The Sony Xperia Z1 review
Introduction:
I have a soft spot for Sony. My granddad had an electronics shop in the 70s, and sold Sony televisions. My Nan still has an adorable Sony Boy mascot, which, I’m told, is quite valuable. My mother went to Japan in the 80s, and brought back a Walkman. The Playstation was an important part of my childhood. My favourite feature-phones were Sony Ericsson’s, especially the venerable Vodafone flagship V630i from 2006, which had a great camera and excellent media capabilities for the time. I like Bravias, too - Sony is a brand I have a lot of love for. Yet, for one reason or another, Sony’s smartphone offerings haven’t been my bag – Until now.
The Xperia Z1 is the latest shiny rectangle to come out of Japan, and it ticks an awful lot of boxes. Featuring a 5” 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels – 440PPI) screen, a seriously beautiful metal and glass industrial design, Android 4.2.2, one of Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 800 processors, a micro SD slot, 4G, and ridiculous headlining 20.7 megapixel camera, it’s a compelling piece of kit on paper. Carrying over from its predecessor, the Xperia Z, it’s also water resistant. This is a relatively standard feature for high end phones in Japan, and has yet to make it mainstream on the global scale – something Sony clearly intends to change. Pulling in features from a range of other Sony products, this phone has display tech from Sony’s TVs, camera tech from Sony’s cameras, and augmented reality effects courtesy of the Playstation team, making it a real jewel in their crown, and rightly so. The Z1 is on the cutting edge, and on paper it’s the most compelling piece of work Japan’s finest electronics vendor has put out for quite some time. But how does it perform in real life? Sony Mobile NZ was kind enough to give us a week with a couple of review units, so I took the opportunity to put it through its paces. As a disclaimer, I am a Galaxy Note fanboy, so was a little sceptical of the Z1. Spoilers: It doesn’t disappoint.
It’s pretty! The hardware:
Sony’s phones really do tick my boxes in the design department. The company has always made beautiful consumer electronics, and their recent smartphones have been no exception.
The Xperia Z1 is an exquisitely built device that feels fantastic in the hand. The metal band around the outside of the phone - crafted, Sony tells us, from a single piece of aluminium - gives it a tactile sensation of quality that matches the glossy monolithic exterior. With the screen off, it looks like a single black surface, uninterrupted aside from the tasteful Sony logo on the top – there’s no physical hardware buttons on the front of the device. That glossy black slab look is simultaneously professional and luxurious, it’s not ashamed to look futuristic and squared-off. When many competitors are shooting for rounded, curved, plastic construction, the Z1 stands out – it is utterly gorgeous. The front and back are covered with tempered glass, which sandwich an aluminium frame and the internals – excellent build quality, nothing creaks here. Its curved metal edges make a real difference – premium materials are a big differentiator in the phone space. Considering how often we pick up and use our phones every day, the feel of a device can make or break it. This one makes it.
Inside the Z1, it’s powered by one of Qualcomm’s latest and greatest mobile systems on a chip, the Snapdragon 800. I’ve been looking forward to testing this platform out, since I care way too much about these things – For more information than you could possibly want on the S800, have a look here.
The 800 doesn’t disappoint here, the Z1 is beautifully fast and fluid in use. Multitasking is a breeze, browsing is a great experience in mobile Chrome, and switching apps is nigh-instantaneous – as is launching that camera and shooting 20MP shots. The phone does heat up when under load – In my case, gaming and shooting 1080p video - but unlike other devices, you can always pop this one in a glass of water to cool off.
Sony’s mobile phone displays have been a bit of a mixed bag in the past, so I’m pleased to say the Z1’s a real step up. Crisp and clear, it was a pleasure to watch video content and browse on the 5” display – no pixels in sight. Sony’s touting a tech carried over from its higher-end Bravia televisions known as Triluminos, as well as a post-processing engine branded X-Reality, which boosts the saturation and contrast in photos & videos – In practice, I found the display was definitely to my tastes, with rich colour. Viewing angles, which weren’t the original Z’s biggest strength, are also much better here – This is something I find particularly helpful when showing videos to friends - although the best experience can be had when looking directly at the display. It gets impressively bright, and was surprisingly legible in sunlight.
5” screens have become the norm in 2013. Smartphones just keep getting bigger, and some may find them cumbersome in comparison to the smaller devices of years past. Sony’s approach to this is to simply make their phones slimmer – despite the large screen and surface area, the Z1 is only 8.5 mm thick, making it easy to slip in and out of a pocket, particularly helpful when listening to music or snapping a photo in a hurry. I had no problem reaching across the screen with a single thumb when typing, which I’ve had issues doing on other large devices in the past. Hardware buttons are nice and tactile, especially the shiny silver power button on the right hand side that Sony have cutely embossed with a little power symbol. As mentioned, there are no hardware buttons on the front of the device at all, as Sony have opted to use on-screen navigation keys for Back, Home, and Multitasking instead of physical or capacitive buttons common with other brands. This is a great experience, as your fingers never have to leave the screen to use the phone.
Enthusiasts with especially sharp memories may recall that the original Xperia Z was slightly thinner, at 7.9 mm – That extra 0.6 mm has been put to excellent use. When manufacturers announce a newer, thinner device, there are usually cries from fans that they should do the opposite – make it thicker and put in a larger battery. That’s exactly what Sony have done here, increasing capacity to 3,000 mAh from 2,330 mAh in the original Z, and when coupled with the new Snapdragon 800 processor’s strides forward in efficiency, the battery life has become significantly better. I’d need more time with the phone to take objective measurements, of course, but in subjective use I pulled four and a half hours of screen-on time when using the Z1 exclusively over Vodafone’s 4G network rather than WiFi, which is really quite good. For those who absolutely need more endurance, Sony have included a number of power saving features, such as the Stamina Mode – This restricts apps in the background and periodically disables the data connection, but certain apps can be ‘whitelisted’ to make sure you don’t miss that important email from the boss.
Speaking of 4G, the Xperia Z1 is a ‘category 4’ device, which means it works on 4G as fast as the Vodafone network currently allows – up to 150Mbps down and 50Mbps up - I pulled a stonkingly fast 88Mbps down when speed testing outside my apartment.
Camera features:
The camera in this phone is one of the headlining features. It’s a massive 20.7 megapixels, which is impressive for a point and shoot camera, let alone a phone. The standard photos taken in Sony’s auto mode come out at 8MP, because the sensor works by taking the information from the full 20MP shot and compressing it down. This auto mode senses which type of shot you’re attempting to take – landscape, night mode, macro, et cetera – and adjusts itself without needing to dig through menus. It doesn’t always get it right, but it is a lot faster than choosing the options one by one. If you open up the full selection of camera modes, you can select a manual mode, which does allow stills in full 20MP resolution and these come in around 10MB a pop. You might want a microSD card for this one (Up to 64GB, the currently-available maximum), although there is a reasonable amount of internal storage – 11GB of the 16GB total capacity is user-accessible, much more than some other 16GB phones.
There’s a dedicated two-stage camera button on the right-hand side of the phone, which is a very welcome addition. Notably, it allows the camera to be used underwater, as the touchscreen is a bit of a no-no when wet. Of course, it’s also just a super handy feature to have, one I wish was more common in Android devices.
There’s also an awful lot of features packed into the camera software, such as a burst mode that starts recording and caching as soon as it’s opened, and will save thirty frames on either side of the moment you press the shutter – great for moments when the subject is unpredictable, such as basically every child in existence. Sony have opened the camera app to third party developers, and more features can be downloaded directly from the Google Play Store.
Info Eye mode takes a shot, then scans it for relevant information – monuments, famous locations, barcodes, books, and curiously, wines. Had to test that last one, and sure enough, it worked. There’s also a series of rather good Instagram-style filters, and I found myself oddly taken by the surreal and mesmerising images the kaleidoscope filter produced, including nightmare-inducing shots of fingers and office chairs.
A curious and clever feature called Social Live allows video to be uploaded directly to Facebook as it’s being recorded. Sony’s advertising has this used for a marriage proposal – While I didn’t put that particular scenario to the test, it certainly worked very well over 4G, even if it was just to say hi to Mum and confuse my Facebook friends with test footage.
The firm favourite around the office was the Augmented Reality Effect mode, which adds 3D objects to the camera image, including face detection for hats and masks. Modes featuring gnomes, fish, disco lights, butterflies, and roses were all trumped by the dinosaur mode, which was almost too much fun. It took a little practice to get the feature to work consistently, although my review unit was not running final software - so the experience is likely to be even better by the time a Z1 lands in your hot little hands. As-is, adding a Tyrannosaurus Rex to any otherwise-mundane landscape is a feature that should be standard in every device, as far as I’m concerned.
Software highlights:
Sony’s software suite has become rather nice. There’s a lot of translucency in the UI, the icons are tasteful and the colour palette is pleasant to the eye. They take a value-add approach to the base Android experience, and there’s a lot of clever software touches, with nothing that made me wish they hadn’t changed it.
A few of my favourites included:
UI themes: The entire system accent colour can be changed by picking from a number of included themes by simply pinching on the homescreens to access the personalisation menu. The red one was naturally a favourite among us here at Vodafone
Customisable toggles in the notification bar, including one to toggle 4G off and on.
The included Walkman music app is solid, changes colour depending on what’s playing, includes a series of equalisers and audio enhancements for those who enjoy that sort of thing, and integrates Sony’s Music Unlimited streaming service (I believe it comes with a two month trial).
The FM Radio app (Yep, it’s still a thing!) has the ability to identify currently-playing songs, even with headphones inserted – How handy would that have been in the 90s?
System-wide animations are pleasant and subtle, including a shutter pattern on the lockscreen, which also displays album art and controls when music is playing.
An unread count displays on icons such as text messaging, but also on selected third party apps, including Facebook and Facebook Messenger.
Sony have also included ‘small apps’, little floating icons that can be expanded out into commonly-used features for expanded multitasking – a calculator, a notepad, a small browser – and also allow this to be augmented with almost any Android widget (Such as the My Vodafone widget!).
I listen to music a lot, so I’m pleased to say the Z1 is stellar in this area. I’d personally like it to go a little louder, although there’s always headphone amplifiers and USB DACs (sound cards) if you’re really serious about portable audio.
Gaming with a real PS3 controller:
How about that for a feature – the Xperia Z1 supports Playstation 3 controllers right out of the box. Well, relatively speaking.
PS3 controller use requires pairing with a USB On-The-Go cable, due to the way PS3s utilise Bluetooth. Once paired, the controller can automatically connect to the phone when Bluetooth is on. An icon will display in the phone’s notification bar, which actually updates to show the battery level of the controller as well – very nicely played, Sony.
If you’ve not used a controller with an Android phone before, they’re rather neat. You can navigate the UI using the sticks and buttons, which has novelty value. The real benefit is in games. I love mobile gaming, but largely for slower, more relaxed, concept-driven pieces like the pixel art of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery, or the gorgeous real time strategy of Eufloria. Fast-paced action games don’t do a lot for me in a mobile context because the limitations and challenges of a touchscreen interface are ill-suited to fast reactions vs. a dedicated keyboard and mouse or gamepad. Pairing a wireless controller obviously fixes this, and it’s lovely to see Sony provide official support, even if they don’t supply the USB OTG cable – thankfully, these are inexpensive.
The whole mobile phone plus gaming controller business becomes much more compelling when connected to a larger screen – The Z1 supports MHL 1.0 to accomplish this, which does require another type of cable, but is very rewarding. The Z1 also has its own TV-friendly landscape UI, allowing easy navigation with a game controller or even wireless keyboards and mice connected via Bluetooth.
Water resistance:
Making smartphones water and dust resistant usually entails a few sacrifices, primarily one of convenience. All the exposed ports need to be covered to prevent pesky water drops getting inside, and this can be a bit of a pain when charging. As such, the micro USB port and micro SD slot on the left edge have flaps, as does the SIM slot on the right edge. Sony’s made two significant improvements in this department with the Z1 – the headphone jack is now water resistant, allowing it to be exposed, which is a real boon for music lovers like me. There’s also a new magnetic charging connector on the left side of the device as well, so if one has the dock, the flaps can be safely ignored. We’re still waiting on confirmation from Sony as to local availability of the dock, it should be a worthwhile purchase for convenience alone.
Having just recently moved to Auckland from Christchurch, I’m still getting used to the regular rain – having a water resistant phone to review certainly came in handy, as it was raining the night I took the Z1 home. In my tests, I’ve noted that raindrops will press on-screen buttons & icons, and the touchscreen will be disabled for a few seconds after the phone has been completely submerged in water (Don’t panic!), so it may be better to whip out of the pocket for a quick check without worrying instead of actively using it in a downpour. For those curious, yes, you can watch YouTube in the shower. The Z1 is deemed water resistant by merit of its IP55 and IP58 certification, which means it can be submerged to a depth of 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes - but as always with these things, care needs to be taken – salt water is to be avoided, and always make sure the flaps and ports are closed.
We had a lot of fun dunking the Z1 in water around the office, and scrubbing it in the sink to see the looks on colleagues’ faces – Potential for mischief here.
Final thoughts:
It’s pretty. It’s very, very fast. The battery life is sufficient for my needs, and I use my phone all day for both work and play. The camera offers a lot of fun features, and is also technically very impressive. Water resistance has the potential to drastically change the way I use smart devices – consider the old push-your-mate-into-the-pool trick, and how much less fun that becomes when they have over one thousand dollars worth of not water resistant phone in their pocket.
This is the most compelling smartphone package Sony have put together to date, and it leverages their past strengths and present services well. I have to say, putting the review unit in its box and handing it back was a hard thing to do – I miss it already! Sony have built something great, here, something I’m happy to recommend to you, dear reader, and I only hope you get as much enjoyment out of it as I did. Take a look in our online shop, or check it out at one of our retail stores – I think you’ll come away impressed.
Just before you go, here's our five-point video review to cap things off:
Sorry, it can't be a hat.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to drop a comment below if you liked the review, and let us know your own thoughts on the Xperia Z1.
Until next time,
- Nik