Sony Xperia Z3 review: Overall a great package, but Rs 51,990-pricetag makes it hard to recommend right away Sony had already announced its flagship smartphone – the Xperia Z2 – at this years Mobile World Congress and the units started appearing on the market May onwards. It has been just four months since, and Sony has already announced another flagship device – the Xperia Z3. This is nothing new for Sony, as it had done the same with the Xperia Z2, which was launched five months after the Sony Xperia Z1 launch. But is it really a drastic improvement or just a minor iteration? We will have a look, but first lets look at the build quality. Build and Design Sony Xperia Z3 has made some minor modifications to the build. Instead of having the half-curvature, half-flat design on the edges, Sony has gone with a completely curved design on the edges. While it certainly feels good in the hand, we wished Sony had used a more grippy material instead of the smooth metallic finish. Sure there is the dock connector on the left hand side and the power/standby, volume rocker and dedicated camera shutter buttons on the right edge to break the continuity, but at times the smooth edges paired with the glass back can get slippery. The microSD card slot, the nano SIM slot and the microUSB charging ports are neatly hidden under flaps. Bottom edge is clean and there is a 3.5mm audio jack on the top left hand corner. The aluminum and glass construction exudes elegance. Even the speaker sections which used to peep out from the top and bottom edges on the Z2, have a smaller opening on the Z3 and are located a few millimeters from the edges which is a better implementation than the Z2. It comes with an IP68 certification which as opposed to the IP58 seen on the Z2. IP stands for Ingress Protection and the two numbers indicate dust-resistance and water-resistance. The range for dust resistance is 0 to 6 and that for water resistance is 0 to 9. So the IP68 rating indicates that the phone is fully dust resistant whereas the water-resistance is the same as was seen with the Xperia Z2 which is water resistant over 1 meter and for 30 mins. Features Sony Xperia Z3 sports the same Snapdragon 801 SoC but the quad-core processor is not clocked at 2.5GHz instead of 2.3GHz as was the case with Xperia Z2. Apart from this the Z3 comes with Android 4.4.4 out of the box as opposed to the Z2 which has Android 4.4.2. Barring these two features, most other specifications are pretty much identical on both the Z2 and Z3. While the Sony Xperia Z2 came in just the 16GB variant, the Z3 comes in 16GB as well as 32GB variants. We tested the 16GB variant which offers usable memory of 11.5GB. Some of the similar features include: 3GB RAM, Adreno 330 GPU, 5.2-inch full HD IPS screen, Triluminous display with the X-Reality engine and so on. On the camera front, the Z3 sports the same 20.7MP 1 / 2.3-inch sensor camera with a 2.2MP front facing camera. The rear camera allows you to shoot 4K@30fps, 1080p@60fps and 720p@120fps. The battery capacity on the Z3 is 3100mAh, which is a 100mAh less than that on the Z2. Connectivity and Call quality Sony Xperia Z3 supports quad-band 2G and 3G. Unlike the Xperia Z2, the Z3 will support LTE (4G) in the Indian market. You also get all the connectivity goodies such as Wi-fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, DLNA, GLONASS, assisted GPS, NFC and wireless tethering feature among others. There were no issues with the call quality. The speaker is loud enough and conversations were clearly audible even at high volume levels, with no noticeable distortions. We did not experience any dropped calls while testing, although that depends a lot on the network. Gaming We played a lot of games such as RipTide, FIFA 14, Temple Run 2 and so on and did not face any lag issues. The phone is quite responsive to graphics heavy games, just that it tends to heat up. But things didn’t get so bad that the app would crash altogether. Camera The camera user interface has lots of interesting features such as AR Fun, Multi-cameras, Time-shift video and so on The camera user interface has lots of interesting features such as AR Fun, Multi-cameras, Time-shift video and so on One of the best features on the Xperia Z3 is the camera. Although it is the same 1 / 2.3-inch sensor 20.7MP G sensor seen on its predecessor, Sony has added on a few features on the Z3 to enhance photography. Some of the interesting features include Face in, Multi-camera, AR Fun, Time-shift video, background defocus and so on. Face in allows you to capture yourself (the size of your selfie is adjustable as well) as you are shooting with the rear camera. Multi-camera lets you connect two more smartphones to your Z3 and you can then use the cameras of these two smartphones, along with your own Z3 to shoot from three different angles at the same time. At the launch event, we were told that as of now this feature is available only on the Z3 and Z3 Compact – which means you will need to own the latest smartphones to use this. Sony may have the intention to sell more Z3 handsets with this, but it would be much more practical if the feature is extended to other Sony / non-Sony phones as the communication protocol uses Wi-fi Direct. We hope it is extended to other Xperia branded phones at least.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 03:03:35 +0000
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