Sony Xperia ZL Review (Video)

Android

First a shout out to Sony for sending us the phone to review!

SPECS:

IN THE BOX:

The box nice and simple and very much resembles the box of the HTC One (or I guess the other way around since the Xperia ZL launched first).  Inside the box you’ll first be greeted by the nice and compact 5 incher.  Beneath that you’ll find your usual USB cord, charging plug, headphones, and user manuals/quick start guides.  Nothing really out of the ordinary but still very nicely and neatly put together.

DESIGN:

When Sony first unveiled the Xperia ZL, one of the things that they really emphasized was just how compact it is for having a 5″ display and when you first pick it up that’s something you’ll definitely notice.  It really doesn’t feel like a large phone at all yet it’s got an amazing 5″ reality display for all your viewing pleasure.

The front of the device is really nice and clean.  It is, of course, dominated by the screen and there are no capactive or physical buttons (which helps in making it so compact).  Beyond the ear piece and the “Sony” logo, there’s really not a lot to be seen which makes it simply look very sleek.  The sensors are there but are relatively hidden and the front facing camera is tucked in at the bottom right.  There’s also a nice notification light at the bottom that lights up with several different colours.  Of all the different notification lights on phones, this is probably the most elegant I’ve seen.

If you were to take a tour around the edges of the device you’ll find your microUSB port on the left edge, the 3.5mm headphone jack on the top, and your volume rocker, power button, and dedicated camera button on the right edge, and a little slot for attaching straps or little phone danglies on the bottom left.  The right edge also houses the infrared sensor but that’s not something you’ll be able to see.

On the back of the device you’ll find your 13MP camera with flash, your speaker, and a flap that opens up to house your micoSD card and micro SIM card.  There’s also a rest button tucked in beneath the flap in case you ever need to force a reset.  The back of the device is slightly curved which, again, makes it a little bit more ergonomical.  However, it’s made out of a textured plastic that feels rather flimsy and rather cheap and it’s not removable at all.

Overall the design is pretty well put together and pretty well thought out.  The button placement is really good, especially for right handed users.  Everything you need is within reach since they’re all along the same edge.  The inclusion of a dedicated camera button is also a major plus and the little slot for a strap is kind of cool just because I haven’t seen one of those since my feature phone days.

Although there are several good aspects, I do have some qualms about it.  Beginning at the front of the device, the glass seemed to get extra dirty.  I’m not sure if this was just me or if others are seeing this too but it seemed to attract dust and fingerprints more than normal.  Secondly front facing camera is in a very unusual and, in my opinion, non practical place.  Majority of people are right handed and when you hold your phone with your right hand you’ll  generally be covering up some or all of the camera sensor.  So if you’re planning to video chat or take pictures with that front facing camera you’ll need to re-position to do so.  Also, the fact that the camera is at the bottom makes video chatting rather strange as you appear to always be looking above the phone rather than at the screen/person.  Minor annoyances but to me valid complaints.

The back of the device also bothered me some.  The textured plastic feels very cheap.  Plastic in general does feel cheap but this feels extra cheap for some reason and for a flagship device, I don’t “cheap” is something you want associated with it.  Secondly, while I’m not opposed to using plastic for the back, why not make it removable so that the battery can be replaced.  The majority of the phones that have non-removable batteries need to go that route due to the material choice or decision to go with a uni-body design.  This phone however seems like it could easily have had a removable back given the design and material choice yet they chose to lock it in.  I just don’t quite understand the rationale.

SOFTWARE:

While companies like Samsung and HTC like to really change up the Android UI, Sony keeps things a little bit closer to the stock look while still making it unique.  Your main home pages are pretty standard but Sony has added some unique widgets and added some additional functionality to those widgets.  Most widgets do have some functionality and will open up their respective applications.  Sony’s own widgets, however, when clicked will open up into a larger window so that you can further interact with them.  For example, when I click on the weather widget it’ll open up in a window to show me the forecast and then close once I click aside.

Another slight difference with Sony’s UI is that the widgets are accessed through a long press on the screen rather than in the app drawer.  This isn’t something unique to Sony necessarily as HTC implements a similar method for widgets.  I’m not sure which I prefer (in the app drawer or on the home pages) but it’s something to note nonetheless.  Something strange that I noticed with the home page setup was that the widgets and shortcuts don’t automatically rearrange.  This is a standard feature in Android 4.1 so that means Sony actively disabled it.  Very strange and actually a bit annoying.

The app drawer itself is fairly simple.  You have your typical horizontal scrolling which can be arranged by alphabetical, most used, recently installed, or your own order.  You can also make folders in the app drawer if you choose to sort it by your own order.

One of the most unique features and the one customization I really liked with Sony’s UI was their recently used applications area.  On the one hand it’s very straight forward as you have your list of open apps that can be swipe away to close.  However, at the bottom of that area you have a bar that houses your “small apps.”  Small apps is essentially Sony’s method of multitasking.  When you open up a small app, that particular app will open up in a small window that can be re-sized and moved around.  In my opinion, this is the best implementation of multitasking on any manufacturer UI.  There are quite a few additional “small apps” that you can purchase through the app store and hopefully this list will continue to grow.  The only real downside to this feature is that it is currently limited and only one can be opened at a time but I still really like it.

One other thing I liked with Sony’s UI were their own version of standard apps such as the gallery or music player.  Their apps were very clean and elegant and I was especially very fond of the gallery app.  It was easy to navigate and you could easily pinch to zoom within the gallery to see more or less pictures at a smaller or larger size respectively.  It just worked really well in my opinion.

Overall, Sony’s UI is well put together and I really like that it keeps to your more traditional Android look.  It’s elegant and easy to use and they include some quick toggles in the notification area!! Yes, I’m looking right at you HTC!  However, they too are missing the option to access your notification bar from full screen apps however I did end up finding an app to add that functionality (it’s called Smart Statusbar in case you’re interested!).

PERFORMANCE:

For the most part, the Sony device performs very well.  Things are smooth and there’s no lag in the UI at all.  However, it’s definitely a step slower than the latest flagship devices in the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.  The biggest reason for this is that the Xperia ZL is running a now previous generation chip in the Snapdragon S4 Pro whereas the competition is running the newer Snapdragon 600 switch.

You notice the difference in performance when opening apps and loading different things.  It’s not slow by any means but when you compare the two side by side there’s definitely a difference.   Games still ran great and ran smoothly but they took a little bit longer to load compared to the other flagship devices.

Battery life on the ZL was a little bit disappointing.  The battery size is nearly the same as the HTC One yet I had a lot more trouble getting through a day with the ZL than I did with the One.  What makes that news even worse is that I definitely used the ZL less throughout the day than I did when I was using the One simply because I was actually using the One as my daily phone whereas the ZL was a secondary phone due to it being on another network.  I’m pretty sure that if it were my daily driver I would have had to charge it even earlier in the day.

CAMERA:

Sony’s cameras have always been great and the 13MP camera on the Sony Xperia ZL is no exception.  Pictures were great and colours were very accurate.  It did fairly well in low light shots too.  Better than my Note II but not quite as good as the HTC One.  The dedicated button also helps in taking pictures as it’s that much easier to keep still since you’re not tapping the device to take the picture

The camera interface itself is well put together and it looks very clean.  The two things I liked most in the camera interface were the “Superior Auto” mode and the “Picture Effects.”  The superior auto is just an advanced version of your normal auto settings.  It will actually change the shooting mode for you based on the lighting conditions and what you’re shooting.  For example, if i move up close to an object it’ll take me into a macro mode.  If I’m in a poorly lit area it’ll automatically take me into a night mode or low light mode.  It really is a superior auto mode of shooting pictures.

The “Picture Effects” are cool because they give you a preview of all 9 effects at the same time rather than needing to jump from effect to effect like most other camera UI’s.  It simply makes it a little bit easier to decide which effect you want to use.

The other nice camera feature that they’ve built into their UI is a quick shot option.  What that feature does is takes a picture via swiping one of the bars on the lock screen.  It simply helps in ensuring you don’t miss that special shot!

CONCLUSION:

The Sony Xperia ZL is undoubtedly Sony’s best offering to come to Canada to date.  It’s their best hardware and best software for any phone I’ve used from their camp.  However it’s going to have a tough time with the current competition because it’s essentially now running last years hardware.  If you pair it up against the Optimus G, S3 and One X+ it definitely holds its own but against the S4, and One it looks, well, dated.

The one thing that could have really helped Sony out in staying competitive against the current line of phones is to have not launched this phone at all and launched the Xperia Z instead.  While the Xperia Z and ZL are nearly identical, The Xperia Z definitely has a huge upper hand in the design department with it’s glass front and back design.  Plus it’s waterproof/dustproof and, to me, that feature alone could sway buyers to the Sony camp.

Again, this is not to say that it’s a bad phone, it’s a great phone.  But when you put it up against the competition and even against it’s own co-flagship device, it doesn’t feel like to matches up well.

From what I’ve been reading online Sony could have a killer phone on the way and my hope is that they release just one flagship this next time so that we’re not left wishing we had the other instead.

 

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