Sony Xperia Z Review

UPDATE: You can now read our Sony Xperia Z Ultra Review and our Sony Xperia Z1 Review!

Introduction

Sony made the switch to Android quite some time ago, and has been constantly working to improve its devices ever since. Even though the manufacturer tried to make something happen with its high-end models of recent years like the Xperia T and S, it wouldn't be a lie if we say that its efforts have largely remained unnoticed in this world dominated by Galaxies and iPhones. What do you have to do to become a factor in this business? It certainly isn't easy, considering that a company such as Sony, which has an almost fanatical following, hasn't been able to disturb the status quo.

Apparently, what's needed is much more than just a strong specs sheet and a recognizable name. You need to have the powerful hardware encased in a beautiful design, a fast and responsive software experience, the latest operating system, a great camera, top-notch display... and of course, you have to be ready to take responsibility for anything you might mess up and be ready to fix and/or enhance the software of the device as frequently as you have to.

Sony's smartphones have obviously lacked some of these prerequisites, but Sony has proven to be resilient. It is now ready to try again. A new flagship model, a new Xperia phone is here to try and overpower the dominant species. Is that even possible? Why, we say nothing is impossible!

Ladies and gents, we're giving you the Sony Xperia Z!



Design

And here it is, encased in its beautiful glass body. Sony has taken a different approach this time, and instead of using a soft-touch plastic for the back panel, it has went with an all-glass design. We can't tell you how happy we are because of this fact. The glass body gives the Xperia Z a much more striking look, plus it makes it less slippery in your hand.

The Xperia Z is a super-thin smartphone at only 7.9 mm, but thankfully, it's still not too thin so as to become uncomfortable to hold. The handset is built very well. It feels quite solid and premium – just the way it should feel considering its class. If we have to compare it to its Android competitors, we should say that Sony has managed to trump most of them in this respect.


One thing we don't quite like about the design are the sharp edges of the rubberized frame of the body. If those were a bit smoother, holding the Xperia Z would have been that much more comfortable.



With such a large, 5" display, it's understandable why the Xperia Z is so bulky. Even though it's quite thin, the handset is still a bit difficult to handle, especially if you want to accomplish something using one hand only. But such is the case with all 5” handsets, so it's not Sony's fault.


You can compare the Sony Xperia Z with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The keys around the sides of the Xperia Z are limited to the power key and volume rocker. Both the rocker and the power button could be a bit better. Not that they are bad, but they lacks a defined “click” feel when pressed. We expected a bit more considering the special, new design of the power/lock key.


There are absolutely no “holes” around the Xperia Z. Every port or slot is covered by a protective plastic flap. This was probably needed to make the device dust- and water-resistant, speaking of which...

An interesting feature of the Sony Xperia Z is that it's actually a rugged phone. The handset is IP57 certified, with 5 meaning that it's protected against dust, and 7 meaning that you can immerse it in up to 3 feet / 1 meter of water, for up to about 30 minutes. Such rugged features are usually reserved for lower-class, niche type of smartphones, but we're glad that Sony is trying to shake things up here by making its top smartphone that much more resistant to the forces of nature. That's what a top-of-the-line smartphone should be nowadays! Let's hope that other manufacturers will follow suit.

Display

As it seems to be the trend these days, the Xperia Z comes with a very large, 5-inch display. The resolution is also quite extreme at 1080x1920 pixels, which makes for a super-high pixel density of 441 ppi. As you can guess, there isn't even the slightest hint of jaggedness with this display, no matter what you're looking at.

In terms of image quality, the display is quite good, although not necessarily as good as the very best. For example, its contrast could be a little higher and the colors could be a bit more saturated. You know, just to make things a bit livelier. Sony has implemented its Mobile BRAVIA 2 engine, which aims to enhance certain settings in order to make media content appear better on the screen. We've tried older Sony handsets with BRAVIA engine and have to say that images really get that extra edge thanks to the enhancement. Sadly, this only works when viewing images or video with the respective apps, so if you're, for example, viewing pictures inside the web browser or in Facebook, those won't benefit from the BRAVIA 2 enhancements.

Outdoor visibility is OK, you won't have problems there as long as the brightness is set to the max and the sun isn't directly reflected in the screen. The viewing angles, however, could also be a tad better. Overall, it's an awesome display that will make all kinds of activities super-fun, though Sony will have to do a bit more tweaking if it wants to be as good as the big boys of the industry.







Interface and Functionality

Thankfully, the Sony Xperia Z comes straight with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, so customers will be getting all the major new Android features right out of the box. It's not the newest Android version, sadly, but Android 4.2 brings mostly minor improvements so we can live with what Sony's giving us here. Still, we hope that it won't take long for Sony to release an update.

On top, however, we find Sony's custom user interface. The UI is quite unobtrusive, which should be good for the purists out there. In our opinion, this is one of the most polished custom UI for Android. It's certainly not the most feature-rich, but it is filled with subtle animations here and there making it feel fun and exciting to use. One thing we don't like is the unlock method which requires you to swipe upwards or downwards. However, exactly how long your swipe should be isn't indicated in any way. It's just not the most intuitive thing, but it's not a big problem, especially when you get used to it.


All of the essential apps like Phone, Contacts, Messaging and so on have been customized, they are quite simplistic and straightforward. Thanks to the redesign, however, their appearance is in line with the rest of the user interface.

Sony has also changed the on-screen QWERTY keyboard. There's one thing we don't like about it, though – the dot has been put in the “misc” part of the keyboard, which makes writing a bit of a hassle if you aren't used to using the double-tap spacebar shortcut, which automatically adds a dot and a space.

There's nothing to write home about when it comes to the calendar – it's just a simple calendar app with easy access to month, week and day views. Sony has also create some mini-app kind of features (it calls them “small apps”), similar to the mini-apps in Samsung's tablets. The company has found just the right place for those – when you press the multitasking key, just below the open applications list you see all the available small apps, which, by default, include a calculator, timer, note and voice note, but there's also a good number of additional ones that you can install. We like this concept because it makes these basic features easy to access from anywhere in the UI, plus they are well made.



Processor and Memory

You cannot impress anyone these days if your product doesn't sport a bombastic specs sheet, so Sony has made sure to equip the Xperia Z with all necessary features for it to survive in the dangerous Android jungle. The processor is nothing out of the ordinary – it's the tried and true Snapdragon S4 Pro with four Krait cores clocked at 1.5 GHz. These are complemented by the Adreno 320 GPU, which packs quite a punch and is capable of running pretty much every game or app smoothly.

The Xperia Z is also well-equipped in terms of system memory with a total of 2GB of RAM, while the internal storage space is 16GB. That's by no means a small amount, but just in case you happen to need more, there's always the option to install a microSD card. In the end, you should have enough space to store all your favorite content on the device.



Internet and Connectivity

Some manufacturers of Jelly Bean phones prefer to keep the stock ICS browser along with Google's Chrome, but Sony isn't among them. The Xperia Z comes with Chrome as its exclusive tool for surfing the web, and the experience is good enough. There's some minimal lag found with Chrome, but this is present in pretty much every Android smartphone with this browser, so it's not Sony's mistake.

Overall, browsing the web is pretty satisfying, especially with this giant, high-resolution screen. Chrome features capable double-tap zooming and artificially increases the font size of certain pieces of text like in Apple's Safari in order to make reading more convenient. What's left is for Google to optimize its performance some more.


In terms of connectivity options, the Sony Xperia Z everything you may ever need, including high-speed HSPA+ connectivity (up to 42.2 Mbit/s down) and LTE. It supports all standard Wi-Fi protocols like 'a,' 'b,' 'g' and 'n,' as well as 'n' on the 5GHz band. Bluetooth is supported in its 4.0 iteration, and, of course, there's NFC for those who can find a useful application for it. By the way, the microUSB port also doubles as an HDMI connector for TV-out functionality.

Camera

Sony has traditionally been strong in the camera department. Even then, its smartphones haven't always had the best shooters, which comes to show the heated competition in this space. For the Xperia Z, however, the company from Japan has used its newest sensor, the 13-megapixel Exmor RS. This new sensor allows for some neat new features like HDR video recording and an advanced burst mode. Will the quality of its photos be high enough, though? With capable opponents like the Lumia 920, iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III, Sony's Xperia Z will really have to show us something spectacular. Let's take a look at its camera UI first!

We enjoyed working with this camera interface, due to its simplicity and optimized layout. There are still many different settings and options to play with, but most of them are neatly placed in a single sub-menu, making the UI feel simple and clean.


The 13MP camera with Exmor RS sensor of the Xperia Z is fine, but nothing to write home about. Details in outdoor, daylight conditions are a bit muddy, and the images tend to come out a bit dark at times. The built-in HDR mode can fix this in most situations, though not always. Colors are on the colder side, which we don't really like, but overall the results are tolerable with no major issues.

Indoor images taken in brightly lit rooms are mostly OK – there's a bit of noise but nothing out of the ordinary. As the light starts to get dimmer, the photos naturally start to become muddier and noisier. The LED flash will allow you to take a picture of something even in complete darkness, but do not expect any pleasant surprises. The good thing is that the camera manages to stay away from any color anomalies when shooting indoors, so the photos look natural for the most part.


The 1080p video recording is quite smooth, but once again the details level is medium at best, so the overall video quality fails to impress. The interesting thing about the camcorder of the Xperia Z is that it can capture HDR video. This option may come in handy in some low-light or night situations. You can see the two night video samples below - one of them is taken without HDR, and the other one is with HDR. As you can see there, HDR makes the image a big brighter, but also introduces quite a lot of unpleasant noise in the scene, so it'll really depend on the specific situation whether or not it's worth it to use HDR video.











Multimedia

Of course, the Sony Xperia Z is a wonderful phone to watch video on. The display is gorgeous and very big so you can easily watch full-length movies on it. It supports all the popular formats, and even if you manage to find a video that is not playable with the stock player, you should be able to fix this by downloading a capable third-party player from the Play Store.

The Xperia Z comes with a Sony headset in the box, the sound it provides is quite enjoyable. Sony has even provided additional ear-gels so that you can find the right size for you. And finding the right size for you is pretty important, by the way. When you're listening to music with that headset, make sure that it fits tightly, because otherwise you won't be enjoying any bass. The Walkman music player is quite cool and simplistic. It lacks “bonus” features like the “Music Square” from Samsung's phones (not a big loss), but has all the necessities such as some sound enhancing tools (ex. xLOUD) and an equalizer with many presents, including a custom option. If you don't like the Walkman player, the Xperia Z also comes with the standard Jelly Bean player, as strange as having two music players might be.

The picture and video galleries have also been customized by Sony, and we have to admit that the result is very good. The new apps have a very fresh and consumer-centric design. The Sony touch has worked quite well here.





Call quality

Just like with the camera, call quality is fine but nothing exceptional. The earpiece is a bit weak for our taste, meaning that you may have some trouble hearing your callers when in noisy locations. Do not expect wonders from the quality – everything will sound quite high and digital. Strangely, the sound that gets transmitted through the microphone of the Xperia Z gets somewhat modulated and appears distorted on the other end of the line. Lowering the volume can help you to remedy this issue, but still, it's something we though was worth mentioning because we haven't encountered it in many other phones.

Battery

The large body of the Xperia Z has allowed Sony to place a beefy 2330 mAh battery, and to tell you the truth, it's a good thing they have managed to fit this inside because we can imagine that the 5” display is requiring quite a bit of juice, especially when set at higher brightness levels.

As a result, the Xperia Z can offer theoretical 3G talk-time of up to 14 hours and theoretical 3G stand-by time of up to 22.1 days. That sounds pretty good, but keep in mind that if you regularly use your phone for more “advanced” stuff like camera, GPS, video playback or gaming, the battery life will quickly drop to one full day. If you are more of a moderate user, you should be able to get about two days of battery life out of it.

A neat feature here is the so-called Stamina mode, which allows the user to choose a number of features to be turned off once the device is locked. No need to worry – all of those features will be promptly reactivated upon unlocking the handset. It's a good tool that will let you boost your battery life should you find it not as long as you'd like.



Conclusion

Sony's Xperia Z is the first new flagship smartphone to arrive in 2013. The device is pretty impressive with its gigantic 5” 1080p screen, quad-core processor and so on. It has all the needed prerequisites to become a winner in the Android market, even if confronted by other top players from Samsung or LG.

Sony has done a wonderful job with the design of this phone. It could, of course, be even better, but we still see it as superior to what most of the other companies are currently doing with their flagship handsets. It's still early for any ultimate conclusions, though, because we're yet to see what Samsung, HTC and LG are to roll out this year, but by the looks of it the Xperia Z is to remain a relevant player even when those other handsets enter the fray. In the end, Sony's new flagship is a very well-rounded smartphone that will surely stand out from the crowd of Android devices in 2013.

Software version of the reviewed unit: Android 4.1.2, Build 10.1.A.1.350




UPDATE: You can now read our Sony Xperia Z Ultra Review and our Sony Xperia Z1 Review!