Sony Xperia Z Review Update & Camera Samples.

First off, I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who read, re-posted and commented on my last blog post, it saw nearly two thousand views and I got some great responses that I just was not expecting! The fact that many more people than I anticipated are taking the time to read my ramblings inspires me to write more so a big thanks to all of you once again.

Ok so onto the topic. I have had my Xperia Z for a while now, long enough to really get to know the device, delve deep and really put it through it's paces and with that I wanted to write another post with a few details about the phone I have learnt since my initial review as a kind of mini update.

Something that has continued to impress me is the camera, I have taken some great shots and I wanted to post some here for you to judge for yourself which I will add at the bottom of the post. My greatest passion outside of technology is skateboarding and taking pictures of sports is always a tricky task with a phone. The burst mode on the Z can take some great rapid shots, but I found them to be of a slightly lower quality when the subject is moving fast. Instead I have discovered by accident a way to take pictures very quickly that takes very clear and sharp photos that I haven’t seen written about elsewhere. I discovered that holding down on the capture button sets up the focus and I can keep it held until I eventually let go and it will take a photo instantaneously which makes timing a shot at that crucial point so much easier.

Also just as impressive is the battery life. In my last post, I tried to dismiss other reviews for slating the battery in the Z and I still stand by that. I have been using the phone without Stamina Mode enabled recently as it disables LED notifications. I expected the battery life to take a hit as a result but I have to say it lasts just as long on a full charge as it did before and that's with having it connected to a bluetooth Smartwatch all day, and bluetooth headphones for a good portion of the day too.

USB Connections

Another great and less written about feature is the ability to mount SD cards as Mass Storage when connected to another device, such as a PC. Android's MTP connection is great in most cases, being able to continue using the phone and access files while connected to a computer is handy, but I have found it to be a lot slower than Mass Storage which can be a pain when moving lots of data at once, which I often do with music as I have a lot of it. I have recently bought a 64GB SD card to be able to hold my entire library and the ability to mount this as Mass Storage instead of MTP while it’s still in the phone makes it a great deal easier than taking it out and using the memory card reader on my laptop. This also gives the device better compatibility with Mac's, TV's and car kits that do not support MTP connections.

Eventually Loads

Missing Album Art

Staying with music, I come to the only new criticism I have with the device. I have been using Google Play Music for the best part of nearly two years since its launch. It’s great, I have all my music in the cloud, can access it anywhere, any time and download it to any device for offline use when needed. The app for Play Music is also great and with the possible exception of the slightly stale UI, as a music player, it’s perfect. After getting a 64GB SD card and having all my music on the phone locally, I have given Sony's Walkman app a try as it works better with the music controls on my Smartwatch. The app looks beautiful and from the outset works fairly well, this however is where the praise will end. The app often seems to forget how much music I have and shows that I have -1 tracks, albums and artists, and then later on it will randomly decide to show me the real numbers. If I choose the shuffle all option, it can often take ages to load album art for the next tracks so if I skip ahead a few songs, I'm left with a large portion of the screen as blank for a few seconds until it eventually loads the artwork. Something that really annoys me is that the app includes artists from compilations in the artist list, which clutters it up with hundreds of one-off artists and mixed artists that I don't need to see, making it much more difficult to select music by that category. Another thing that annoys me is that pressing the back button on the phone just exits the app rather than going to the previous screen as there is another back button within the app itself and this often leads me to close the app by accident. The absolute worst thing about the app though is that it does not support gap-less playback. That on it's own is just simply unacceptable for a music player from a company that many would consider to be pioneers in portable music. I really hope Sony can address these issues in an update as I would like to continue using the app but for now I have gone back to Google Play Music.

Incorrect Library Information 

All in all though I’m still incredibly impressed with this phone and even with spending lots of time playing with the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One at work, the Xperia Z still comes out on top for me and I still recommend it to anyone looking at a new phone right now. It's incredibly reliable and works flawlessly each and every time i need it.

So here are some of the camera samples for those interested, all have been taken with the Superior Auto mode and are completely unedited. Click to see larger images:

Hope you enjoyed this post and I have some non Xperia Z related stuff coming soon as i fear that lately I'm just running this into a Sony blog! For now though, tech off.