Sony Xperia Z1 review

 

For

• Great screen technology
• Powerful camera

Against

• Hefty chassis

 

Sony tries to stuff even more tech into a smartphone

 

The Sony Xperia Z1 is yet another step in the comeback of a failing brand. While the headline spec may be the 20.7MP G Lens camera sensor, this is a phone packed to the rafters with cutting-edge tech.
Its hard to express the joy of comparing the Z1 to a previous Sony flagship cameraphone: the Satio from four years ago. Okay, that was a time when things were decidedly more Ericsson, but the difference between these two phones is vast.

Thats not because the Z1 is an amazing phone (it might be, but its hard to tell with only an hours time playing with it) but just how bad the Sony Ericsson Satio was. It may have had a 12MP camera, but it was running Symbian, packed a resistive touchscreen and was generally one of the worst phones weve played with.





Thankfully Sony recognised its tailspin and is now producing phones like the Z1 - the follow-up to the Sony Xperia Z that launched earlier this year, and the design principles back that up.

Design

However, while this is also a water resistant and dust-proof phone (IP55 and IP58 rated), the chassis has a lot more metal packed in, with aluminium replacing the glass in many places throughout the Z1.
In doing so its acquired some heft, with the depth of the phone noticeably greater in the hand. Thats to accommodate the new camera sensor while maintaining the flat exterior, but it does make a huge difference when you pick up the phone for the first time.

Compared to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One its not that different, but with the added weight combined with the heavier innards and angular design, the Z1 feels like a much more substantial beast, which may put some people off.
Theres a lot thats reminiscent of the Xperia Z Ultra here; not only because of the amount of technology thats been nabbed from the big Sony factory, but also because some of the clever design tweaks have made their way over to the new device too.

One of the things were happiest to see is the headphone slot being open and unfettered. Sony has made the waterproof phone its own over the last year, and by removing the need for the headphone to have a cover its made the Z1 so much more usable compared to its predecessor.
The rest of the slots follow Sonys heritage of premium design, being easy to shut while feeling secure against the elements should you want to lob your phone in a bucket of water and then roll it through a desert.

Dont do that, though. Youll probably lose it and be inadequately hydrated for such a trip.
Theres a microSD card slot on offer still, which partly makes up for the lack of a removable battery. Were getting sick of the latter refrain – consumers want it, but phone designers want to make things as integrated as possible, and its the ones with the pencils that win out.

But overall the Sony Xperia Z1 is a very well-finished phone that makes use of a number premium materials in its construction – the only issue for consumers could be the sheer heft of the device theyre carrying in their pocket, and theyll have to decide whether the mega powerful new camera is worth it.

Screen

With the Xperia Z1, Sony has opened the door to the TV factory, selected its favourite model and then crammed it into a 5-inch screen, meaning youve got all manner of technology on offer.

Triluminous Display tech brings a really crisp and clear picture, and combined with X Reality on video playback serves to bring a phone that knows what its doing when it comes to a 1080p screen.
The display is definitely a step forward from the washed out nature of the Xperia Z, although the viewing angles are still not as impressive as seen on other phones.
The LG G2 is still the poster boy for phone displays, but the Z1 isnt that far behind, especially when its video processing kicks in.

The clarity and refresh rate are certainly impressive, but it still doesnt pack the wow factor seen from a number of other smartphones.
Thats not to say its not really good, it just still falls slightly short when compared to the clarity of the G2 or the colour reproduction of the HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4 (provided you like higher colour saturation, that is).

Video playback

We can see that Sony has really worked hard on the video playback capabilities of the Xperia Z1, with the movies app in particular coming with a really nice interface.

Your last watched flick will display in the background of the app while youre selecting your next file, which really makes the phone feel like yours, rather than a sterile area to trawl through in search of anything to make the commute feel shorter.
The quality of 1080p video is really impressive on here as well, with the precision of the display making it a really high-end experience and the X Reality engine working hard to make sure even standard definition footage is upscaled to look clean and crisp.

Given that video (movies in particular) is one of Sonys strengths, were glad to see that its made a decent fist of things on its mobile devices.

CPU

Like its Xperia Ultra brother, the Sony Xperia Z1 comes with a 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, meaning whizzy fast speeds in a quad-core package.
This is the highest level of CPU on offer at the moment, and promises better battery management as well as an improved ability to connect to 4G networks, allowing the double speed connection that has been rolled out in a number of countries.

Combined with 2GB of RAM, theres very little youll want when it comes to speed from the Sony Xperia Z1, thanks to a well-integrated chipset thats really more than enough for most users.
There will be 16GB of internal storage on offer as well as the microSD card slot, which means that even if you want to pack in a session of video editing on your phone youll be able to do so easily with the required grunt on board.

Weve yet to test the capabilities of the 3000mAh battery in the Z1 as yet, although we didnt notice a massive drop in the power pack during our testing, and this included a large amount of picture taking.
In our tests with other Snapdragon 800 devices weve seen some excellent battery life on offer, so weve got high hopes the trick will be repeated on the Xperia Z1.

Interface

Sony hasnt beaten around the bush when it comes to the interface on the Xperia Z1, keeping things simple and similar to that seen on its other Android devices at the moment.
Running Android 4.2 (with an upgrade to 4.3 likely in the next few months) things are very simple and well laid out on the Z1, with the ability to move widgets around with ease and the exploded view of all homescreens at once available simply by pinching in on the screen.

The widgets on offer are decent, with options like a camera pane that allows you to instantly open different modes rather than just booting into the main camera app and having to scoot around in there.
On top of a simple layout of music, movies and internet browsing, with things like Music Unlimited combined nicely with the relevant app, Sony has kept things simple with the Z1 while allowing most things you open up a good amount of power.

Camera

Heres where things get really interesting: the Sony Xperia Z1 camera is where the Japanese firm has really pushed the boat out.
With a 20.7MP sensor, strong low light ability and wide range of options to improve the quality of your photos, the camera on the Z1 takes mobile photography to another level.

When compared with the likes of the Nokia Lumia 1020, with its 41MP sensor, and the HTC One, with its 4MP Ultrapixel option, theres a feeling that the Z1 fits in between the two.
However, this is more of a camera in the traditional sense, taking really crisp and clear photos with little interpolation of multiple shots (as weve seen on the Nokia range). The result is a photo that just looks good, especially if youre firing the Superior auto mode which makes it almost impossible to take a bad shot.

We really like messing around with this option, as no matter what youre trying to do, be it take a close up picture, get a low light snap without the flash or even take a picture of text, the Z1 was able to work out what we needed time and again and adjust the settings to make use of it.

Read the rest of this post and see the early verdict!

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