A week with the Sony Xperia Z1...

With almost exactly the same title as my Xperia Z review, does Sony’s update to their flagship phone share such minor changes? The short answer here is a resounding no! Unlike Apple who seeming release what is essentially the same product year in year out, Sony have gone all guns blazing to add as much as they can to make the Z1 a whole new breed.

So what does the new specs sheet look like I hear you ask? Here it is:

Weight

• 169 grams

Dimensions

• 144.4 x 73.9 x 8.5 mm

Battery

• Talk time up to 14 hours, Standby time up to 880 hours

Display

• 5.0 inch Full HD TRILUMINOS™ Display for mobile with X-Reality™

• 16,777,216 colours, 1920x1080 pixels

Inside

• Google Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)

• 2.2 GHz Qualcomm MSM8974 Quad Core

Camera

• 20.7 megapixel camera with Exmor RS® for mobile image sensor

• 2 MP, Exmor R, front facing camera (1080p)

Durability

• Waterproof (IPX5 and IPX8), Dust-resistant (IP5X)

The very first thing I noticed was the incredible build quality. The original Z was certainly no toy, but with the Z1, Sony have built the tempered glass front and back panels around a single piece aluminium frame. From the second I picked this device up it felt like a quality and premium product that's built to last, much higher than any other phone in its class.

Having a closer look at the specs above, the first number that jumps out at you here is the camera. Not only has it jumped from 13MP to a staggering 20.7MP, the Z1 sports Sony’s award winning G Lens and intelligent Bionz image processing engine along with a huge 1/2.3 sensor. All of this allows for absolutely stunning photographs the likes of which I have never seen on a smartphone before, including great low light shots and immensely sharp action shots. I have been blown away by the pictures I have taken so far and I will add some of them to the bottom of this post.

The improvements don’t stop at the camera hardware either, the camera software has been completely revamped too. Superior Auto mode is still the default, and is even more accurate at detecting the scene than on the original Z. It can still have a tendency to produce noisy images in certain situations, especially low light due to it favouring much higher ISO settings for sharper images, but a quick switch over to Manual Mode can let you tweak everything to your heart’s content to get that perfect shot including switching the resolution right up to the maximum 20MP. Superior Auto actually provides an 8MP picture once the image is processed, this allows for some clever camera trickery when it comes to digital zoom. Going as far as 3x zoom in this mode will provide an image with almost the same clarity as a regular photo giving the impression of real optical zoom!

AR Mode

There are a host of new camera options in here too. The first is AR Mode which will generate a live and customizable augmented reality scene in front of you that provides no end of fun, especially when people are in the scene as the face detection will add masks or helmets related to the scenes content. Objects in the scene can be moved around with a simple drag of the finger, and the masks or helmets added to people in the scene can be changed by tapping on them.

Picture Effects

Next is InfoEye, which is a bit like Google Goggles on steroids. In this mode you can take a picture of many objects or landmarks and receive instant Google Now like information. Take a photo of the Eiffel Tower for example and get information on its history and structure. Take a photo of a wine bottle label and get information on the vineyard and what foods it will go best with. This can be done with all sorts of places and products including books, CD’s and even barcodes and QR codes.

Info Eye

The final new app here is Social Live. This can allow you to broadcast video live from your Z1 to Facebook meaning all your friends can join you at that awesome gig or the entire family can be there to see your child’s first steps. Along with this they can also chat and comment with that feed being shown to you on screen too.

Sony have been really smart here and have included API’s for other developers to make extra extensions that can be opened right from the camera app itself, much like Lenses on the Lumia range. Also like Windows Phone, the Z1 has been given a dedicated camera key so the camera can be launched right away without having to unlock the device or even turn the screen on, just hold the camera key for a second and up pops the camera. This also helps for easier photo taking and the ability to take photos underwater!

Video recording has been given a stabilization option which works really well taking all the shakiness out of all your video. I would have liked to see an option for higher frame rates, slow motion or 4K but it is possible these could be added in a software update or even third party apps.

 Camera Modes And Extensions

The Z1 is even more water resistant than the Z and can be taken right down to 1 and a half meters this time. An even more incredible feat here is that with the original Z every port had to be covered with a water proof seal to protect it, but Sony have managed to do away with the seal for the headphone jack making it's much more convenient when listening to music. There are still seals for the rest of the ports but a dock connector is still present for easier charging and this time it’s magnetic too.

The new 3000mAh battery allows for outstanding battery life, especially when Stamina Mode is used and on moderate use the phone could easily stretch 2 or 3 days which is pretty remarkable for a smartphone these days. Even as a heavy user, I have more than managed to see two days through without the need to recharge.

Mini Apps

The display has been improved too and now uses Sony’s Triluminos technology along with the new X-Reality Engine which is a definite improvement over Bravia Engine 2 for mobile that was in the Z. Viewing angles are better but still not as wide as many other phone displays, to which I still ask, why on earth does anyone care? I only ever look at my phone straight on, I have never understood why anyone would need to look at their phone from some stupid angle so this is a complete non-issue for me.

Amongst all this, Sony still keep their Android theme very clean and close to stock Holo which is great. I am not a fan of Samsung and HTC’s over-theming. Also, you can now open more than one Mini App at a time, great for multi-tasking.

My only real disappointment so far is that the Walkman app still shows compilation artists in the list, thus cluttering the artist selection with hundreds of one-offs I really don’t want to see, but to be honest I more often use Play Music or Spotify anyway. I would have also liked to see more handy extras like flipping it over to mute an incoming call or advanced camera features similar to the Galaxy S4/HTC One/Lumia 925 such as Drama/Sequence Shot, Best Face and Object Removal but with Sony’s camera API’s I hope a third party can add these features in later.

In conclusion, anyone that had the first Xperia Z will find the Z1 a vast and brilliant improvement worthy of an upgrade and to anyone new to Sony looking for a great smartphone I simply cannot recommend the Xperia Z1 any more highly. This is a blazingly fast, beautifully designed and feature packed bit of kit worthy of anyone’s pocket.

Here are some of the photos I have taken so far, all of them in Superior Auto mode. I will be adding more soon: (Click to enlarge)

Using 3x Zoom