slowed down after recording; unlike the iPhone, the Z2 allows for multiple parts of a video should be slowed (we selected at least ten in our hands-on) rather than just one part.
The Xperia Z2 will run Android 4.4 KitKat when it launches in the UK in March, just six months after its predecessor in September 2013. The Z1, as well as the Z1 Compact, both received high praise in Wired.co.uk's review, each scoring nine out of ten. We've seen nothing in the Z2 to make us expect Sony's new flagship to score anything lower, which leads us to conclude that our first impressions are very strong indeed.
Look out for a full review ahead of the phone's launch.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
