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Xperia Z/ZL |OT| Experience the best of Sony in a smartphone

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
$759.99 for ZL. :/

Hopefully it will get discounted by retailers like Amazon. Should have been $599.

Well, its not a volume play at either price, so they probably figured anyone willing to pay $600 will pay the $760. Very few people would pay either amount.
 
Ok so my O2 (UK) contract is up for renewal TODAY, it's been 8 hours and I haven't ordered an upgrade to my handset yet, what the hell???

Love the looks of the Xperia Z, coming from an HTC One X, battery life is something I'm looking for a significant improvement in.

Any anecdotes from new users on their experiences of the battery life for this handset?
 
Ok so my O2 (UK) contract is up for renewal TODAY, it's been 8 hours and I haven't ordered an upgrade to my handset yet, what the hell???

Love the looks of the Xperia Z, coming from an HTC One X, battery life is something I'm looking for a significant improvement in.

Any anecdotes from new users on their experiences of the battery life for this handset?

It starts off average, but then improves after a few cycles and the stamina mode is very good.
 
It starts off average, but then improves after a few cycles and the stamina mode is very good.

Stamina mode looks interesting, whitelisting certain apps would actually be useful.

It's coming down to either the Z, the HTC One (think it's going to have similar battery life issues) or the S4.

S4 is allegedly out in the UK on the 26th, I just don't know if I can hold out and not order a new phone for that long! I can have the Z noooooowwwwww.....

I had an S2 before and my other half has an S3, replaceable battery is always useful but I think I need a break from both Touchwiz and Sense, the Z might make a nice alternative.

I've got the order/upgrade page open in front of me, should I push the button or not, hmmmm.....
 

darkwing

Member
I wish Stamina Mode/whitelisting apps was present in other phones (like mine) lol

it's driving me crazy which app is causing wakelocks on mine
 

Mario007

Member
Stamina mode looks interesting, whitelisting certain apps would actually be useful.

It's coming down to either the Z, the HTC One (think it's going to have similar battery life issues) or the S4.

S4 is allegedly out in the UK on the 26th, I just don't know if I can hold out and not order a new phone for that long! I can have the Z noooooowwwwww.....

I had an S2 before and my other half has an S3, replaceable battery is always useful but I think I need a break from both Touchwiz and Sense, the Z might make a nice alternative.

I've got the order/upgrade page open in front of me, should I push the button or not, hmmmm.....

I can honestly speak that after using Sony's UI (on Gingerbread and ICS) I can never really go back. The changes they make are non-intrusive and yet they make the UI look a bit more classy and useful. It's the reason why I haven't put a CM10 on my Arc S, I don't want to lose that Sony skin.

Also, as far as I can tell there is very little between the S4 and Z. For the look alone (I like my phones/tablets/game consoles to look nice) I'd go with Z. Also waterproofing is always a bonus. As an aside since you're in the UK you'll also gain access to the PSM ecosystem, something you wouldn't have on the S4.
 
Stamina mode looks interesting, whitelisting certain apps would actually be useful.

It's coming down to either the Z, the HTC One (think it's going to have similar battery life issues) or the S4.

S4 is allegedly out in the UK on the 26th, I just don't know if I can hold out and not order a new phone for that long! I can have the Z noooooowwwwww.....

I had an S2 before and my other half has an S3, replaceable battery is always useful but I think I need a break from both Touchwiz and Sense, the Z might make a nice alternative.

I've got the order/upgrade page open in front of me, should I push the button or not, hmmmm.....

Well with stamina mode the Z will have battery life well ahead of the One, but possibly not as good as the GS4 which has a bigger battery. It also depends on which version of the GS4 the UK gets, if it is the Exynos one then the Z battery life will be competitive, if it is the SD600 version then the GS4 will win out.

The Z is a very nice device and it will get 4.2.2 quite soon. It also has support in flashtool so if you want to flash an unbranded firmware onto it you can do that also which is harder with Samsung and very tough with HTC.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Such a frustrating situation. How is it that Sony hasn't been able to make a single carrier deal in the United States for the Z? Oh well...
 

SolidPain

Neo Member
I got a white Z yesterday. I am really liking it so far. It is a huge upgrade from my galaxy nexus. The screen is gorgeous although the viewing angles are not that good but it doesn't bother me at all. The thing that really surprised me was the design and build quality. The phone is damn sexy. I have already seen tons of pictures of it but using one makes you appreciate the design philosophy that Sony is using with its smartphones.
 

Mokubba

Member
Well with stamina mode the Z will have battery life well ahead of the One, but possibly not as good as the GS4 which has a bigger battery. It also depends on which version of the GS4 the UK gets, if it is the Exynos one then the Z battery life will be competitive, if it is the SD600 version then the GS4 will win out.

The Z is a very nice device and it will get 4.2.2 quite soon. It also has support in flashtool so if you want to flash an unbranded firmware onto it you can do that also which is harder with Samsung and very tough with HTC.

So is the exynos all marketing hype then because I heard it's meant to switch to the A7 cpu for light tasks to save battery and the A15 for demanding tasks.

Is the SD600 just better?
 

Yasir

Member
Having problems with something called 'exchange services' on the battery usage screen. It using a higher percentage of battery than the display. Though it was the auto-synch'd emails, but i've now set them to manual and it's still appearing. Not really causing an amazing about of battery damage (still easily getting through a day with 3.5 hours screen on time).

Anyone have any ideas?
 
Having problems with something called 'exchange services' on the battery usage screen. It using a higher percentage of battery than the display. Though it was the auto-synch'd emails, but i've now set them to manual and it's still appearing. Not really causing an amazing about of battery damage (still easily getting through a day with 3.5 hours screen on time).

Anyone have any ideas?

Just disable it from accessing background data.
 

Jeels

Member
Do we know when the XL will be available to look at in Sony stores? If I'm dropping that much money I want to see it first.
 
Such a shame no good video player has DTS support, the codecs for MX player didn't work and altough BSplayer supports DTS audio, it keeps crashing.
 

Chinner

Banned
just reading the XDA forums, looks like pictures taken in burst mode have noticeably better picture quality than those taken normally.

normal:
_normalsbyfg.jpg
burst:

normal:

burst:

maybe it's a software bug or something to do with the processing, but it does show that the camera on Z has potential at least.
 
Yup, which is also supported by the fact that SP and L don't seem to have been announced for the US at all.

It' tough to break into the US with the carriers imposing terms, Samsung spending huge amount of money on advertising and Apple having its very loyal cult of followers. Concentrating on Asia and Europe is right. In fact I'd argue Sony should concentrate on China before it looks to US.

Not sure about concentrating on China first, but they definitely shouldn't bend over and let carriers have their way.

I think Sony basically wants

- No carrier branding. Look on your iphone or Samsung phone, it doesn't matter where you get it from, there's no carrier branding there
- No carrier bloated software/apps. Easier to control your SW and to upgrade the OS

If the product is good enough and sought after, like the iphone and galaxy, then carriers will give in, if they are not like previous xperia phones, then they won't.
 

Polari

Member
Not sure about concentrating on China first, but they definitely shouldn't bend over and let carriers have their way.

I think Sony basically wants

- No carrier branding. Look on your iphone or Samsung phone, it doesn't matter where you get it from, there's no carrier branding there
- No carrier bloated software/apps. Easier to control your SW and to upgrade the OS

If the product is good enough and sought after, like the iphone and galaxy, then carriers will give in, if they are not like previous xperia phones, then they won't.

Samsung had to take it up until the S3. Hell, they had to make different variants for each carrier. I don't know if Sony are bold/dumb enough to make these sort of demands yet.
 
maybe the post processing is adding to much blur to the images? could explain why the burst are more detailed as no pp is applied? just guesses really

It's the noise reduction. Sony's SLR's suffer from this also, you can't set the NR to off so the RAW files are a lot better.
 
That's just embarrassing. They don't need to port software from their cameras, they just need to disable whatever they're doing to these images.
 
Such a shame no good video player has DTS support, the codecs for MX player didn't work and altough BSplayer supports DTS audio, it keeps crashing.

iirc, an Android Video Player dev (don't remember which one) reached out and tried to license the DTS codec and got a response saying they only dealt with OEMs




Not sure about concentrating on China first, but they definitely shouldn't bend over and let carriers have their way.

I think Sony basically wants

- No carrier branding. Look on your iphone or Samsung phone, it doesn't matter where you get it from, there's no carrier branding there
- No carrier bloated software/apps. Easier to control your SW and to upgrade the OS

If the product is good enough and sought after, like the iphone and galaxy, then carriers will give in, if they are not like previous xperia phones, then they won't.

Even Sam Sung was forced to ... "can you hear me now?"

MXHSpNA.jpg


"good!"
 

vivftp

Member
Anyone out there able to do some comparison shots between the Xperia Z or ZL in burst mode vs. other top end smartphone cameras out there? Maybe even toss in normal mode for comparisons sake. I'm very curious to see just how good it is vs. the competition in this mode.
 
I can give confirmation ita coming to bell. Not sure about screen variation or possible subsidies, looking into it now...
I think I believe what bbq said about all the ZLs having the good screen. I saw someone on xda post a comparison and it was visible there. I think it might be true for all of them.

Coming with s600 is probably too good to be true though :p
 

vivftp

Member
Why is it $100 cheaper than the US one?

Well that variant of the ZL on the sony.ca site is locked to Rogers, so maybe that's why. Is the US one unlocked?

As for carriers of the ZL, Sony confirmed the following carriers would have it - Bell, Mobilicity, MTS, Rogers, Videotron and WIND Mobile.

So painful to skip over the ZL... but I'll endure on and see what's around the corner in 2H. Still, can't wait until I can play with it in stores, and I have no doubt that ONE of my friends will eventually get it so I can have some fun with it then
 

LOZLINK

Member
Ayo, I'm about to pull the trigger on this for a 1 year contract. Htc One isn't released here. Am I gonna get a good phone?
 
Ayo, I'm about to pull the trigger on this for a 1 year contract. Htc One isn't released here. Am I gonna get a good phone?
yep

I really want to try out the ZL already. I assume Bell stores don't have them out. If estimate ship date for Rogers is April 2nd...how far can it be.
 

Wads

Banned
Well, its not a volume play at either price, so they probably figured anyone willing to pay $600 will pay the $760. Very few people would pay either amount.

They figured wrong then. I would pay 600. 760 absolutely not. With tax that is over 800...
 
Picked one up this morning, very impressed :)

Also loving how easy it is to move to a new handset with Android nowadays, all my contacts, email, RSS & SMS via my Google Account, alll my photos from my dropbox folder, most of my music from the Amazon MP3 cloud locker etc etc...

Connected to the wi-fi at work, all back up and running within an hour.

Handset itself is rather nice although I did get distracted by seeing the Nexus 4 in the wild for the first time. Battery is currently getting battered by all the downloads I'm doing, screen v. nice (off-angle issues are there but don't seem to be much of an issue), apps are good, Sony skin is nice and unobtrusive.

Think we might have a winner here!
 
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