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The Sony Xperia Z aims to be the best phone the company has made – it’s certainly a good-looking phone that's jam-packed with features
Sony Xperia Z review
Sony Xperia Z
T3
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Sony Xperia Z review
Love
- Smashing hi-def display
- Superior camera
- Chic styling
Hate
- Too big for some
- Waterproof ports are fiddly
- Average battery
What makes a good smartphone? It’s more than just ticking all the boxes where specs are concerned. It’s not just a couple of striking innovations.
Sony’s latest is its biggest push yet to join the ranks of top-tier smartphones like the iPhone 5, LG Nexus 4 and Samsung Galaxy S3. It’s also the biggest phone the company has made. So how does it stack up?Sony Xperia Z: Size and build
Well, despite the 5-inch display, this isn’t the hand-stretching experience you might expect. It ain’t petite, but the 7.9mm thickness makes it reasonably comfy even if you don’t have giant hands.
It’s helped by the fact that the excellent build quality makes it feel good in the hand – shatterproof glass front and back, plastic edging and a solid finish.
The power button, used to wake the screen from sleep, is two thirds up the right-hand side and unlike some phones where you have to fumble to find it, this one is unmissable. It’s a metal circle, carefully detailed.
This level of precision and subtle marking epitomises the phone. It’s a satisfying experience handling the handset (and that’s before we’ve even turned it on).Sony Xperia Z: Features
Sony has made sure all the features you’d expect in a high-end smartphone are there. NFC? Check. Quad-core chip? Check. Decent camera? Double-check. And 4G connectivity? Check – in fact it comes with all the frequencies of LTE that the UK will have, so all networks will be happy.
One more thing: it’s waterproof, so you can retrieve it from the toilet bowl (maybe rinse it afterwards, mind) or bath. Texting in the shower is now a possibility, though, seriously? Must you? Note that the price you pay is that there are fiddly flaps to keep water out of the earphone socket and so on.
The camera is great: the 13MP resolution is higher than most rivals can muster and has lots of features including Sweep Panorama – a Sony camera speciality with a simple sweeping movement that came along before the similar iPhone feature.
There’s also Smile Shutter which recognises when your subject is smiling and takes the shot without you even having to touch the screen. It’s reasonably fast and even works well in lower light situations – usually a cameraphone’s Achilles’ heel.Sony Xperia Z: Screen
The shots you take, or the video you film, looks great on the Xperia Z’s screen. Actually, anything looks pretty good on this screen because it’s exceptionally high-resolution (443ppi, against 324ppi on the already pretty impressive iPhone 5 screen).
And it uses Sony technology from the company’s TV department to make those plentiful pixels gleam, in what’s called the Sony Mobile Bravia Engine 2. Whatever the black magic it works, the results are highly impressive: rich, detailed, colourful without being over-saturated and butter-smooth for video playback.Sony Xperia Z: Performance
That Qualcomm quad-core 1.5GHz processor is, as you’d expect, very swift indeed. As more demanding apps arrive it should have more than enough slack to keep things ticking along happily enough. For now, it’s lightning-fast.
The phone comes with Jelly Bean but not the very latest version, though an upgrade is planned.Sony Xperia Z: Battery
Smartphone reviews
A big and detailed screen like this is bound to be demanding on the battery, so no wonder it’s a sealed unit so every cubic millimetre of cell can be utilised.
Even so, the battery life is not exceptional. It’s not bad, either, but you’ll need nightly recharges. However, there is an option to boost the battery life. Battery Stamina mode extends the life considerably.
A screen in the program reveals how long your phone will keep going on its current charge (a handy innovation in itself). Turn on Battery Stamina and watch the numbers jump. It only calculates standby time, but for example an 8-hour estimate leapt to 2 days 17 hours with Stamina invoked.
It achieves this by shutting down almost everything. You can still receive texts and phone calls but wireless and mobile data are disabled. Alarms will still sound.
In practice the estimates weren’t wholly reliable, but it’s great to be able to eke out what juice there is when you know you otherwise be able to charge the phone in time.Sony Xperia Z: Verdict
The Sony Xperia Z is a pretty spectacular phone. It has an amazing display, a strong camera and that pub- pleasing extra that your phone is waterproof, even if it does mean you have to work to get at the headphone socket.
It may be too big for some hands but is manageable by most – don’t let the measurements put you off. Battery life is okay, but improved with Stamina mode. Above all, it looks just great – easily the classiest Sony mobile yet, and an equal with the best Android phones out there.
Sony Xperia Z release date: Out end February
Sony Xperia Z price: £500 -
Hands on
The Sony Xperia Z packs a huge 5-inch screen, unique battery saving tech and the brand's new Bravia Engine 2. And it's waterproof...
Sony Xperia Z review
Love
- Smashing hi-def display
- Superior camera
- Chic styling
Hate
- Too big for some
- Waterproof ports are fiddly
- Average battery
The Sony Xperia Z was unveiled at the CES tech show in Las Vegas and T3 was invited along for sneak preview. The new handset will take over the role of the brand's flagship phone from the Sony Xperia T, although the latter will still continue to be sold as well.
There'll also be Sony Xperia XL, which is only very slightly different to the Xperia Z, although we're told that this model won't be coming to the UK.
The new flagship handset sports a big 5-inch screen and it's also water resistant - good news for clumsy gadget owners. It's set to go up against top-tier phones like the iPhone 5, HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S3, but has it got what it takes to make it into our list of the best smartphones around? We went in for a closer look...Sony Xperia Z: Size and build
You'd be forgiven for thinking that a phone with such a large screen would be pretty hefty, but the Xperia Z is actually a lot lighter than it looks, tipping the scales at It's also just 7.9mm , so it has a much svelter profile than the likes of the Nokia Lumia 920.
The "omni-balanced" design features tempered glass back and front for slick, symmetrical aesthetics. You'll also find a nice round aluminium on/off button half-way down the right-hand edge. Not only does it act as a premium style statement, it's also very easy to find at a glance so you won't be searching around for it when you first pick up the phone, as with some rivals.
It's certainly the best-looking Sony phone yet, with the brand seemingly having finally shaken of the somewhat dull designs of its Ericsson partnership.
The handset will be available in black or white, plus a purple model that will be exclusive to O2.Sony Xperia Z: Features
Along with its big screen and slick design, the Xperia Z is also Water resistant. We're told that this is a much more standard features in the Japanese market, but it's still a relatively new feature in the UK - with the exception of the recent Panasonic Eluga. The Xperia Z packs the IP57 standard, which means that its water resistant up to 1m for 30 minuntes.
The phone also has Sony's brand new Mobile Bravia Engine 2, which has been designed for crisper detail, more saturated colours, and real time contrast optimisation. What's more, this is the first phone to include Sony's EXMOR RS sensor, enabling HDR.
You'll find a 13MP camera on the rear (with 1080p video), along with a 2MP front-facing cam that can deal with 720p video. Sony has also ported over the Superior Auto mode from its camera - this adjusts settings automatically to suit different light levels and movement, so in theory, the camera should perform well in low light conditions - usually the bane of the camera phone.Other extras include Sony's Sweep Panorama, along with various other picture effects and a burst mode, operating at 10fps and taking any number of consecutive shots, until the memory is full up.
As with most of Sony's latest mobile product, the Xperia Z suports NFC one-touch operation and Sony will be introducing a selection of compatible products including a tiny, ball-shaped Bluetooth speaker.
The phone will also support 4G - for all UK LTE networks.Sony Xperia Z: Screen
One of the key features of the new phone is its massive 5-inch screen which makes it larger than the likes of the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S3. The display sports a full HD 1080p resolution along with an pixel density of 443, compared to the iPhone 5's 326.
The screen felt very responsive, and touchscreen operation even works when the display or your hands are wet - very useful for drizzly British weather.
Details on the screen appear pin-sharp and colours are bright and punchy. The extra pixel density is something that will really help when it comes to videos and zooming in on web pages.Sony Xperia Z: Battery
The handsets sports a 2370MAh battery and Sony has also thoughtfully includeded a feature called Battery Stamina Mode which is designed to conserve as much battery life as possible.
The idea is that when the screen is off, the phone automatically turns off everything else, except for telephony. The mode is optional and you can also tweak the settings so that you can choose apps to leave on - for example, so that you can get email and social network notifications.
According to Sony, the new mode can extend battery life by up to four times. The phone also has a Low Battery Mode which, when enabled, turns off all non-vital funcitons automatically as soon as the battery power drops below a certain level.
Sony Xperia Z: Performance
Smartphone reviews
As we'd expect, the Xperia Z runs the latest version of Google's mobile OS - Android Jelly Bean. Sony has added its own twist on top of the Android UI, so that the homescreen includes shortcuts to Sony services - Walkman, Album, Movies, Sony Select - and has been designed to look the same across all Sony devices.
Powered by the quadcore Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset, the phone appeared to be pretty zippy when switching between apps and browsing the web, but that's something we'll look at in more detail in our full review. There's 16GB of storage on board, plus the option to upgrade via a microSD card slot, along with 2GB of RAM.Sony Xperia Z: Verdict
At first glance, the Sony Xperia Z is the most impressive phone that we've seen from the company in a long time, possibly ever. The big screen may divide opinion, but there's no denying the design is slick.
The good looks combined with the water resistance, Battery Stamina mode and impressive camera chops make this one smartphone to watch in 2013. Keep you eyes peeled for a full review...
Sony Xperia Z release date: Q1 2013
Sony Xperia Z price: TBCHands-on review by Libby Plummer
Check out our Sony Xperia Z preview video:
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