Over the last few years, Sony has been quietly refreshing its smartphone line to focus more on photography and video. The Japanese tech company has now launched the new Sony Xperia 5 II, a smaller sibling of the very tall and costly Xperia 1 II that was released a few months ago.

The device is cheaper and is set to begin selling for $949 (about KES103,000) across various international markets. Apart from the cameras, another major highlight of the phone would be the 120Hz refresh-rate panel that will be a first for the company.

Like the Xperia 1 II, the basic idea of the Xperia 5 II is to be a phone with a tall 21:9 screen that relatively small at 6.1 inches. That would sound big but since it is so tall the screen works out to only about 2.68 inches wide.

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The general design makes the phone more pocketable and slimmer than smartphones we are actually used to.

The Sony Xperia 5 II also features a Snapdragon 865 processor and a 4000 mAh battery to power it all. Sony has also chosen to stick with the good old headphone jack which is a good idea for a phone in the flagship status. Unfortunately, you should not expect any wireless charging with the device.

When it comes to cameras, the smartphone packs the standard triple-camera module at the back. According to Sony, this will be the first smartphone to be able to shoot videos in slow motion at 120 frames per second in 4K HDR. The company’s emphasis on photography can be seen clearly by labelling the lenses with their 35mm focal length equivalents; 16mm, 24mm, 70mm.

The Xperia 1 II clearly proved to be a beast in photography and video as per various reviews. So it would be interesting to see how this smaller fella plays out. By simply reading about it, it’s obvious that its capabilities are aiming for the top.

But would you still get a Sony Xperia phone if it were to ship in Kenya?