Skip to main content

Will Sony’s Xperia X Premium be the world’s first HDR-screen smartphone?

sony one megapixel two millimeter sensor
360b / Shutterstock
If there’s one thing for which Sony has become known in the smartphone space, it’s riding the cutting edge of smartphone display tech. It debuted the world’s first 4K-touting phone in 2015, after all — the Xperia Z5 Premium — and rumor has it the company’s prepping a worthy, showstopping successor for release later this year. According to device blog PhoneRadar, the company’s next flagship — the Xperia X Premium — will sport an HDR screen.

The report’s a bit light on the details, but Xperia X Premium’s 5.5-inch, 1080p display will allegedly boast a mind-boggling color depth of 1.07 billion colors (or 1,024 shades per color), a vast improvement over the 16.8 million (256 shades per color) of which smartphones on the market are currently capable. It’ll reportedly feature a 2,000:1 contrast ratio and 120Hz refresh rate, too, and will be able to reach a maximum brightness of between 1,000 and 1,300 nits — a decent notch above the standard-bearing Galaxy S7, which tops out at 855 nits.

The Xperia X Premium’s other specs are about par for the high-end Android phone course. The handset will allegedly pack a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor paired with an Adreno 530 GPU, 3GB of RAM, and a USB Type-C connector. Unfortunately, PhoneRadar’s sources weren’t forthcoming on its storage configurations, its color options, or even its release date. Those details will have to wait, it seems.

So, why’s Sony going all in with HDR? Quite simply, it represents a breakthrough in display tech. Screens that support HDR, or high-dynamic-range imaging, are capable of reproducing imagery that is much more vivid and realistic than the everyday, run-of-the-mill TVs and smartphones to which most of us are accustomed. Most have incredibly high contrast between light and dark images, the ability to display billions of colors, a much higher theoretical luminance (i.e., brightness levels, basically), and pitch-deep black levels. In concert, needless to say, their characteristics make for a fantastic movie-watching, photo-viewing experience.

The Xperia X Premium rumors are all the more surprising in light of the fact that HDR displays have for the most part so far been relegated to the high-end television market. That’s finally starting to change, though — Vizio’s and Hisense’s new 4K, HDR-capable panels start at $850 and $400 respectively.

And perhaps to the benefit of future Xperia owners, the coming onslaught of affordable HDR TVs has content producers announcing support in earnest. During an earnings call in April, streaming behemoth Netflix pledged to add 100 hours of HDR movies and TV shows by the end of August. Amazon’s Instant Video service, meanwhile, currently streams a portion of its original programming and movies in HDR. And even YouTube’s jumping on the bandwagon: in January, the platform announced plans to support HDR sometime this year.

HDR content won’t be in short supply when/if the Xperia X Premium pans out, but just how it’ll be delivered to Sony’s rumored handset remains unclear, as none of the aforementioned services support HDR playback in their respective mobile apps. Time will tell whether Sony’s new flagship will ship with or alongside updated apps, but if it doesn’t, future owners can perhaps take comfort in knowing that any HDR photos and videos the device captures will look absolutely stunning.

Kyle Wiggers
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kyle Wiggers is a writer, Web designer, and podcaster with an acute interest in all things tech. When not reviewing gadgets…
Sony Xperia 5 III is a $1,000 flagship in 2022 with hardware from 2021
sony xperia 5 iii

Sony is finally bringing the Xperia 5 III to the U.S. market, eight months after the phone was officially introduced to the world. Sony phones and delayed releases have been somewhat of a recurring theme lately. The $2,500 Xperia Pro 5G was launched in February of 2020 but only arrived in January of 2021. The Xperia 1 II flagship also took a few sweet quarters before making it stateside.

The latest case of a delayed Sony phone is the Xperia 5 III. It’s not a bad phone. Actually, far from it. It just doesn’t belong to the year 2022, especially with that handsome $1,000 asking price. It will be available unlocked from authorized retail partners, but only in its Frosted Black trim. If you’re eyeing the stunning green color, only the official Sony online store has it.

Read more
Sony brings the world’s first QD-OLED TV to CES 2022
Sony 2022 A95K 4K QD-OLED TV.

Well, here's a surprise. After more than two years of speculation around Samsung's plans to sell a quantum dot-OLED (QD-OLED) TV (which it sort of brought to CES), it turns out that Sony is going to be the first company to market a TV based on the new hybrid display technology. The Google TV-powered Master Series A95K will come in 55- and 65-inch screen sizes when retail availability and pricing is announced in spring 2022.
What is QD-OLED?

QD-OLED is a holy grail of sorts when it comes to TV display technology as it merges the impressive color and brightness characteristics of quantum dots with with the perfect blacks and infinite contrast offered by an OLED TV's self-illuminating pixels. In theory, such a TV should be capable of exceptional brightness -- something we normally associate with QLED TVs --  while maintaining both the inky blacks and color accuracy that OLED is known for, while avoiding the halo or blooming effect found on non-OLED TVs. Check out our full QD-OLED explainer for more info on this novel display tech.

Read more
Sony’s $1,800 Xperia Pro-I phone shares features with RX100 VII compact camera
Xperia Pro-I phone

The Sony Xperia Pro-I is the latest smartphone from the company for the camera-features-focused niche Pro audience. The $1,800 phone sports a 1-inch stacked CMOS sensor with built-in memory and phase-detection autofocus. It is the same as the one inside Sony's RX100 VII compact camera which we proclaimed one of the best point-and-shoot cameras in our review. The smartphone comes with a dedicated shutter button on the right edge, and Zeiss Tessar calibrated optics.

In the name Xperia Pro-I, the "I" stands for Imaging. It features a 6.5-inch 4K HDR (3840 x 1644 pixels) OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate, a 21:9 aspect ratio, and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. It is powered by the Snapdragon 888 chipset, paired with 12GB RAM and 512GB storage, which is expandable up to 1TB. It packs a 4,500mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging.

Read more