It’s a beautiful mobile phone, has a fast processor, a brilliant camera but its astronomical price tag will cause Sony Xperia Z3’s downfall Sony has the reputation of making some of the most beautiful Android phones in the market and the new flagship Z3 lives up to its promise. This sleek phone’s back panel is an all glass piece framed in a beautifully polished metal frame, which is now curvy and settles comfortably in one’s hand. The signature, crown-like, silver power button is retained on the right hand side, along with SD and SIM card slots and volume controls, but the new feature added is a dedicated camera button. One major breakthrough is that the Z3 has managed to shed almost 11 gms of weight compared to the Z2, and that is very good news, as the Z2 used to weigh down on you when held in one’s hand. But by no means is the new Sony smart phone a compact phone, as it has a huge 5.2-inch display and going by latest trends, it is a good thing, as people now seem to want more and more 5-inch plus screens on their phones. The new Xperia continues to flaunt its waterproof DNA and with an IP65/68 rating, the phone can survive easily till the depths of 1.5m for up to 30 minutes. But avoid experimenting with it in salt water. Though the screen won’t work under water, you can still listen to music under the shower or in rain without any trouble. If you are worried that water may trickle into the headphone socket, then have no fear, as that too is waterproof. The phone is dust proof as well.
The display is easily the best aspect of the Z3, with colours literally coming to life. Unlike other phone manufacturers, Sony doesn’t over kill the colours by making them too bright, and as a result they look fairly natural. Text is easy to read, side-viewing angle is impressive and all this is thanks to the Triluminos tech and the X-Reality Engine. With a 1080p resolution and pixel density of 424 ppi, the LCD displays crisp images that are easy on the eyes.
Before I criticise Sony for taking their foot off the gas pedal, the Z3 has a powerful quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 2.5 GHz processor, along with 3 GB of RAM, but this is not the latest chipset that other premium Android phones are using, which have moved on to the Snapdragon 805 with 2.5GHz. In reality, the performance difference is so slight that you might not even know the difference, but it’s more about paying a lot of money and not getting the state-of-the art technology in your latest phone. To be fair though, even with the Snapdragon 801, you can multi-task and play the most engaging games on the Z3 and it will run without a hitch.
The Z3’s 20.7MP rear camera comes with many different features that will push your creative skills to the limits. The X-Reality mode makes the images richer and more vibrant. But the actual brilliance of this mode can be visually appreciated when the pictures are viewed on a bigger screen. For all those who love overkill effect photos, there is the Super-Vivid mode, which adds the bling flavor, but the photo’s details get slighted. For using the complete 20.7 MP resolution though, you have to use the camera in manual mode. If you choose the auto mode then it comes down to 8 MP resolution, but the photo quality does not suffer as the additional shooting modes come to its aid. The Z3’s camera is especially superior to most of its rivals when it comes to shooting in low light.
The Xperia series phones have been very stylish, are equipped with a great camera, but somehow Sony has not been able to convince customers that the high price is justified. Priced at 51,990, the Japanese electronic giant will again have a tough time justifying the steep price tag, even though as their flagship phone, the Z3 gets almost everything right.
