Sony in CES, Las Vegas, has announced two new smartphones in its Xperia line of products: Xperia Z and ZL. ZL is the lighter version of Z itself without much difference in specifications. Let’s have a look at Sony Xperia Z in this post.
The Tech Specs
Xperia Z & ZL come with these specifications. Full specifications of Xperia ZL were not quite available; we are featuring only the basic specs now.
| The Feature | Sony Xperia Z | Xperia ZL |
|---|---|---|
| Display | TFT HD 1920×1080 px; 5 inches; using Mobile Bravia® Engine II; 16 mil colors | The same |
| Microprocessor | Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 1.5 GHz asynchronous quad-core | The same |
| Memory | 2GB | The same |
| Battery | 2330 mAh (given by Sony) | The same |
| Storage | 16 GB internal; supporting 32 GB expansion slot | The same |
| Dimensions | 139x71x7.9mm; 146g | Slightly heavier at around 150g |
| Operating System | Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean | The same |
| Camera | 13MP Exmor RS Sensor ; 16x digital zoom HDR image & video capture 2.1MP front camera |
The same |
| Other features | Water & dust resistance LTE; HSPA+ NFC |
Not waterproof |
Water Proofing
The Xperia Z is a wonderfully well designed smartphone and one of its most attractive features is the water and dust resistance. It is one of the very few smartphones with this capability. Earlier, we have seen the Pantech Element tablet and a few smartphones, such as Xperia Go, Motorola Razr Maxx, etc., with water resistance.
Due to this reason, there is no camera button on the side of the smartphone, and there is a lid on top of your audio jack. You can immerse Xperia Z about two feet under water for nearly thirty minutes without any damage.
Build & Design
Being a new phone, there is not much information about the features and performance. The smartphone is expected to be available in the market by the end of March this year.
The build seems particularly awe-inspiring. It is the same kind of design we have been seeing on Xperia line of smartphone, without the transparent bar with keys at the bottom. The power button is a circular one on the side of the phone. Mostly built from plastic, Xperia line has never been assumed to be of high build quality.
This smartphone, although touted as using highly scratch-resistant glass with shatter-proofing on top, doesn’t seem to use Gorilla® Glass® technology from Corning. There are only a few devices that Corning provides Gorilla Glass for and Sony is not in the list. Also, Gorilla Glass technology is a requirement for future mobile phones.
The phone uses Snapdragon S4 processor, which uses Qualcomm Krait CPU architecture. It is quad-core clocked at 1.5 GHz. The processor may be just right for the current mobile world, although we needed an even faster architecture support. Qualcomm itself has announced its Snapdragon 800 and 600 processors in CES, and they are extremely faster than this CPU.
Camera Technology
The new Sony camera of 13 megapixels uses trademarked Exmor RS sensor. Sony developed the technology last year and released a PR talking about the arrival of Exmor RS technology in a device in January this year. Xperia Z is the device. With this new technology, the video capture in HDR (High Dynamic Range) will be possible in Xperia Z.
HDR images look much better than normal images. Take a look here (the right one with better definition uses HDR):
Also read about HDR imaging at Popular Science.
Any Downsides?
It has been mentioned by CNET earlier that the battery may not hold up with extreme use and also due to the support for LTE. Long Term Evolution, LTE, the next generation mobile telecommunication technology, is widely known to take up a lot of battery power. However, this is not actually the case. Today’s LTE implementation, which is hybrid, may drain your battery power, but pure LTE is known to take up much less power than 3G and 3.5G technologies (HSPA & HSPA+).
Battery, however, is an issue with HDR imaging and video capture in 1080p HD. Larger battery is probably required for supporting such large screens and hardware features.
Qualcomm Snapdragon processor supported in this device is not exactly the next generation processor. Qualcomm already has released the Snapdragon 800 and 600 with much faster cores. We are disappointed at the timing of the launch of this device.
Xperia Z uses Android Jelly Bean version 4.1.2. Already 4.2 has been released, and Sony has made it clear that it intends to release the phone with the upgraded OS. Also it will be upgradable to Key Lime Pie once it comes to the market.
Conclusion
We don’t yet know the price of Xperia Z. If it is proper, only then is this a good recommendation to buy. We will have to wait till March to see this on stores.
You can buy the unlocked Xperia Z from Best Buy