I pre-ordered this one and slapped it on the moment it arrived.

After years away, I paid the Sony tax again: I bought an Xperia XZ Premium. I’ve said the reason plenty of times. I need a phone with a system that leans native, looks good and squared-off, and doesn’t have any weak or outdated spots in the specs… So the Xperia XZ Premium walked into my sights. Native-ish system First Snapdragon 835 in the world with a 4K resolution Squared-off design and a full mirror screen Checked the price and it was even a bit cheaper than a certain Pixel… so I preordered. Before preordering I figured it definitely wouldn’t drop in price, and I thought it probably wouldn’t either, but it seems it still dropped a few hundred bucks. Fuck.

Disclaimer: I haven’t taken money from any of the links below. If a shop wants to pay me, feel free to do it here. Whether you buy or not is your call—these are just my personal recommendations. Don’t come at me if you buy something and it sucks. And most importantly: if you’ve got the cash, I really don’t recommend using a screen protector at all. The Sony Xperia XZ Premium feels best naked—except it chips easily. Honestly, I’ve always thought curved screen designs are useless except for decorative light effects. That’s why I think Samsung’s various curved-screen phones are ugly as hell—like a piece of crystal-clear soap. I don’t know if anyone else likes square, boxy designs like I do. That’s why I’m willing to pay for Sony phones. I was also willing to pay for the Smartisan Pro—too bad Luo Yonghao wouldn’t give his own system stock Android. But sadly, even though the Sony Xperia series stuck with the square design for a long time, it eventually fell too and started doing curved screens. Based on my experience with the Xperia XZ Premium, this curved screen is completely useless. Maybe the corners feel better to hold, but the flat bottom still digs into your hand a bit. Sure, they added a bevel at the bottom to reduce the digging, which just proves you don’t need curved sides either—a bevel is enough. Anyway, you can’t make the whole thing curved like a crystal soap bar; doing it halfway is worse than not doing it at all. But regardless, the Sony Xperia XZ Premium already has a curved screen, which creates a big problem: screen protectors are a pain.