The year 2017 will be one of the most exciting years for smartphones. It already brought us the oh-so-impressive Galaxy S8 from a rejuvenated Samsung company. We'll also see Apple's 10th-year anniversary iPhone which promises to be one of the sought-after handsets despite rumors of a high price tag. Those two, however, will not be the only major players in the smartphone scene in 2017. The OnePlus 5 and Sony Xperia XZ Premium figures to be two of the best Android smartphones coming this year and it's just right to pit them against each other to find out which one is better.
Recent news says that the Xperia XZ Premium will come in a Bronze Pink color aside from Deepsea Black and Luminous Chrome. Sony also announced that it will launch in the United Kingdom by June. That gives us more than a month to speculate on what the flagship Sony device will be like.
For starters, the XZ Premium will be powered by Qualcomm's latest processor, the Snapdragon 835. It's the same processor that powers the Samsung Galaxy S8 which means a lot. The Sony Xperia XZ Premium will also have a 5.5-inch 4K HDR screen with Gorilla Glass 5, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It will also run on Android 7.1 and come with Bluetooth 5.0, a microSD card slot, USB Type-C, and a 3,230mAh battery. The IP68 water resistant Sony smartphone will also have the signature side-mounted fingerprint sensor which will be available in specific regions only. The Sony Xperia XZ Premium's Exmor RS sensor-equipped 19-megapixel camera can shoot 960fps slow motion videos which are arguably the device's most distinguishing feature.
Not to be outdone, the OnePlus 5 presents equally if not more impressive features itself. Like the Sony flagship, the OnePlus 5 is powered by Snapdragon 835 and will come with Android Nougat 7.1 out of the box. The OnePlus 5 also comes with a front-mounted fingerprint sensor.
The OnePlus 5 gets the better of the Xperia XZ Premium in terms of RAM (up to 8GB), internal storage (up to 256GB), and display (5.5-inch AMOLED). Unlike the Sony flagship, it does not have an expandable memory though 256GB built-in is probably more than enough. Its 3,000mAh battery is also slightly smaller than the XZ Premium.
The cameras of both 2017 smartphones are incredible. OnePlus 5 boasts of a 23 MP rear camera though it only capable of 2160p@30fps. It also comes with a 16 MP front camera. While the OnePlus 5 have more megapixels, one cannot easily discount the slow motion video feature of the Sony Xperia XZ Premium.
Choosing between the two Android smartphones boils down to preference. The OnePlus 5 clearly has better overall features on paper though the Sony Xperia XZ Premium is not far behind plus it has the cool slow-motion video feature.
