Sony Xperia XZ Premium now receiving Android 8.0 Oreo update

Sony has announced that it will begin rolling out Android 8.0 Oreo to the Xperia XZ Premium from today, October 23. The company has become the first major Android manufacturer besides Google to distribute the Android Oreo update in its final form (that is, outside of beta) to one of its devices, following a strong Android Nougat rollout over the past twelve months.

Alongside the update announcement, which arrived via the Sony Mobile Blog, Sony also discussed some of the new features coming to the XZ Premium with the upgraded software.

Sony is delivering its 3D scanning feature, 3D Creator, to the XZ Premium — something which it had announced it would be bringing to the device earlier in September. This first appeared on the Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact and it lets you scan an object to produce a digital 3D render of it, which can then be manipulated and shared. See it in action in the video below.

This functionality arrives alongside two other new camera features: Predictive Capture (smile) and Autofocus Burst. Predictive Capture is a reasonably common camera feature whereby photos can be captured automatically when the software detects that a subject is smiling. This occurs before you even hit the shutter button, offering a collection of several photos from which you can select the best one. Autofocus burst, meanwhile, can be used to capture less blurry images of moving objects.

Rounding out the feature updates is improved sound quality thanks to “tuning improvements” to the front-facing speakers, and aptX HD audio support, as well as Oreo’s new app shortcuts.

Sony has been doing well with regards to update speeds in the last year or so, and we speculated in our major Android Oreo 8.0 update page that the company’s recent performance could mean we even see its first device updated as soon as November; hearing news of it today was beyond our expectations.

Sony revealed that this would be a staged rollout, meaning it won’t appear on all devices at the same time, but you should have to wait no more than a week or two for it to pop up. For more Sony update news, follow them on Twitter at @SonyMobileNews.