Sony has announced a pair of new flagship Xperia phones at the Mobile World Congress tech fair in Spain, with the XZ2 and XZ2 Compact sticking to Sony convention in some areas while making significant departures in others.

Most strikingly, Sony's new devices move subtly away from the established Xperia silhouette, embracing a rounder look with screens that extend to the horizontal edges, bringing the new phones closer in looks to competing devices from Google and Samsung. The characteristic side-mounted fingerprint sensor has also moved to the rear, and the 3.5mm audio jack has been removed entirely. The physical shutter button for the camera, however, remains.

And the camera is, once again, front and centre with the XZ2, offering the world's first 4K, HDR (high dynamic range) video recording in a smartphone. The 960 frames-per-second slow mo has also been upgraded since its introduction in last year's XZ Premium, and now shoots in full 1080p.

Sony has also expanded the phone's 3D capture feature, allowing both the front- and rear-facing cameras to scan objects and export them to 3D files. Paired with a recent Facebook partnership that displays Sony 3D images on the social network, that means 3D selfies are officially a thing that exists.

The XZ2 features a tall 18:9 aspect screen capable of displaying HDR content, as well as Sony's usual support for Hi-Res Audio. Of course fans of corded headphones will need to use the Sony-supplied USB-C dongle, but at least it's a Y-shaped dongle designed to let you listen and charge at the same time.