Review: Sony Xperia Z

Key Specs

Processor: Qualcomm MDM9215M / APQ8064, Quad-core @ 1.5 GHz
Storage - Internal: 16Gb
Storage - External: Up to 32Gb via MicroSD
RAM: 2Gb
Battery: 1800 mAh
Camera: 13 Megapixels
Camera - Front: 2.2 Megapixels

First Impressions

The Sony Xperia Z looks incredible in photos. The specs that look awesome on paper. The phone, itself, is less fabulous than the combination of its looks and specs would lead you to believe, though. As is often the case with Sony products, there are one or two sore points so egregious that they end up holding the entire product back, almost unfairly.

I was very excited when I received my review unit of the Xperia Z, having slobbered over press photos, and read the stories about how this was Sony going "all in" to rescue their position as a premium handset maker. This time, the story goes, Sony was going to get it all right, and really impress us with their combination of top-tier internals and stunning hardware design.

Having been personally burned by last generation's Xperia S and the cute but egregiously underpowered Xperia Sola I wanted to believe that the Z was the comeback story that Sony has needed. However, I don't think the truth is as generous as that.

First of all, this much ballyhooed waterproof design is a major annoyance. There may have been some double-digit number of marine life experts loudly demanding a top-end waterproof phone, but I have doubts that this feature was actually requested or wanted by many members of the general public. Sure, it'd be a fine assurance to have if there weren't such a steep cost to the convenience of the device, but due to the phone being waterproof, all of the ports (including your most-used ports such as headphones and USB port) are covered by fiddly little rubber plugs with precariously attached glass facades on top to make them blend with the rest of the phone's all-glass design. They are beyond annoying, and I have no doubt that the glass top layer on these plugs will eventually fall off with repeated use. The glass layer also makes them difficult to get a finger under, when you want access. It's just not worth it, when you realize you'll need to do this multiple times a day.

Secondly, the fact that the entire phone is covered in glass goes beyond stylish to obnoxious. I can deal with a LG Nexus 4 because A) The glass is only on the front and back, B) The sides are comfortable to grip and C) The glass on the Nexus 4 is very smooth and smudge-resistant. On the Xperia Z, the phone is very wide, very tall, very thin, and covered by glass back, front, top, bottom, left, and right edges. It feels just awful to hold. Almost unfinished. The glass on the sides is particularly uncomfortable as it cuts into the hand. It doesn't look so good outside of glossy human-free product photos, because it smudges up and gets grimy almost instantly. Do you really want to be wiping down all six surfaces of your giant glass-encased phone on a regular basis?

Interface

The interface of Sony's current-generation phones is something I'm starting to take issue with. As far as customized versions of Android go, I have always found Sony's flavor to be tasteful, though not particularly superior to stock. However, the looks of Sony's UI have not changed significantly since it was targeting ~480x840 pixel devices, with a PPI of ~250. Taking those same elements and simply increasing the image fidelity of them to suite a screen that is 1080x1920 at 441 PPI -- it doesn't work so well. You can tell these elements were designed to look good at significantly smaller size and pixel density. Mind you, I'm not saying the UI is up-sampled or pixelated. It has been refreshed to take advantage of the new monster screen, but the fact remains that it was designed for something smaller and less detailed, so looking at it on a Z, there's a strange impression that the interface has yawning chasms of blank space and an overall lack of detail.

Battery Life

Also, battery life isn't good. I'm not sure what kinds of tests people ran to achieve the quoted, "11 hours" of talk time, but I don't use my phones for talking very often. Mostly I use them for gaming, web browsing, email, and checking my calendar. With that combination of activities, I was only able to get about 4 hours out of the Xperia Z before it was demanding to be charged again. I can't imagine that working out well for anyone's schedule. I believe that device makers need to embrace the fact that users are increasingly using their phones for screen-on activities -- we need bigger batteries built in, even if it means going back to thicker phones. Nobody has been demanding extremely thin phones, but we have all been begging for more potent batteries for years.

What about the Camera?

The camera in the Xperia Z takes big 13 Megapixel photos, like most members of the upcoming generation. But unfortunately, the quality of them is only on par with the photos I have taken with my 8 Megapixel Galaxy S3, and the customized camera software is not very user-friendly or accessible. I much prefer the interface inovations that Google's stock camera on the Nexus 4 provides, over the larger size of the Xperia Z's photos.

Specs-wise, with the Z hitting benchmarks at about the same place as the much-cheaper Nexus 4 (and in light of the other issues I've listed) I continue to admire the design goals of the Xperia Z, and I applaud Sony's efforts to up the build quality of their already-attractive devices, I don't think it's a good choice for comfortable daily use.

Though I'm noticing the reviews seem to favor the Z elsewhere on the 'net, I would actually recommend the slightly cheaper ZL over the Z if you're dead-set on a new Sony Xperia phone. It has the same specs, the same great screen, no waterproof-necessary port covers to contend with, and a textured back that at least removes some of the discomfort of holding the device.

Rating

Build Quality: 6/10
Screen: 9/10
Camera: 9/10
Processor Power: 9/10
Battery: 4/10
OS / Software: 7/10

Overall: 7.3/10

Update: Meizu MX2 Upgrade to Flyme OS 2.2 Brings Bug Fixes

Just a couple days ago I reviewed the Meizu MX2, and though extremely positive, I sited the unusual combination of onscreen "back" and "menu" + hardware home button as an unfortunate cause of bugs in some of my preferred apps like Rdio, and Twitter's official client.

Literally the morning after publishing my review, I received a push update to the newest version of Flyme OS, 2.2, in which the behavior of the onscreen hardware buttons seems to have been greatly improved. I am no longer experiencing as much broken compatibility, due to them. Also the vertical height of the status bar at the top of the home screen seems to have been reduced to a normal size, which may also be helping compatibility with apps.

Furthermore, I am now experiencing much smoother performance, overall. Though the prior Flyme was already based on Jellybean, I'm now really feeling the "Jellybean" smoothness that so many other Android users are familiar with.

Due to this update, the Meizu MX2 has become an even better choice for a small, powerful Android device, in my assessment. Even though not officially released in English-speaking countries, I think this is one of the best English-language Android phones of the current device generation. Though not stock Android, by a long way, I love the device so much, I think of it like a tiny Nexus 4 with more storage and otherwise very similarly impressive performance.

Review: The Meizu MX2

Key Specs

Processor: "M5XS" Quad-Core, 1.6Ghz
Storage - Internal: 16Gb, 32Gb, 64Gb, Formatted FAT32 (So unlike most versions of Jellybean and ICS, this will mount on Mac and Linux without needing any special tools for MTP)
Storage - External: None
RAM: 2Gb
Battery: 1800 mAh
Camera: 8 Megapixels
Camera - Front: 720P

The Meizu MX2 is a boat I almost missed. Meizu released the MX, the MX 4-Core, and MX2 in rapid succession. I recall reading lukewarm reviews of the MX, which was generally accepted as an "iPhone Clone" from a Chinese manufacturer nobody had heard of at the time. The MX 4-Core got dinged in review for poor battery life.

But what about the MX2? I looked around the web a couple months after the product's launch, and English-language coverage has been sparse. Largely, what you'll find are Russian-language unboxings (the MX2 launched in Russia, as well as China), Chinese press releases in a variety of translations, and a few English-language blogs whose focus on China led them to dutifully report the existence of the MX2, but not much beyond that.

Having used the MX2 for about a week now, I feel it deserves better coverage. This is not at all a half-hearted "iPhone clone." The MX2 shows an extremely impressive passion for hardware and software details, rivaling and in many cases exceeding the bar set by much larger players in the market. I can genuinely say, having tested them all, that the Meizu MX2 is a better choice than any Sony Xperia device that has been released recently, as well as most of Samsung's lineup. Yes, even for English-speakers.

First Impressions

The retail box of the MX2 is stunning. It's a spare, spacious design with a full-color instruction booklet and a really well-crafter fold-out white cardboard interior that houses the device itself, as well as the SIM card tools, and a very sturdy, attractive white USB cable. There is nothing cluttered or cheap-looking about this package, and yet the whole thing is recyclable, so it gets eco-points as well as style points.

Prying the back off the MX2 is harder than it probably should be, such that it requires a special tool packed in with the handset, and fair amount of patience. You've got to use a little plastic nub to depress a metal pin on the lower left side of the phone to unlock the back before carefully using the same plastic tool to edge around the corners of the plastic backing until it finally comes free. At no point in this process does the phone feel like it's going to break -- if anything, the sturdiness of the backing and the device make this process even harder, especially when compared to the ease of popping off the back of a Galaxy SIII, or using the SIM tool of a Nexus 4 to eject the tray.

However, I don't fault Meizu for this, because most users will only do this once or twice, with years between. It's not a deal-breaker. The positive spin is, "this phone is damn sturdy."

And it feels that way when you hold it, too. My favorite thing about the MX2 is the feel of it in my hand -- the width, height, and weight are all ideal. Far from the current craze for bigger, and bigger handsets, the MX2 is like a slightly wider version of an iPhone 5. GSM Arena lists the proportions as 4.92 x 2.56 x 0.40 in, though I have not measured myself. All I can say is that holding this is way more comfortable than holding a Galaxy SIII or a Nexus 4, but with a comparable screen resolution, the pixel density is awesome. To the eye, it looks as good as the screen of a Sony Xperia Z.

Setup

Many sites list the Meizu MX2 as being only compatible with GSM 900 / 1800, and HSDPA 2100, which would mean that it is narrowly compatible with AT&T in the United States, and any secondary carriers riding on AT&T towers, but not T-Mobile for anything but 2G. This is the sad state of affairs for many of the Sony devices I've been sent to review. However, the information is innaccurate, and based on Meizu targeting marketing text to Chinese users of the device, and calling out the popular frequencies of their home turf as selling points.

In fact, the Meizu MX2 is a full pentaband device, capable of excellent HSPA+ speeds on T-Mobile, 3G, and Edge. This device is just as ready for T-Mobile as the Nexus 4.

Another area of confusion is that some reviewers call this out as requiring an adapter to use micro-SIM. That's not true. They're mistaking the packed-in cutting template for an adapter. In fact, the Meizu MX2 uses the micro-SIM standard, and needs no adapter to do so.

Turning on the Meizu MX2, I was surprised that English language was a prominent option on the very first screen. After selecting that, setup was very easy, and there were no strangely translated phrases or broken UI due to the use of English on the device. This localization is extremely good -- the best I have ever seen on a Chinese device.

After booting up for the first time, users are prompted to start a "Flyme Account" for purposes of calendar sync, data backup, and app store purchases. I skipped the step since Google services are readily available in the US. (Though later I did come back to it and set up a Flyme account, because I was curious.)

The Google Play market is pre-installed on the MX2, so it's not hard to download any of the other Google apps you prefer to use. I added Gmail, Calendar, Blogger, Voice. Google Maps is pre-installed. I've read other reviews which sited glitches with searching in Gmail on this device, however, those issues must have been addressed in the past couple months because I have been using the Gmail app for work, and personal communication, and have full access to all the app's features.

I'm very happy that all of Google's apps seem to work flawlessly on the Meizu MX2. As a user in the United States, I was concerned that I might not have access to the services I rely on, but the opposite has been true. Even 'Google Now' works exactly as expected on the MX2.

What's a "Flyme?"

Flyme OS 2.0 is the installed OS on the MX2, and is a heavily customized version of Android 4.1 Jellybean (currently). Basically, this customized version of Android is no more or less altered than Samsung's TouchWiz version, however it has buckets of style, compared to Samsung's strangely unappealing UI customizations. Every place where Samsung makes something ugly, Meizu makes it pretty. It is really fantastic to witness.

But before I go further with that -- I'm actually not in favor of customized versions of Android. I do think it's true that "if you're going to do it, go all the way," and that is what Meizu and Samsung have done. I would say that Meizu has done a very good job of it, however, whereas Samsung's users love Galaxy phones in spite of the bad looks of TouchWiz.

Much like Samsung, I find that Meizu's special Flyme-exclusive apps and services are not that meaningful to me. Since this is Android, I tend to already have my own favorite answers (Dropbox, Google Music, Google Movies, Gmail, Google Calendar, Facebook, Twitter...) I just go about installing those things and forget about the custom offerings, for better or worse.

Compatibility is good, for a non-mainstream device that most English-language coders are not testing on. However, it's not all roses and cheese grits.

• Rdio is my favorite music streaming service, but the UI gets screwed up when I leave the playback screen. I have found a way around the issue, but this will probably never be resolved by Rdio, since they don't have a reason to care about this device or demographic.
• Netflix also does not want to stream to the device, for whatever reason.
• The official Twitter app has all kinds of strange bugs that pop up when you try to scroll the list, however there are a lot of really good third-party Twitter apps that work great. I started using Echofon Pro due to the issues with the official app.

I believe the issues above are all caused by one thing -- Meizu's choice to have a hardware home button mixed with dynamic software-based "back" and "menu" buttons that take up screen space. Something about the implementation of those on-screen buttons, which unlike the Nexus 4's, disappear and reappear based on context, really messes up HTML5 apps with long scrolling list views. Natively coded apps seem to re-size themselves excellently, without a hiccup.

However, I think this choice on Meizu's part was a bad one, and represents my only major issue with the MX2. The buttons should have all been on-screen, or all hardware. Mixing the two is very non-standard and creates compatibility issues with some important apps where there needn't have been any.

One particularly important loss you'll suffer due to this custom hardware/software button combo is that custom launchers are not going to run elegantly on the MX2. Running a custom launcher makes the MX2 think you're running any type of other regular app, so the "back" and "menu" software buttons will be visible on screen the whole time, taking up unnecessary pixels and causing unwanted results if accidentally tapped. It's ugly.

Camera

I've noticed marketing photos for the MX2 which seem to show it taking really cool photos with shallow depth of field, creating sharp subjects and blurred backgrounds in portraits, etc. I thought that was marketing fluff, and wasn't expecting it to be a real feature of the camera, but it turns out to be. I have loved taking portraits with my MX2 -- when a subject is close to me, and there is some distance between us and the rest of the background, I get some really great looking shots with sharp subjects and unfocused backgrounds!

Here's a photo of my cat, taken with the MX2's camera:

The rear shooter takes photos up to 8 megapixels in size. They're very sharp and clear with low noise and without a bunch of crazy processing, even when viewed at 1:1 pixel ratio. I tend to favor shooting in the default 5 megapixel mode, simply because I don't need 8 megapixel photos from my phone camera.

Here's a detail view of my cat photo at 100% size. I've saved the cropped version as a PNG so you can see exactly what kind of compression is being applied to the original JPG:

On the other hand, the front-facing camera on the MX2 is decidedly a last-generation webcam affair. It's not as horrible as a Nexus S or a Galaxy Nexus, but it does cap out at 720x1280. You'll look good on your Skype calls (Yes, Skype works great on an MX2!) but you won't want to get any of these selfies framed for posterity. I found the front-facing camera to me adequate.

Audio

The earpiece and call quality on the MX2 are fine; the audio can seem a little shallow sometimes, but not anything out of the ordinary. Local calls over T-Mobile's network to other T-Mobile customers sounded great to me -- better than on a Galaxy S3. Calls to AT&T customers in congested parts of town tended to sounds worse, but that is also something I've experienced before, and believe is due to AT&T's constantly overwhelmed network in metro areas.

The loud speaker on the back also sounds fine (better than an Nexus 4, but worse than an S3), but the positioning of it does mean you'll end up covering it with your palm if your holding the phone certain ways. It's fine for games, and casually listening to music or videos with friends.

Gaming Performance

Games fly on the MX2. But they also crash. Sometimes. The trade-off is that this is a very powerful quad-core device with an excellent graphics chip, but it's also one that Western developers are decidedly NOT bug-testing on. They never will, so you have to know that going in. Games launched by ultra-skilled indie devs or studios huge enough to care about localizing for Asia are going to run great. Most of everything else is going to run great, too. But there will be disappointments, and when they happen, your nasty reviews about "THIS APP DOESN'T WORK ON MY MEIZU MX2" are going to fall on deaf ears.

One worst-case scenario, 'Ravensword Shadowlands' ran impressively well for about two minutes and then suddenly caused my device to hard-reset. Very jarring.

I noticed users of other more popular devices also complaining about this issue in reviews for the game, so I won't blame it all on my own particularly unusual handset. 'Ravensword Shadowlands' is built on Unity, an SDK that attempts to bring high-quality 3D to lots of different types of devices, from home consoles to midrange portables. My own experiences with Unity-based games is that they tend to be unstable, with long load times and more intense hardware requirements than similar games not built with Unity.

My favorite games that run extremely well on the Meizu MX2:

• Final Fantasy III, Square Enix
• Happy Street, Godzillab (This runs better on the MX2 than it does on a US Galaxy SIII)
• Final Fantasy Dimensions, Square Enix
• Sonic CD, Sega
• Blazing Star, SNK Playmore
• Rayman Jungle Run, Ubisoft
• Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery, Capybara Games
• Symphony of the Origin, Kemco Games
• Snes9X EX+, Robert Broglia
• GBA.emu, Robert Broglia
• MX.emu, Robert Broglia
• PCE.emu, Robert Broglia
• GBC.emu, Robert Broglia
• ePSXe, ePSXe Software S.L.

You may notice a lot of emulators on my list -- this device is great for them. It really has the horsepower needed to deliver fast console game emulation -- even PlayStation games run like native apps.

My Judgement

This is a stunning, powerhouse phone that changes the way I think about Chinese hardware. I was expecting anything but this degree of polish. I'm especially infatuated with the fact that this is (finally!) a powerful, small phone. Unlike most modern options, where wanting smaller automatically means getting bad specs, the MX2 really pushes its pixels with power.

I would rate this handset a 10/10 were it not for the situation with the weird mix of hardware and software buttons that negatively impacts app compatibility in some cases. That's really a shame.

Due to that, I cannot give the phone a perfect rating. I still choose to carry it often, over other more mainstream devices, due to it's excellent size and hardware quality, plus the ability to flawlessly use all my favorite Google services, and emulators.

This feels like the device Sony keeps trying to make, over and over again, since 2010. Only, to that point, this device not only performs better, but feels better to interact with and hold than all of those Xperia phones that everyone keeps calling "Sony's last chance." If the first two Meizu Android phones were deeply flawed in some way, the MX2 is the one that is forgivably flawed, but mostly just amazing. I find it spectacular that I can say that about a device that was not even targeted to Western users.

Rating

Build Quality: 10/10
Screen: 9/10
Camera: 8/10
Processor Power: 9/10
Battery: 7/10
OS / Software: 7/10

Overall: 8.3/10