Sony Mobile has announced three smartphones at consumer electronics show IFA, comprising the Xperia XZ1, Xperia XZ1 Compact and the Xperia XA1 Plus.
The Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact will sit within the company's flagship smartphones, but under the Xperia XZ Premium that was announced at Mobile World Congress in March. The Xperia XZ1 succeeds the Xperia XZs and XZ, while the Xperia XZ1 Compact takes over from 2016's Xperia X Compact.
Featuring a 5.2-inch Full HD LCD display like the previous Xperia Z series, the Xperia XZ1 introduces Mobile HDR to the party, along with a new unibody design made from a single metal panel for a more seamless finish on the rear compared to the XZs and XZ models. The Xperia XZ1 Compact meanwhile, has a slightly smaller 4.6-inch 720p display with no HDR and it opts for a unified body again but made from glass fibre woven plastic rather than aluminium.
Both the Xperia XZ1 and Xperia XZ1 Compact come with the 19-megapixel Motion Eye memory-stacked rear camera found within the Xperia XZ Premium, meaning they both offer super slow motion video at 960fps. They also both come with an expansion of the Predictive Hybrid Capture function found on the XZ Premium to now include a smile shutter, and there is an Autofocus Burst mode on board too, as well as a new pre-loaded app called 3D Creator that allows for 3D scanning.
The Xperia XZ1 has a 13-megapixel front camera, like the XZ Premium, while the Xperia XZ1 Compact has an 8-megapixel front camera with a super-wide angle lens, allowing the user to toggle between 80-degrees and 120-degrees field of view selfies and video.
The two devices run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 platform, supported by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, with microSD for storage expansion. They also both offer 2700mAh battery capacities, charged via USB Type-C and they are both IP65/68 water and dust resistant.
The Xperia XA1 Plus falls more into the mid-range smartphone market, but it comes with a big beefy 3430mAh battery. In terms of other specs, it has a 5.5-inch Full HD edge-to-edge display, MediaTek Helio P20 processor, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage with microSD support. There is also a 23-megapixel rear camera like last year's Xperia XZ, an 8-megapixel front camera and it too is IP65/68 water and dust resistant.
All three models feature a fingerprint sensor built within the side-mounted power button, which while expected for the Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact, is a new feature for the XA range.
The Xperia XZ1 comes in Black, Warm Silver, Moonlit Blue and Venus Pink colour options, while the XZ1 Compact comes in Black, Snow Silver, Horizon Blue and Twilight Pink options. Sony has also announced the SBH24 Stereo Bluetooth Headset and the STH32 Stereo Headset in colours designed to "harmonise" with both the Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact handsets.
Sony has yet to detail pricing for any of the three devices but the Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact will ship with Android 8.0 Oreo and will be available to pre-order from 31 August, going on sale September 2017, while the XA1 Plus will be available from Autumn 2017.