Sony Xperia Z - A Water-Resistant Full HD Smartphone (Part 2)

UI and other features

UI is another good point of the device. Featuring the latest Android 4.1.2 OS, Xperia Z’s interface seems like Xperia T’s yet has more changes.

It’s seeable that the screen now can be unlocked by up-swiping plus curtain effect, not through vertical-swiping. Inside, the home screen shows icons. There’re not many changes in widgets but Notification bar has been innovated, integrated with shortcuts for fast-switching between settings.

UI is another good point of the device

The Small Apps feature that used to appear in Xperia T or TX is still available on Xperia Z. It allows user to open some necessary apps such as web browser, note, calculator, recorder… from a small window on screen without any need to open app screen.

There’re not as many outstanding features added for Xperia Z as for Xperia T/TX. Like Apple, Sony has been building its own technological ecosystem for its devices including TV, multimedia, laptops, tablets, game console… thus many apps Walkman, Movies, Sony Select, Playstation Mobile, Smart Connect on Xperia Z are similar to those in previous models.

Xperia Z’s features are powerful, meeting various demands

Some new interesting features are One Touch (using NFC to connect and share wireless contents to HDTV), mobile speakers, net drive or other supported devices. Plus, MirrorLink allows for transferring displaying contents on phone to wider screens via TV or similar audio-visual devices, resembling Apple Air Play. Not having any HDMI port, Xperia Z still has quite many contacts: DLNA, MHL…

Music playback is very good. Sony’s Full HD smartphone can decode most of popular formats, including FLAC. The accompanied in-ear headphone is MH-EX300AP model which is nice designed, reproducing fine sound plus thick bass.

Performance and battery life

Benchmark score and specs

Sony’s smartphone used to be criticized for having lower specs than rivals. But, this year Sony has been proving a change when equipping Xperia Z powerful specs, to compete directly with HTC, Samsung and LG.

Xperia Z owns Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor (1.5GHz), Andreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM. Though not as impressive as HTC One’s specs featuring Snapdragon, such configuration is enough for Sony fans. In fact, Xperia Z is the Android whose performance is most fluent ever thanks to the modified TImeScape UI.

However, booting camera takes a considerable amount of time despite the device’s high specs. Besides, the unibody plus glass case makes Xperia Z heat fast when running high usage in hours. The hottest area is in the back near Xperia Z logo.

Not powerful, Xperia Z’s specs are suitable and sufficient for technologies at present and in the near future

Despite slim design, wide screen plus high resolution, Xperia Z’s runtime is quite good, mostly thanks to the proprietary Stamina Mode feature that Sony equipped with.

In a small test, Xperia Z had Wi-Fi continuously enabled with GSM/WCDMA/LTE on, pushed mails with Exchange account logged into Facebook, Gmail and installed communication apps – Viber, Whatsapp, Zalo, Line… After one full charge, the 2,330mAh battery ran out of energy after nearly 4h. From 8AM to 2PM, the runtime was reduced by a half. However, when Stamina Mode was activated, Xperia Z could endure until 9PM.

Using Stamina Mode frequently, Xperia Z delivers a runtime of 1-1.5 day, quite good for such a smartphone having strong specs and wide screen.

Technical specs General info ·         2G network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 - C6602, C6603 ·         3G network: HSDPA 850/900/2100 - C6603,   HSDPA 850/900/1700/1900/2100 - C6602 ·         4G network: LTE 800/850/900/1800/2100/2600 - C6603 ·         SIM: Micro-SIM ·         Release date: 2013 January Body ·         Dimension: 139x71x7.9mm ·         Weight: 146g ·         Certificate: IP57 Display ·         Type: TFT capacitive , 16M colors ·         Size: 5in, 1080x1920pixel resolution (441ppi density) ·         Multi-pointing: Yes, 10 points ·         Protection: Anti-scratch glass ·         UI: TimeScape – Mobile Bravia Engine 2 visual technology Sound ·         Notification: Vibration; MP3 ringtones ·         Loudspeakers: Yes ·         3.5mm jack: Yes Memory ·         Card slot: micro-SD (32 GB) ·         Storage: 16GB ·         RAM: 2GB Data ·         GPRS: up to 107kbps ·         EDGE: up to 296kbps ·         Speed: HSDPA, 42Mbps; HSUPA, 5.8Mbps; LTE, Cat3, 50Mbps UL, 100Mbps DL ·         WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot ·         Bluetooth: Yes, v4.0 with A2DP ·         NFC: Yes ·         USB: Yes, micro-USB v2.0 (MHL) Camera ·         Primary: 13.1MP, 4128x3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash ·         Features: Tagging, touch-to-focus, face detection, anti-shake, HDR, Panorama ·         Video: Yes, 1080p@30fps, AF, image stability, HDR ·         Secondary: Yes, 2.2MP, 1080p@30fps Others ·         OS: Android OS, v4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) – upgradable v4.2 (Jelly Bean) ·         Chipset: Qualcomm MDM9215M/APQ8064 ·         CPU: Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait ·         GPU: Adreno 320 ·         Sensor: Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass ·         Message: SMS, MMS, Email, IM, Push Email ·         Browser: HTML5 ·         Radio: Stereo FM radio with RDS ·         GPS: Yes, with A-GPS and GLONASS ·         Java: Yes, via Java MIDP emulator ·         Colors: Black, white and purple ·         Misc.: Social network; TV-out via MHL; A/V link; anti-noise micro; MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player; MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV/FLAC player; document viewer; image browser and editor; voice dial; text prediction Battery ·         Capacity: Li-Ion 2,330mAh (attached inside) ·         Standby: up to 550h (2G)/ up to 530h (3G) ·         Talk: up to 11h (2G)/up to 14h (3G) ·         Music playback: up to 40h