The basics
With the Sony Xperia Z, Sony’s gone all out
to catch up with rivals like Samsung and Apple. On paper at least, it’s pulled
it off: this Android phone is a beast. It’s packing a huge thirteen megapixel
sensor and a five-inch, full HD screen, and underneath beats a 1.5GHz quad-core
processor, support for 4G downloads speeds and a beefy 2GB of memory. Oh, and
it’s entirely waterproof. Is that an extra plus point or just a bit pointless?
Let’s find out.
The good
We’ve always had a soft spot for Sony’s
design - that obsession with black plastic and solid straight lines that
somehow has come to embody design from the Japanese gadget giant.
And while last year’s flagship Xperia S was
just a bit too thick to compete, there’s no such problem here: this slick slab
is just 7.9mm deep. Its large size isn’t for everyone - iPhone owners
especially will struggle to adjust - but if you’ve been using one of the new
breed of giant smartphones we’ve seen emerge over the last year, you’ll be
fine.
(Oh, and just in case you were wondering,
Sony’s claims that the Xperia Z is waterproof hold true: we completely
submerged ours in a bowl of water for 20 minutes, and it came out the other end
just fine.)
The screen meanwhile is a sight to behold:
the first full HD smartphone display to reach the UK, it’s nothing short of
stunning. You simply can’t see the pixels: websites, text and video all look
beyond gorgeous.
Smartly, Sony has worked the Android
navigation buttons (home, back and multi-tasking) right into the screen, as Google
does on the Nexus devices. It works well and makes the phone seem even more
monolithic when turned off. That top notch screen is helped by the superb shots
the 13MP camera is capable of. They’re packed with detail - particularly
impressive given how thin the Xperia Z is.
On the software front, Sony’s tweaked Android
4.1, but for once, we actually like the changes that have been made to Google’s
open source operating system. It’s blindingly fast, easy to use and stuffed
full of handy extras - we particularly like the widgets you can pop on the
screen (and not just the homescreen either), like a one touch voice recorder.
Sony also seems to have finally figured out
that fans don’t enjoy turning on their phone to find it full of spammy apps you
can’t delete: there’s just pointless satnav app Wisepilot here and you can
remove it straight away (Do so, and use Google Maps instead).
The bad
Fair warning: while we like it, you might
hate the design. If you prefer the sleek curves of the HTC One X’ chassis, the
boxy look of the Xperia Z may be the very opposite of what you’re after.
The waterproof doors also add some
unnecessary clutter: if you don’t think you’re likely to take your phone
swimming anytime soon, you might hate the extra fuss of having to prise open a
flap every time you need to put it on to charge.
Other than that, there really is little to
complain about - the Sony Xperia Z is a beefy, future-proofed phone - we just
don’t know if its rivals from HTC and Samsung this spring will prove even more
so.
The bottom line
The Sony Xperia Z is a coming of age for Sony Mobile. For
the first time, the company’s proved it can truly kick it with the big boys,
with top notch specs and a top quality camera. The size will be a bit on the
excessive side for some, especially without the stylus skills of the Samsung
Galaxy Note, and the lack of Android 4.2 at launch will be a blow for those who
like to live on the cutting edge of tech. If you’re a longtime Sony fan with a
passion for its black box design, you’ll love it. The only question: will
Samsung’s Galaxy S4 blow this out of the water in the next few weeks? [GadgetShow]
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