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Kellen

It’s not often that you get to merge personal passions into a professional life, but that’s what Kellen did when he launched Droid Life in 2009. After working years of unsatisfying jobs in the medical and property management fields, he took a risk to try and create an online community while playing with the coolest gadgets on the planet each day, a risk that has turned out to be incredibly rewarding. Outside of Droid Life, Kellen is your typical Portlander who drinks way too much good beer, complains often about the Trail Blazers, and can be found out on the streets for a run, rain or shine.

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  • Since the US version of the phone will most certaily be released with disabled fingerprint sensor, nobody is going to wait for the official US release anyway. (What’s the story with that anyway?)

    Everybody agrees that this phone is the absolute unrivaled pinnacle of smartphone market, which means that everyone will just get a gray-market version the moment it becomes available. Sadly, this will drive the prices even further up, but this is a must-have-sell-your-firstborn kind of situation…

    And yes, I agree with the article: it is quite possible that by the time of the US release no one will care since everyone will have one already.

  • I know it’s going to show up late, but it’s an exaggeration to say it’ll show up here in late summer. Late spring, sure.

  • Sony design hasn’t changed in the last 3-4 yrs. Phone looks good only if the take away those bezels.

  • Wow what a hit job. The specs are great, but it won’t ship on time? And pricing isnt announced but you can’t afford it – trust me? Who paid for THIS asassination?

  • No news of a compact version, eh? This would be pretty interesting with a 4.5″ display instead of yet another too big screen.

  • Sony has that Twinkie design, no matter how old it is, it NEVER SEEMS TO GET STALE!!!!

  • At least LG can revel in the fact that they’ll say at least twice as many G6s than Sony will sell of these!

  • I think they should fire their designers. I appreciate the latest specs and efforts on AOSP and camera fronts but man, this thing is so ugly. I feel like their phones are getting uglier and uglier… I lush for the hardware specs but I’m totally turned off by the looks…

  • Sony makes some good looking devices and hardware but as for software updates, they are too slow. Z3v got 1 update and that was 1 year after it was released.

  • 4K on a phone is useless: nobody can tell the difference until they are 1 inch from the screen, uses more battery, needless research and design time that can be utilized on a better feature (BATTERY!!!, CAMERA!, hello!)… all it does is make the brand use it as a bullet point for selling

    • It would really help in VR (aka Daydream), assuming the phone will support it. Currently, individual pixels are very obvious at 1080p, and noticeable at 1440p (Pixel and Pixel XL) when wearing a headset/lenses. 2160p should give you the ppi to make VR look much better. Otherwise, I would tend to agree that 2160p us overkill on a phone sized screen,

      • We’re still years away from having VR go mainstream, so I feel like it’s bad timing to be developing and/or implementing 4K displays in phones if the software and other hardware is not ready for it yet. Otherwise, just make a dedicated VR mobile device for less money.

    • no one can differentiate between 326ppi and a 500+ppi screen …at least that’s what Steve Jobs says anyways.

      • That’s just stupid to say. Humans can not see the pixels on a phone’s 2.5k display. Humans cannot see on the microscopic level.

  • I doubt its a factor for many people, but the 960FPS is a huge factor for me. That is CRAZY…..all other phones are 240FPS at best. Battery seems a little small….but everything else looks pretty solid…even those chins. like a fat chinese prostitute. Mmmmmmmm. Oh wait. I’m on Verizon…..nevermind. I litterally have 3 choices for phones. S8, G6 or iphone. Thanks Verizon for the great variety. FML.

      • I had that phone for a couple months. I like the Mod options, but they are expensive. Camera is average at best. And I get bored way too quick with stock-ish Anroid. Battery is super solid but still barely got me through the day. I use my phone a TON for work.

  • As I understand it Xperia XZ Premium will have basicly the same price as the upcoming Galaxy S8 (According to the rumours) Yes its very expensive but in line with the competition.

  • Top and bottom bezels are huge but I’ve always loved this design from Sony. But this device is going to be ridiculous overpriced.

    • i loved it too, when it came out years ago. Sony doesn’t even try anymore. Same boring ass design. Even LG, as crappy an attempt, tried with their G5 and now G6. This and their pricing and availability will undoubtedly make Sony fail yet again.

    • Sadly, I think that ship has sailed. After the Z2 failed, and the Z3 was scrapped before it made it to market, no chance for VZW. All I’ve wanted was a non-forked version of Sony’s flagship since I’ve been on VZW. Year after year I’m left with disappointment.

  • Is this a new generation 4k screen? Why sony with the bezels WHY!?@? 960fps is cool but I stopped recording in 720p in 2014.

  • This phone would be absolutely gorgeous if it had an 18:9 screen instead of those huge bezels. Instead it just looks awkward.

  • Seriously! That camera can shoot 960fps? No wonder it needs bezels, but I would rather have thickness than adding more bezel. Also, nice work sticking with stereo front facing speakers Sony. Very underrated feature.

  • Do we know yet if we’re getting a working fingerprint sensor on the US model? Not that I’d buy it anyway, just curious.

    • Almost guaranteed to happen. Can’t wait til they decide to pull the fingerprint reader and high res audio and something else when it gets to the US too.

        • Considering how much the Z5 Premium drains the battery already, I think switching to 1080p for regular stuff is a good idea. Unless they’ve significantly reduced the power usage by the screen, at least.

          • The Z5 premium was a fail because it had the power hungry weak hot 810. This will have the 10nm 835 which has enough power to push it while using much less battery

          • The only thing I care about being 4K is media, which it does do. I don’t really need text or my icons to be.

    • Do any > 1080p phones render at full rez at all times? I went from a 720p Droid Mini to a 1440p Samsung Galaxy S7 and expected the text and graphics to be tiny due to the quad resolution bump despite the slightly larger screen. I was shocked to find that everything looked BIGGER not smaller. Turns out most things like the web browser and such render at 720p so it isn’t tiny so I’ve got essentially the same resolution device I had before only with a bigger screen now. Only photo apps and videos seem to take advantage of the higher resolution (based on casual observation not exhaustive study). Perhaps I just misunderstanding something?

      • As far as I know all phones 1440p display in full resolution all the time. Screenshots everywhere in every app are 1440p. While the Z5P a while back didn’t even do 4K screenshots, only 1080p.

        Also not sure what apps you use. Chrome, Facebook, etc are super crisp.

      • I understand what you are talking about there with resolution and text, but phones/software account for this with knowing the screen size and dpi. You don’t get twice the icons on the front screen either going from 720p to 1440p either. It wouldn’t be usable if phones adjusted for resolution in the manner are thinking about.

    • I think I’m the only one on the planet who likes sizeable bezels.

      When holding in landscape mode, it’s a great, comfortable spot to put your thumb!

      • I notice when holding my N6 that the bottom chin is super small, so as I try to hold the home with my hand near the center of the side it’s a pretty good stretch to touch the navigation buttons where as it’s a pretty perfect spot on my Pixel XL TBH.

      • The bezel is exactly what makes Xperias the best designed and the most beautiful phones on the planet today. Everyone is already sick and tired with those ludicrous attempts of some manufacturers to reduce the bezels – someone no one asked about and no one cares about.

  • sony + premium = $1k. This design is so played out now, get over it Sony.

    • This phone does have dual front firing speakers. So I think the bezel size is somewhat justified.

    • It is interesting to note that considering the amount of time and money competitors spend on their Internet trolls, the haven’t managed to invent anything besides that inane complaint about “bezels”.
      If one needs conclusive proof that this phone is virtually perfect – here you have it 🙂

  • I don’t care about this phone now, so i definitely still won’t care about it in 5 – 6 months when the Pixel leaks start popping up.

  • I love Sony phones, but they are terrible with their US support. They need to launch in the US at the same time as the rest of the world, and not remove key features like the fingerprint sensor. I’ll stick with my Google Pixel. If Sony ever takes the US market seriously again, then I might consider their phones.

    • with 810 on Z5P it can get 5 hour of SOT. with much more efficient SOC the decrease on battery size should bring about the same number of SOT.

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