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UPDATE: Per comments below I see the flaw in my question now.

In the Doctor Who episode The Witch's Familiar, we learn that the Doctor has:

traded in his sonic screwdriver for a pair of sonic sunglasses

Are there any technological advantages to utilizing this style of device or is it merely a cosmetic change, similar to each Doctor who has gone before him?

Further, what happened to his previous sonic screwdriver?

Is this possibly the one that we find later in the hands of River Song?

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  • You should probably ask these separately. The answer to the second is an emphatic "no", but the first one we don't have enough information to say yet
    – Jason Baker
    Commented Sep 28, 2015 at 20:22
  • Personally I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll go back to the sonic screwdriver. Sunglasses WTF? Please don't let Capaldi become another "sunglasses are cool" Doctor!
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Sep 28, 2015 at 20:24
  • It's an example of real science influencing science fiction, in this case, Google Glass
    – Peter
    Commented Sep 28, 2015 at 20:29
  • Trigger warning for, well, just about anyone — you can’t take a sonic screwdriver into the shower!
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Sep 29, 2015 at 7:21
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    The advantage is obviously that he can use the new device hands-free. Probably with his ears or something.
    – Mr Lister
    Commented Sep 29, 2015 at 7:39

2 Answers 2

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Are there any technological advantages to utilizing this style of device or is it merely a cosmetic change, similar to each Doctor who has gone before him?

None that had been revealed as of S09E02. In the following episode, we see him use the glasses as a self contained wifi-enabled camera; a capability not established (nor refuted) for the screwdriver.

Further, what happened to his previous sonic screwdriver?

Spoiler answer:

He abandoned it at li'l Davros's feet in the handmine field. Davros kept it through the ensuing millenia.

Spoiler question:

Is this possibly the one that we find later in the hands of River Song?

No. The events in question were portrayed in a DVD extra; they are well in The Doctor's past at this point.

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  • 3
    Given the end of S9E2, are we SURE he abandoned his previous screwdriver?
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Sep 28, 2015 at 20:34
  • There is a paradox in play if he didn't. That said, no.
    – Politank-Z
    Commented Sep 28, 2015 at 20:37
  • Theres also the point that rivers sonic looks like a slightly modified 10's, while the one Capaldi lost is 11's and hugely different in appearance.
    – Mac Cooper
    Commented Sep 29, 2015 at 16:46
  • As for Series 9, episode 3, the sonic sun glasses have WiFi!!! You should add that to your answer @Politank-Z
    – tilley31
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 22:06
  • @tilley31 Done, provisionally.
    – Politank-Z
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 22:13
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Your first spoilertag says the Doctor has

traded in his sonic screwdriver for a pair of sonic sunglasses.

No he hasn't. According to a recent interview with Peter Capaldi, the sonic sunglasses are not a replacement for the sonic screwdriver, but simply an extra add-on:

"The Sonic Screwdriver hasn’t gone,” explains Peter Capaldi who plays the Doctor. “The Sonic Sunglasses are an adjunct to the Sonic Screwdriver and have arrived because the Doctor likes Ray-Bans! You press them and they go zzzzz and they do great things.”

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    “You press them and they go zzzzz and they do great things” — if only they’d had that marketing slogan, Google Glass might have taken off in the mainstream.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Sep 29, 2015 at 7:19

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