GADGETS AND GIZMOS SPECIAL...Sony Xperia Z

Sony Xperia Z 

It Can Take A Dipping

Sony Xperia Z has top-notch specs and a talent for tackling dust and water

HIGHLIGHTS: 1920 x 1080 443 ppi density 5-inch screen with Bravia Engine 2; Shatter-proof glass, waterproof, dust-proof; Quad core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragonn S4 chip with 2GB RAM

Price Rs 38,990.

You wouldn't buy an expensive smartphone because it’s waterproof, but the ability to seal off against dust and water is one of the Xperia Z’s distinctions. It’s also supposed to be more resistant to shattering. This much-hyped smartphone, thought by some to be Sony’s best so far, made an appearance at the Consumer Electr­onics Show in January, and is now available in the market.

What I wouldn’t give to have a good look at the purple version but I have the white and will have to be content with that.
 

The Xperia Z is all perfect straight lines except the very tip of its corners. It’s thin and light, narrow enough to hold easily except that the edges are abrupt and hard. The attempt has been to give it a minimalistic look, so it’s all glass and gloss back and front and the buttons are all subtle except for an unusual stick-out round power button which I rather like as it doesn’t take an effort to feel for it.  It’s got flaps to seal off the sim, micro USB, SD card and even the headphone slots. That way, it can take a dip in water for about 30 minutes, though it’s meant for accidental spills, etc, to pass off without damage.
 

The mono speaker is placed in an odd position and readily gets covered with your finger, especially in landscape mode.
 

There’s NFC capability but not the wireless charging that is so fashionable these days. And that would have been nice as it would have reduced your need to handle the flaps. Oh well.
 

The screen and camera are Sony’s pride and joy on this device. While the colours are sometimes nice, I find there’s very low contrast and when you tilt the phone, the picture gets washed out. In comparison, the HTC Butterfly actually has a spectacular screen.  The screen is however, very high res, and text is clear and sharp on it. The screen in particular has had a very good reception in the US and it’s very smooth and responsive.
 

The camera sports 13 megapixels, which seems to have become the standard for 2013.  But as we all know, megapixels are not all and can even lead to lousy pictures if combined with poor optics. The Z’s camera takes great outdoor pictures with rather nice colours and is feature-rich — I see some of the settings and options from my Sony camera making an appearance here.  It also tries to reduce noise for indoor photos. This will always be at the expense of sharpness unless the lens is bigger, but for casual everyday photos, it’s good enough for most people.  Video recording quality is pretty good.
 

With specs that high, the performance of the Z can hardly be in question. It’s working on Android 4.1 and will soon move up to 4.2. The battery is a 2330 mAh and should have been adequate except that the screen drains it a lot. The Stamina mode is a bit of software trickery that turns off apps and conne­c­tivity when not in use.
 

The Xperia Z really has some tough competition. Coming up is the Galaxy S IV and there’s the recently launched HTC One, to name just two. 

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