Sony Xperia Z - Dust is not all.

The Sony Xperia Z is the phone that's set to propel the Japanese firm to the head of the phone charts - and if it went on specs alone, there's a good chance it would manage it.
We're looking at yet another redesign from the Sony design studios - from the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc to the Xperia Z, we've had four iterations of the smartphone aesthetic.
The Sony Xperia Z has been unveiled at CES 2013 claiming to deliver the 'ultimate viewing experience'.
Fitting into this mantra is the 5-inch full HD Reality Display (1080 x 1920) sporting Sony's own Mobile Bravia Engine 2, which uses technology borrowed from its TV range to produce a crisp, vivid display.There's more too, with the Xperia Z the first smartphone (or superphone) from Sony to feature a quad-core processor – clocked at 1.5Ghz and backed up by 2GB of RAM meaning Android 4.1 Jelly Bean should run like a dream.


Round the back is a 13.1MP camera capable of recording 1080p video and a single-LED flash, while on the front is a 2.2MP snapper.
Smartphone staples such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and A-GPS are all present, as is NFC, 4G and a 2330mAh battery.
Sadly the Sony Xperia Z only comes in a 16GB variant, but it does sport a microSD slot to expand on this and, as an added bonus, the handset is dust- and waterproof.
The Xperia Z certainly looks like a stellar device on paper, but the proof as they say, is in the pudding.

It's refreshing to see another top level manufacturer putting the option on there, and especially so when you consider the minimal thickness of the phone too.
As you can imagine, HD video looked simply superb on the expansive screen, and we can see the Xperia Z will be a really decent mobile for movies on the go.
The first phone to perform such a trick is the Sony Xperia E, a more budget offering, but the difference between these two is that the Xperia Z can intelligently decide which apps should be able to communicate and which shouldn't.
The user will have to specify which apps they think should be able to run under the lock screen, for instance Facebook Messenger or Skype, but Sony still thinks that battery standby life could be improved by a large order of magnitude with this new technology.

Early verdict

There's no doubt that Sony has stepped up its game with the Xperia Z. We were pretty unimpressed with the screen quality when we first saw the handset sitting nonchalantly on the table, and if you're not using the phone straight on, then you may not think you're staring at a top-end smartphone.
But that aside, the rest of the device impressed us hugely. From the premium design, the weight and industrial casing and the larger edge-to-edge screen to the high-end Exmor RS sensor and Bravia Engine 2, there's so much that Sony will be able to tout on its marketing literature.
We're getting used to our hands on reviews yielding promising smartphones these days, so we'll reserve a lot of judgment until we get our final review sample in. But based on our early look with the device there's definitely a lot of positivity surrounding it, and the fact that Sony has finally joined the big boys with a powerful smartphone is enough to pique our interest at the very least.