Engadget giveaway: Win a set of refinished AirPods courtesy of BlackPods!
AirPods have been around for a while, so many of us have gotten over the slightly weird look of them (with at least one notable exception). While Apple still has yet to expand the options beyond plain white, BlackPods has stepped in to fill a need. The company offers three-phase military-spec refinishing services for these buds, letting you transform the look with Stealth (matte black), Classic (high gloss black) and Aero (space gray).
If you already have a set of AirPods, you can mail them in for refinishing, or simply buy a new pair through BlackPods directly. Since you’ll be walking around with these hanging out of your ears, this seems like an upgrade worth its salt, just like a nice pair of specs. This week, BlackPods has provided us with a set of Stealth and Classic models for two lucky readers. They even threw in a pair of silicon protective cases (again, in black) so you can go into stealth mode with a bit of added protection. Just head to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to five chances at winning a less glaringly obvious pair of AirPods courtesy of BlackPods.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
- Entries are handled through the Rafflecopter widget above. Comments are no longer accepted as valid methods of entry. You may enter without any obligation to social media accounts, though we may offer them as opportunities for extra entries. Your email address is required so we can get in touch with you if you win, but it will not be given to third parties.
- Contest is open to all residents of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec), 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so direct your anger at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
- Winners will be chosen randomly. Two (2) winners will each receive one (1) pair of Apple AirPods finished in either Matte Black or High Gloss Black by BlackPods ($299 / $279 value respectively) along with a Protective Silicone AirPods case for each one ($7 value).
- If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Make sure that the account you use to enter the contest includes your real name and a contact email. We do not track any of this information for marketing or third-party purposes.
- This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. Engadget and AOL are not held liable to honor warranties, exchanges or customer service.
- The full list of rules, in all of its legalese glory, can be found here.
- Entries can be submitted until April 25th at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
A first look at Spotify’s redesigned free mobile experience
As rumored, Spotify today unveiled a redesigned app that’s geared toward users of its free music-streaming service at an event in New York City. The new mobile experience is all about personalized on-demand listening, with 15 playlists that are curated by Spotify based on your listening habits. That includes sets like the Daily Mix, which feature songs you’ve “hearted” (aka liked) and Discover Weekly, which is designed to help you expand your music taste with artists and tracks you may not be too familiar with. The Release Radar playlist, meanwhile, will let you keep up with all the new music popping up on the service. Spotify says that the more songs you “heart” or “hide,” the smarter its playlists will get and others will begin to populate as a result.
The company says its new approach, one that’s not based simply on shuffling tracks (though you can still do that), is intended to keep its more than 90 million free users locked in to the app. A major part of that, of course, is to lure in listeners to its premium tier — and it helps that they can do so seamlessly within the same application. Of the 71 million paid users it has currently, Spotify said, over 60 percent have come from the free product. That’s a huge turnover, and these new features should make that even better.
As for the ads, you’ll still have to listen to those with the new personalized playlists, but you may get a video advertisement every now and then that’ll let you jam out without any interruptions for 30 minutes. Ads are annoying, without a doubt, but that’s a small price to pay to get access to some free music. With the overhauled app, one of the things Spotify said it also wanted to focus on was reducing the amount of data people use while they’re streaming. This may not be important for users without mobile data caps, but it’ll come in handy for those who do. As such, the new version of the app comes with a data saver feature that can save you up to 75 percent on mobile data — Spotify says that’s based on a 3G connection.
Other than these changes, the Spotify app feels largely the same, with a dark theme and big imagery that makes it easy to browse thorough playlists, artists, albums and podcasts. If you’re a paid user, you likely won’t notice much of a difference, but for those who enjoy the free service those personalized, on-demand playlists are probably going to make them quite happy.
DoorDash will deliver groceries from Walmart in Atlanta
Walmart’s latest tech trick is delivering groceries via DoorDash. Except instead of this being a Walmart offering, it’s actually being led by DoorDash according to TechCrunch. End users shouldn’t notice a difference, however. Logging on to the Walmart website, you can place an order, choose delivery and then your bread and produce will show up at your door. And only then will you discover it was DoorDash, not the store itself making the delivery. The pilot program is live in Atlanta currently, with no word on if or when there will be an expansion.
In March, Walmart announced that it would begin delivering groceries to 100 new cities this year, up from the six it serviced at the time. Since then, it’s announced partnerships with Postmates, and now, DoorDash, to make that promise a reality.
What does DoorDash have to gain? Data, according to our sister publication. The service’s drivers are typically busy later at night, this would give them something to do during non-peak hours. The extra data would then help DoorDash become more efficient and open the door to delivering more than just food.
Source: TechCrunch
Battle royale pioneer ‘H1Z1’ comes to PS4 on May 22nd
PS4 players don’t have many major choices for battle royale games: there’s Fortnite, of course, but you won’t find PUBG or up-and-coming games like Radical Heights. All that is about to change in a month, though, as Daybreak is releasing H1Z1 (the title that arguably started the battle royale trend) an open PS4 beta on May 22nd. It’ll remain free-to-play with purchasable cosmetic items, but will pack new progression mechanics to keep things quick, including the pacing of the gas (the zone of death in battle royale titles) and airdrops.
The team is promising a fast experience, too, with “fully optimized” code that runs at 60FPS if you’re fortunate enough to own a PS4 Pro.
In many ways, H1Z1 is effectively the PUBG substitute on the PS4 with a semi-realistic setting and the weapons to match. However, the speed is arguably closer to that of Fortnite. Where a PUBG match can go on for ages if you make it to the final few players (that’s changing with the new Savage map), H1Z1 is designed to wrap up in 15 minutes or less. That might be alluring if you’re more interested in a thrill ride than the slow-building tension that tends to define the battle royale genre.
Source: MyNewsDesk, PlayStation Blog, H1Z1
Hubble flies through the Milky Way’s ‘raucous star nursery’
Over the past 28 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has inspired a generation of astronomers with insanely dramatic views of the universe, but it’s hardly done blowing our minds. NASA has unveiled a new fly-through video of the Lagoon Nebula. Located in the center of the Milky Way, NASA calls it a “raucous star nursery” full of dust and star formation with “Herschel 36,” a star 200,000 times larger than our sun, at its center.
The video starts wide, then zooms in to the center of the Lagoon Nebula, located around 4,000 light years from Earth. Herschel 36 is the most prominent star, emitting powerful radiation and stellar winds that push dust away in “curtain-like sheets,” NASA said. You can see dark, elephant trunk-shaped material that resists the erosion and serves as an incubator for new star formation.
NASA employed the Wide Field Camera 3, operating in the visible light range, to create the video. The fourth-generation instrument was only added to Hubble in 2009, and is the space telescope’s highest resolution camera by far. NASA can also flip on a near-infrared channel, which penetrates much of the dust and reveals an incredible number of stars embedded in the Nebula, as shown in the image below.
Though public outreach is actually a pretty big part of its mission, Hubble is good for a lot more than just making pretty pictures. It’s been a crucial instrument in exoplanet discovery, for instance, as it recently showed that the Trappist-1 planets may have water by scanning the starlight passing through their atmospheres.
It has also discovered new bodies within our own solar system, detected impact sites from the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter and imaged “deep field” views revealing galaxies billions of light years away, including the farthest ever spotted, GN-z11. It also proved that black holes are common at the center of galaxies, rather than being rare as was thought.
Much like the Mars Opportunity rover, Hubble has already flown far, far, beyond its expected mission life, despite getting off to a very bad start with a flawed mirror. Its last servicing mission to install the aforementioned Wide Field Camera 3 was done in 2009 by the Space Shuttle Atlantis crew. Hubble will eventually be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), but NASA recently extended its mission life until at least 2021. Given the recent one-year launch delay for the JWST, it might need to go even longer than that.
‘PUBG’ players on Xbox One can test the game’s second map
It’s been tough times if you’re a PUBG player on the Xbox One: while your PC counterparts have been getting a taste of the battle royale game’s third map, you’ve had to make do with just one. Well, that drought ends shortly. The PUBG team is making the desert-themed second map, Miramar, available on the Xbox One test servers. You can download the latest test server release now, with tests running for several hours per day between April 25th (the 26th in Europe) and April 29th. Players who report bugs during these test runs have a chance to score in-game items.
Miramar has taken its share of criticism — some players have complained that its open terrain is too sniper-friendly and occasionally barren. However, it still adds some much-needed variety for Xbox One players who’ve become all too familiar with Erangel (as good as it is) since the early access title reached the console in December. This also gives you a better idea of what to expect going forward. The PC version is clearly going to have the lead in terms of features, but that lead might not extend further than it does today.
Source: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
Touch-sensitive wall might let you control home devices in the future
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research Pittsburgh think we can do more with our walls. In a research paper they’re presenting this week at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, they present a way to turn all of the static walls that do little more than separate spaces into sensing, interactive, smart pieces of infrastructure. The result of their work is a prototype of Wall++, a wall that can track touch and gestures, sense nearby bodies and their positions as well as detect and locate active appliances.
To make the wall — and keep it inexpensive and simple to construct — the researchers tested various conductive paints, the best way to apply them, whether a topcoat was beneficial or a hindrance, how to connect the wall electrodes, the best electrode pattern and how to optimize antenna sensitivity. Following these experiments, the team chose to use water-based nickel paint applied to the wall in a diamond pattern with a roller. They used copper tape to connect the electrodes, vinyl stickers as insulation and latex paint as a topcoat.
Once the wall was constructed, it was able to detect touch and hovering, estimate the pose of a person standing near it, determine when appliances were running and, in general, where. When they were wearing wristbands that emitted a constant 1.5 MHz signal, the wall was also able to generally track individuals. You can see the wall in action in the video below.
It’s an interesting concept and it could allow walls to take on some useful features. The researchers describe how Wall++ could function has a control panel, allowing users to touch it to turn lights on and off, unlock a door or control music. And it could offer slider-like input, giving more nuanced control over lighting levels, temperature and music volume. The pose tracking feature could be used in conjunction with video games and the appliance activity recognition could, for example, allow for automatic adjustments of lighting and window blind position when a TV is turned on.
The work is just a proof-of-concept study and there’s more research to be done in order to optimize it. But it’s a rather simple and relatively low cost setup (as is, it cost just over $21 per square meter) that could introduce some function to our walls.
Source: Yang Zhang
Apple Releases macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 Security Update
Apple today released a new security update for macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, which comes nearly one month after the first version of macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 was released to the public.
The new macOS High Sierra security update can be downloaded directly from the Mac App Store or through the Software Update function in the Mac App Store on all compatible Macs that are already running macOS High Sierra.
According to Apple’s release notes, Security Update 2018-001 is recommended for all users and is meant to improve the security of macOS. The update addresses two security vulnerabilities related to Crash Reporter and LinkPresentation, both of which could be used maliciously to gain access to a Mac. A Safari 11.1 update is also included, with fixes for WebKit vulnerabilities.
Additional information on what’s included in the security update can be found in the accompanying support document.
Related Roundup: macOS High Sierra
Discuss this article in our forums
Apple Releases iOS 11.3.1 Update With Fix for Third-Party Display Repair Issue
Apple today released iOS 11.3.1, the thirteenth official update to the iOS 11 operating system. iOS 11.3.1 comes nearly one month after the launch of iOS 11.3, an update that introduced a Battery Health feature for keeping tabs on your iPhone’s battery status, Business Chat for Messages, new Animoji for iPhone X, and more.
The iOS 11.3.1 update can be downloaded for free on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the update, go to Settings –> General –> Software Update.
iOS 11.3.1 introduces performance improvements and bug fixes for issues that have been discovered since the launch of iOS 11.3. The update includes a fix for a bug that caused third-party repairs done on iPhone 8 models using aftermarket parts to disable the touch functionality of the screen. From Apple’s release notes:
iOS 11.3.1 improves the security of your iPhone or iPad and addresses an issue where touch input was unresponsive on some iPhone 8 devices because they were serviced with non-genuine replacement displays.
Note: Non-genuine replacement displays may have compromised visual quality and may fail to work correctly. Apple-certified screen repairs are performed by trusted experts who use genuine Apple parts. See support.apple.com for more information.
The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus repair issue was discovered following the release of iOS 11.3. After updating, some iPhone users that had sought display repairs from non-Apple service providers saw the touch screen functionality of their devices disabled, resulting in serious headaches for repair shops.
At issue was a small microchip in the display, which disabled touch functionality after the update. At the time, it was not clear if the non-functional displays were a bug or a deliberate move by Apple, but it appears it was a bug. While Apple is fixing the display problem via the iOS 11.3.1 update, the company’s release notes encourage customers to seek out authorized providers and genuine parts.
Related Roundup: iOS 11
Discuss this article in our forums
Sony Xperia XZ2 review: Making a buzz
Sony is a company that likes to stick to what it knows. The Xperia line has had almost the exact same design since the Xperia Acro S in 2012. In the smartphone world, that’s an eternity.
Over the past year or so, just about every Android phone has adopted the new industry trends — near-bezel-less displays and more ergonomic form factors — while Sony stood by and stuck to its big-bezeled guns.
Form is only part of a smartphone experience, though. Sony often brings the heat with features and internal specifications. We’ve seen innovations like 3D object scanning and 960fps super slow-mo video come from the company, but can its latest innovations convince consumers to leave the competition?
Let’s see what the Sony Xperia XZ2 has to offer.
Design
The Xperia XZ2 brings an entirely new look to the smartphone line, while taking obvious design cues from phones of Xperia’s past.
The new phone maintains the same squared-off face of previous models, but brings in a new curved back and rounded edges. Sony says the phone still embodies its omni-balance design, which evenly distributes the weight throughout the body, so it shouldn’t feel heavier on the on the top or bottom half of the device. While this curve is nice to hold in the hand, it makes this phone possibly the slipperiest device I’ve ever held. It slid out of my pocket at least a dozen times over the time I used it, resulting in a number of hairline scratches in the screen.
Sony’s thicker design gives you a better handle on a very slippery phone.
Still, the curve is an interesting design decision. It makes the phone quite a bit thicker than other devices on the market, coming in at 11.1mm. For reference, Google’s Pixel 2 is only 7.8mm thick. While some might desire the slimmest phone possible, I quite like having something a little chunkier — it gives me more grip when holding the device in one hand.
Most of phone’s buttons are on its right side. The power button is curiously in the direct center of the right side, which gave me a lot of trouble for the first two days using the phone. This is likely a callback to the omni-balance design language of the device, but I found that I had to rethink the way I hold a phone in order for this to feel natural.
The volume buttons are housed above the power button near the top, while a dedicated camera shutter trigger sits below. I quite like that Sony included this additional button, since it rests almost exactly where I found my index finger resting when taking a photo in landscape orientation.
The camera and fingerprint reader are on the phone’s back, but neither are where you would expect. The fingerprint reader is almost perfectly centered to the back of the phone, clearly another callback to the omni-balance design. I found this positioning extremely frustrating — I kept accidentally placing my finger on the camera lens to unlock the device. I managed to adjust my grip over time to accommodate the awkward sensor, but it was never as comfortable as how I normally hold a device.
Related
Sony, we deserve more than a copied HTC design
The Sony Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact are two of the nicest phones at MWC this year.
Just like every other high-end device made by the company, both phones come with top-of-the-line specs, beautiful displays, and …
Sony has outfitted the XZ2 with front-facing speakers and they sound fantastic. The phone doesn’t seem quite as loud as something like the Pixel 2 XL, but I found the highs and lows to be much tighter. It didn’t have the tinny sound the Pixel can have at higher volumes.
Unfortunately, Sony seems to think adding these speakers adds enough to justify the losing the headphone jack. You’re left with a single USB Type-C port and a dongle. The DAC housed inside the chassis at least means the audio quality here is quite a bit better than on other devices. Sony is a leader in the audio industry, and probably figured it wouldn’t need a headphone jack now that Google is supporting high-resolution Bluetooth audio codecs like aptX HD and Sony’s own LDAC.
Display
While most of the industry is moving towards OLED panels, Sony has decided to keep using LCDs. This was a smart move in my opinion. LCD panels can still look fantastic when done right, and this 1080p panel looks just as good as the best LCD screens out today. It’s probably smart the company went with this too, since good OLED panels are currently hoarded by a select few companies. Using LCD panels instead keeps costs lower, as well.
Read more: Display showdown: AMOLED vs LCD vs Retina vs Infinity Display
While Sony’s fundamental display technology hasn’t changed, the company’s moved toward the industry trend of using bigger, more immersive aspect ratios. At 5.7 inches, It’s not the biggest mobile display out there, but it feels comfortable to use, and the 18:9 aspect ratio lets you expand media to take up even more of your vision.
The big thing Sony is touting with this display is the ability to play HDR content directly on your device. The phone has the ability to display a much wider range of colors, resulting in smoother gradients and brighter, punchier colors. A trailer for Jumanji comes preloaded to showcase the HDR capabilities, and it looks quite good.
It’s nice to see Sony getting ahead of the game with HDR compatibility.
HDR technology is still pretty new, so there isn’t a huge amount on the market right now. However, services like Netflix offer HDR content for viewers, so you can get a near-equal viewing experience on your phone as on your TV.
This is the first phone able to record 4K HDR thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845, so you can also create your own content that will look great on any HDR-capable screen.
Performance
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 is the best SoC you can get in an Android phone right now. Naturally, the XZ2 performed better than 98 percent of phones on the AnTuTu benchmark, with a total score of 262,261. The CPU scored 91,790 points, beating 97 percent of all other devices. The GPU topped out at 106,690 points, which put it ahead of 98 percent of phones.
4GB of RAM isn’t the absolute highest capacity in a phone by any means, but multitasking was just as snappy as I was expecting. I never needed more memory in this thing — I’m assuming it’s just much better managed than a phone like the OPPO R15 Pro.
I found battery life quite good in this phone, capping out at almost six hours of screen-on time during my use. Even better was how quickly this phone charged up. I could be down to an incredibly low amount of battery and toss this on the charger, only to be up to 80 percent or higher about 25 minutes later. Sony also enabled wireless fast-charging via its optional dock.
Hardware
Sony with this thing’s internals. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor makes it run like a dream. I didn’t notice any stuttering or performance issues in my week or so using it. This is the best processor you can get in an Android device right now, so there’s really nothing more we could have hoped for here.
At 64GB, included internal storage could use a bit of a boost. It’s enough for most people, but even mid-ranged options are starting offer 128GB. I’d love to see more capacity come standard. Still, Sony has included microSD expansion in the XZ2, meaning you can always boost that storage up to 464GB if you want to buy one of those new 400GB cards.
Sony’s Dynamic Vibration Motor is a strange concept that brings little value to the user.
The hardware feature Sony really wants to push in this phone is its completely redesigned vibration motor. This motor is much larger than the motors in other phones, and it is designed to help you immerse yourself in content.
The new Dynamic Vibration system has its own media slider, which lets you adjust intensity alongside the volume, and it will vibrate the device at a variable intensity depending on the media you are consuming. This works with movies, music, YouTube, and more. You can activate it with any content that makes sound.
Overall, I found this feature to be little more than a gimmick. It seemed to make the bass sound better coming out of the front-firing speakers, but I have a feeling that had to do with the vibration in your hand. I personally don’t want my phone to be buzzing every time I play video or audio content. It’s even more impractical if you play that content with your device sitting on a table.
Camera
The camera was a big focus here, as is typical for Sony, but I came away pretty disappointed in the quality of the photos. Overall, it felt like Sony focused too much on the “features” and “specs” of the phone, instead on focusing on actual optical quality. I would really like the company to put more effort into creating better-looking photos in the phone’s next iteration.
Low-light performance was quite disappointing. I took a lot of photos at a music show, and the phone struggled with a number of issues, such as shutter speed not adjusting to accommodate for the scene, which resulted in blurry images. In highly lit scenes the phone tended to blow out the highlights, leading to pictures that were near unusable. Overall I think Sony needs to adjust its camera algorithm quite a bit, and I’m hoping to see something more promising in its next device, especially considering how incredible its A7III mirrorless camera turned out to be.
The location of the lens didn’t help with the quality either. My finger ended up on the camera every time I was aiming for the fingerprint reader, so smudges needed cleaning every time I launched the camera app. I would really prefer Sony focused on user experience than on the weight balance of the device.
Note that the sample images above have been reduced from their original size. If you would like so see a full gallery of the full-sized images, check out the sample gallery here.
Sony first introduced a 3D imaging feature in the Xperia XZ1, allowing users to create 3D scans of people, food, and other objects using the rear camera. This feature was quite interesting — it was really only useful to a tiny niche group of users, but it was nifty to have for those who like doing 3D modeling.
This time around, Sony has updated the modeling feature, allowing users to create higher resolution models. It’s also enabled selfie scanning using the front-facing camera, so you can easily make a 3D scan of your face. Both these features worked surprisingly well, and I’m tempted to bring the models into a 3D modeling program to mess around with them. If you’re a 3D professional who needs to create quick sculpts for later refinement, this feature is an absolute lifesaver.
Lastly, Sony has brought back the 960fps video in this camera, but this time it can record at 1080p. You essentially record a video like normal, and tap when you want a very small portion to happen in slow motion. While this feature was fun, the quality was absolutely abysmal. There is an extremely high amount of noise in the video and a large crop factor as well. This is a fun feature, but you’re not going to use it for any serious projects.
Software
The Xperia XZ2 is running Android 8.0 Oreo. It’s not the absolute latest version out there, but we’re at least happy it launched with the last major iteration of Google’s mobile OS. Still, the Xperia XZ1 was running the exact same OS at launch save a couple of security patches, so it would have been nice to see 8.1 on this thing.
See also:
Android 8.1 Oreo update roundup: factory images, OTAs available now
Update (12/05: This article has been updated with the official Android 8.1 Oreo factory images and OTA files.
Update (11/27): This article has been updated with download links for the second Android 8.1 Developer Preview.
After only …
The skin on top of Android is fairly lightweight, save for a few interesting tweaks. The app drawer is weird to me — it lets you organize your apps within it however you like. I would have preferred the apps were simply listed in alphabetical order. Instead it will just add downloaded apps to the app drawer as you download them, which can lead to a lot of confusion.
If you swipe to the left of the home screen you’ll find the ancient remnants of Google Now, reformatted to simply be a Google search window. This is nice for quick searches and navigation, though I still found myself using Chrome to navigate the web. Sony also put a Google search bar at the top of the screen standard, so I don’t see much use for this window.
Overall, you probably won’t be too disappointed by this OS, but we’re hopeful it will get Android P as soon as possible after it is released.
Gallery
Specifications
| Display | 5.7-inch FHD+ LCD 18:9 aspect ratio Corning Gorilla Glass 5 |
| Processor | Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform |
| GPU | Adreno 630 |
| RAM | 4GB |
| Storage | 64GB UFS MicroSD expansion |
| Cameras | Rear camera 19MP 1/2.3-inch Exmor RS sensor, f/2.0 aperture Super slo-mo 960fps at 1080p Front camera |
| Audio | Hi-res audio, DSEE HX, LDAC, Clear Audio+, aptX HD, stereo speakers No headphone jack |
| Battery | 3,180mAh Non-removable Qi wireless charging Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 |
| IP rating / other certifications | IP68 water and dust resistance |
| Network | GSM GPRS/EDGE (2G) UMTS HSPA+ (3G) LTE (4G) Cat18 with up to 1.2Gbps download speed |
| Connectivity | A-GNSS (GPS + GLONASS) WiFi Miracast Bluetooth 5.0 wireless technology DLNA Certified® Google Cast NFC USB 3.1 |
| SIM | Nano SIM |
| Software | Android 8.0 Oreo |
| Colors | Liquid Silver, Liquid Black, Deep Green, Ash Pink |
| Dimensions and weight | 153 x 72 x 11.1mm 198g |
Pricing & Final Thoughts
Overall, I quite like the Sony Xperia XZ2. Sony has never tried too hard to be like other manufacturers, and here it’s mostly stuck to its no-frills design language. The bulkier design is welcoming to hold. The battery life got me through a solid day and a half and charged up even faster. The processing and audio quality are top notch. The phone also has a few minor pitfalls like button placement and some major slipperiness.
Is it a good buy at $799? That’s a tough call. Unless you are really excited about the prospect of an HDR-capable screen, 3D scanning, dynamic vibration motor and 960fps video, there are probably better phones for the price. The OnePlus 6 will probably be hitting stores soon with similar specs, likely at around $500. Between that and the upcoming Pixel 3 from Google, this is a hard sell. If you’re a 3D animator or visual artist and could use these features for productivity, Sony is your best bet for a daily driver.
What do you think about the Sony Xperia XZ2? Do you like the design change? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below!
Next: Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra review: It’s about time
AIVAnet 