Saturday, March 2, 2013

Sony Xperia Z

Sony Xperia Z

Sony's latest edition to their Android line

Sony made a scene with their new life-proof phone, the Sony Xperia Z. The phone is 146g and IP57 certified. This means that it is dust proof and water proof up to 3 feet for up to 30 minutes. Running Android 4.1.2 (with a 4.2 upgrade scheduled for later, of course) on a Qualcomm 1.5Ghz processor, this thing is plenty fast. It has a primary camera that is 13.1MP that shoots 1080p video and a 2.2 MP secondary camera that also shoots in 1080p@30fps. Packed with 16GB of storage (expandable with up to 32GB on micro SD) with 2GB of onboard RAM this thing should last a while before it fills. Its display is 1080 x 1920 pixels and 5.0 inches with an approximate 441 ppi pixel density.  It is currently going through the deployment process.

The 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon CPU is very, very fast, and onboard specs prove that the Sony is at the forefront of mobile technology. Sony has finally joined the rest of the mobile crew by stacking 4 cores inside the processor with this flagship phone. It's packing quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chip with 2GB of RAM. This processor may be a bit dated but it is still top of the line. This makes it one of the fastest Android phones. This processing power means that Sony’s new flagship device is quick to run most Android applications and games, but there is still brief moments of lag. This is probably due to the fact that the Xperia Z is using an Snapdragon S4 Pro instead of the newer Qualcomm 600 processor. Hopefully a software update can prove this theory wrong. Sony’s OEM layer is on top of stock Android. This skin offers some nice features. The lock screen is one example of this. It simulates window blinds. You can also equip the lock screen with shortcuts; similar to Android 4.2 although Sony's version is still quite primitive. Sony has included some exclusive goodies especially in the NFC realm of things. The device can communicate with other Sony products, but most features are meant for use with the newer Bravia TV's. Just by touching the phone to the TV you can display pictures and video on your Bravia TV. 

Speaking of pictures and video, Sony has installed a 13.1MP primary shooter on this phone. It is also capable of shooting 1080p video. The camera is packed with the usual mobile phone camera features including ISO and HDR. You can also use 'Superior Auto' and let the phone select the correct scene for the picture you’re taking. HDR is also available during video recording, which results in some great footage.

With a bright 5-inch screen and quad-core CPU, the Xperia Z is definitely in need of a strong battery pack and power saving features. With heavy usage on high brightness, you’ll get between four to five hours. Mobile phone manufactures are usually aware of this and pack in battery saving features to compensate in their own ways. Sony has created Stamina Mode. This feature shuts off data activity when your screen is off. When in use at night, Stamina Mode is effective enough to ensure that battery use is extremely minimal.

Sony’s previous Xperia devices have always been under the competiton, but with the Xperia Z, it seems like Sony's finally entered the competition. Even though this phone isn't launching with Snapdragon's newest processor and Android 4.2 OTB, this phone is packed full of good stuff. The quad-core processor is a crazy fast, the 1080p screen is very sharp and the waterproof design will help the phone go places with clumsier users (which is most of us) who really do tend to drop their expensive phones into water.

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