Sony Xperia Z1 Preview

Introduction

Sony introduced its Xperia Z flagship in the beginning of the year, and while the smartphone had a lot going for it, it was still somewhat rough around the edges. It had fancy front and back panels made of glass, but boring, rubbery sides; the screen was large and had a high resolution, but its gamma and viewing angles were lacking; the camera was 13 MP and featured the promising Exmor RS sensor, but the quality of the pictures was so-so.

With so much to fix, Sony hasn't even waited until next year to introduce its new top model. Instead, the company is already gearing up to release its new flagship – the Xperia Z1. As we can all see right away, the Xperia Z1 is like a heavily upgraded version of its predecessor. It feels quite familiar, yet substantially improved in pretty much every area. By the looks of it, Sony has done more than enough in order to bring those elements where the Z was lacking to the necessary premium level.

Design

The Sony Xperia Z1 has almost the same external design as its predecessor, except... it now features a nice metal frame around the sides, replacing the bland rubber material used by the Z. The phone's design looks much more complete now, and the feeling you get when you have the Xperia Z1 in your hands is that of working with a very high-quality piece of machinery. The front and rear panels are still made of flat, tempered glass, reminding us of the iPhone 4/4s design language.

The Xperia Z1 is a beautiful phone and we commend Sony for coming up with this design. It beats Samsung's offerings (in the design department) and can go toe to toe with almost any other high-end smartphone in the industry.

As we said, in-hand feel is just the way it should be – awesome, but we do have a relatively big issue in this regard and it has to do with the size of the Z1. With substantial bezels left around the display, the Xperia Z1 takes quite a bit of room (5.69 x 2.91 x 0.33 inches) in your palm. It's definitely bulkier than Samsung's Galaxy S4 (which measures 5.38 x 2.75 x 0.31 inches), or HTC's One (5.41 x 2.69 x 0.37 inches), or even LG's G2 (5.45 x 2.79 x 0.35 inches). Still, we do like the classy, rectangular shape of the Z1.

Sony's new device is also heavier than most other competitors. It weighs 6.00 oz (170 g), compared to the Samsung Galaxy S4's 4.59 oz (130 g), the HTC One's 5.04 oz (143 g), and LG G2's 5.04 oz (143 g). Wow, the Xperia Z1 is truly one weighty smartphone, but that's not necessarily such a big issue, as it makes it feel even more solid and high-end.

You can find a bunch of things around the sides of the Xperia Z1. Of course, we get the new circular power button on the right hand side, which doesn't feel particularly bad, but isn't great either. The volume rocker that's positioned slightly below is a similar affair, as it works fine, but is kind of small to be considered really comfortable to use. Finally, we get the tiny camera shutter key near the lower end of the right hand side, and almost surprisingly, this one is actually great. The button is very easy to press, and the its two steps (for autofocus and actual picture taking) are very well defined. Even though our unit doesn't have the retail software yet, we've been ensured that the hardware design is final, so our observations here should be valid for the retail units of the Xperia Z1.

The Micro SIM card slot and microSD card slot, as well as the microUSB port are all hidden under protective flaps, which don't cause any trouble. What's more, they are designed in such a way so as to kind of blend in with the rest of the surface of the sides.

Display

The Xperia Z1 is making full use of Sony's so-called Triluminos screen technology, and the improvement in image quality since the Xperia Z is obvious. With its decent characteristics, the 5" 1080p display of the Z1 may not be a state-of-the-art IPS LCD panel, but it is very good looking. As with any other 5" 1080p screen, the pixel density is incredibly high at 441 ppi.

We won't comment on the quality of the screen right now, with regards to things such as color balance and even brightness, because the software of our unit isn't final and these aspects of the handset may change by the time it launches officially on the market.

The Xperia Z1 supports the so-called X-Reality image enhancement technology, which attempts to boost the quality of photos and video viewed on the phone. Indeed, media that's displayed on the Z1's screen using the X-Reality engine looks very cool. For the most part, there's not rocket-science involved with X-Reality, as it tweaks things such as the contrast of the image, the sharpness, colors and other similar stuff, in order to come up with a more impressive picture.

Interface

The Sony Xperia Z1 comes with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, which is a bit disappointing having in mind that Android 4.3 is already available to users of Nexus devices. We aren't really optimistic when it comes to Sony's ability to bring timely software updates to its devices, but since this is the flagship smartphone we're talking about, we hope that the company will do well at supporting it.

On top of Android 4.2.2, we find Sony's custom user interface. Overall, the UI is not so in-your-face, but it is quite comprehensive. In our opinion, this is one of the more polished custom UIs for Android. It's certainly not the most feature-rich, but it's quite lively, making it feel fun to use.

All of the essential apps like Phone, Contacts, Messaging and so on have been customized. They are quite simplistic and straightforward, which isn't a bad thing, and thanks to their redesign, their appearance is in line with the rest of the user interface.

Processor and Memory

Powered by the potent Snapdragon 800 SoC, the Sony Xperia Z1 is a true beast. Performance will never be an issue with this handset, at least considering the current generation of software available for Android. With the quad-core 2.2 GHz Krait 400 CPU, overall system performance is simply great, with no visible hiccups or slowdowns. The experience isn't so delay-free as on the iPhone 5 and up, but all in all, the Z1 is speedy enough. It's on par with the G2 and the other Android powerhouses out there. The GPU found in the Snapdragon 800 SoC — Adreno 330 — is equally powerful. You can easily run every game out there and you'll enjoy sky-high frame-rates.

Sony has installed the healthy 2 gigs of RAM on the Xperia Z1, which guarantees smooth performance even when you have multiple heavy apps running in the background. The Sony Xperia Z1 comes with the humble 16 GB of internal storage, but thankfully, it also gives you the option to install a microSD card for additional storage space. You can't buy the Z1 with a larger amount of internal space, but that won't be such a big deal for most consumers.

Phonebook

One thing we don't like about Sony's phonebook is the lack of an option to set up an account to sync with. Who knows, there might be such an option... somewhere in there, but we couldn't find it, so we instead went to the Settings to set our account from there. Another irritating thing is how little space is left for your call log, as it shares a single screen with the dialer. Other than that, switching between dialer, all contacts and favorites is pretty seamless.

Meanwhile, it's great to see that Sony has kept the good old T9-style dialing, where you can start T9-typing the name of the contact you want to call using the numeric keypad, and the phone will automatically find that person for you. It's very comfortable to dial this way.

Organizer

The busy man's best friend, the calendar, is well represented in the Sony Xperia Z1. The phone's calendar app features all the basic necessities like month, week and day views, as well as some 'bonus' features such as the ability to expand the appointments for the selected day in month view. The pinch-to-zoom function from the stock calendar has, thankfully, been preserved.

The handset also comes with a simple calculator, as well as a versatile notes app, which isn't the most convenient notes app ever, but makes up for it by offering a good array of options. One thing we have to point out here is that you might find Sony's Small Apps to be more comfortable to use compared to their full versions. For example, once you press the multitasking button, you gain access to four shortcuts to handy mini apps, including a calculator, timer, notes and voice notes. In the end, we found it pretty easy to make quick notes or recordings using the Sony Xperia Z1.

Messaging

Sony's QWERTY keyboard is very reminiscent of the iPhone keyboard as its main layout features only the most necessary keys, as well as as a similar color theme. All in all, typing with the keyboard is a joy, as the letter keys are big and easy to find. The landscape layout is also great as it takes advantage of the full screen width.

The messaging app of the Xperia Z1 is very well designed with a versatile and intuitive interface. You can easily do stuff like attach a photo, video, sound, note, location, etc. to your messages. The default email app is will do the job, though it lacks some more advanced settings like tweaking the preview text length, for example.

Internet and connectivity

Chrome is the browser of choice for the Sony Xperia Z1, and it tends to perform lovely on this device. As always, loading is super-fast, while navigation around pages, including scrolling and zooming, is very fluid and trouble-free. The browser inflates text mostly correctly, so usually it's just the right paragraphs that need to be read comfortably that are the ones to get an increased font-size.

LTE is supported across numerous bands, so as long as your carrier of choice offers 4G, the Z1 should work flawlessly. If no LTE is available, the Xperia Z1 should default to HSPA+ (42.2 Mbit/s down and 5.76 Mbit/s up).

Further completing its full set of connectivity options, the Sony Xperia Z1 is also the proud owner of support for all the latest Wi-Fi protocols, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and DLNA. If you're the type of user who loves to explore the possibilities with these new technologies, the Xperia Z1 will certainly prove to be a fine playground.

Camera

The beefy 20.7 MP camera of the Sony Xperia Z1 is one of its key features. With a new, larger sensor with a size of 1/2.3" (most smartphones feature 1/3.2" sensors), the Z1's camera will have pixels of decent size, despite their greater number. This should help keep noise at reasonable levels. Meanwhile, the aperture is also quite wide (f/2.0), which should help the camera achieve good results in low-light conditions, as it will allow more light to reach the sensor. Finally, the Z1 has a wide-angle lens of 27mm that will allow you to capture more of the scene in front of you.

Thankfully, the user interface is very easy to use, especially when you're sticking with Sony's Superior Auto mode, which attempts to automatically pick the best settings for you, depending on the scene you're trying to photograph. Still, Sony has also included a Manual mode, which allows you to tweak a variety of different settings on your own.

There are also some other interesting camera modes in the Xperia Z1. For example, there's Info Shot, which will attempt to give you useful information about the object that you're photographing. Or, there's also Social Live (powered by Bambuser), which lets you livestream up to 10 minutes of video directly to your Facebook feed – very cool feature indeed! There is, of course, a number of picture effects, as well as the more interesting AR (augmented reality) effects, which kind of blend the real scene in front of you with a 3D scene of your choice. Looking past the limited number of 3D scenes, you can get some interesting results with these settings.

Since our Xperia Z1 units doesn't run a final, retail version of the software, we're unwilling to comment on the quality of the photos and videos that it captures. Instead, we'll just post the images and video we took to let you have a rough idea of what the handset's camera will be capable of.

Multimedia

The Sony Xperia Z1 is a great phone to watch video on. The display looks good and is big enough so you can even watch full-length movies on it, if need be. 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 Walkman music player is quite cool and simplistic. It sports some interesting features like ClearAudio+, which aims to give some more clarity to the sound, though it's basically a specific EQ preset. There are also some other sound enhancing tools like xLOUD, as well as a regular equalizer with many presents, including a custom option, allowing you to set your own equalizer.

The picture and video galleries are very good. The apps have a fresh and consumer-centric design. The Sony touch has worked well here.

The loudspeaker of the Z1 is powerful enough, but its quality is really low. It's totally lacking any low frequencies, resulting in a high, harsh and unclear sounding. We can have some hopes that it will be a bit better once the phone hits retail, but chances aren't good.

Expectations

With the Xperia Z1, Sony has finally become competitive. The talented Japanese company has been experiencing great difficulties during the last few years, but after a relatively lengthy transition, it seems it's finally catching up with the big players of the wireless industry.

The big advantage that the Z1 has versus most Android products is design - Sony's phone is markedly classy and high-end. It's definitely bulkier than competitive offerings, though, which should be considered if you're on the lookout for a new high-end Android smartphone.

Hardware-wise, the Sony Xperia Z1 doesn't lag behind in any respect. With the powerful Snapdragon 800 and 2 gigs of RAM, the Z1 stands right next to the other Android flagships of the second half of the year. We're curious to find out exactly how well its camera is going to perform, but we'll have to wait until retail units become avialable.

For now, it looks like Sony has come up with a very capable smartphone, which, however, doesn't seem to be that much (if at all) better than what the competition (Samsung, LG and HTC) already has.