IFA 2017: Sony's Xperia XZ1 is a flagship phone with a 3D scanner

Continuing its strategy of announcing new phones every 6 months or so, Sony has unveiled the Xperia XZ1 and Xperia XZ1 Compact this week at the IFA tech fair in Berlin.

Serving as both a successor to last year's Xperia XZ and a scaled-down version of the recent Xperia XZ Premium, the XZ1 follows a familiar formula with a tall, heavily-bezelled frame, rounded metal construction and a lot of fancy camera-focused tricks, including a futuristic 3D scanner.

Sony's Xperia XZ1 is a more powerful version of last year's phone, with the camera of the subsequent 'premium' version. 

Specs-wise the XZ1 is on par with other recent Android phones, boasting a Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, USB-C 3.1 and a coating of Gorilla Glass 5. Ditching the 5.46-inch, 4K screen of the Premium, the XZ1 features a humble 5.2-inch 1080p display, but it keeps the HDR10 capabilities. Notably, the phone is launching with the brand new Android 8.0 Oreo.

While the XZ1's 19MP main camera is the same impressive stack found on the Premium — capable of 960-frames-per-second slow mo video — the more surprising feature is the 3D scanner, which lets you capture a face, whole head, food or any other object and turn it into a realistic 3D asset for use in augmented reality apps or with 3D printers.

The XZ1 Compact is more or less the same phone as the XZ1, just smaller. Photo: AP

While it's hard to believe there's a mainstream audience for having a statue of your friend's face printed out or exporting a detailed model of your spaghetti dinner, the scanning looks like a competent first stab at a feature creators will likely want in the future. Sony's 3D Creator app even allows some basic editing of the model after capture, lets you attach it to other objects and play around with it in AR or even and lets you turn it into an animated sticker for messaging.

With the XZ1 Compact, Sony is once again delivering a smaller version of a flagship phone without compromising on grunt. The Compact has the same software, same processor and RAM, same main camera with slow-mo and same 3D scanning capabilities as its larger sibling. The main differences are a smaller screen (4.6-inches, 720p, no HDR) and an 8MP selfie camera instead of the XZ1's 13MP.

Local availability of the two phones is yet to be announced, although they're expected to launch in the next month.

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Also at IFA, Sony unveiled new wireless, noise-cancelling ear buds to compete with Apple's AirPods, a smart speaker featuring the Google Assistant, a new line of Hi-Res Audio Walkman devices and a tiny, powerful and hardy camera to compete with GoPro.

Source: IFA 2017: Sony's Xperia XZ1 is a flagship phone with a 3D scanner