A current trend in technology is for companies to release two flagship devices each year – one for the first half of the year and one for the second – and Sony is no different.
Over the past two years, the Sony Xperia range has grown rapidly and in the Xperia Z3, Sony have a device that is finally firing on all cylinders. Whilst past Xperia flagships have lacked on a feature or two, the Xperia Z3 seemingly ticks all the boxes.
With a feature packed specs list, excellent design, seriously durable abilities and claims of two days battery life, the Xperia Z3 offers everything you’re looking for in a smartphone.
Is it as good as Sony claims? Let’s take a closer look..
Design
There is no denying that the Xperia Z3 design is simply fantastic.
Although it shares the same design as its predecessors and looks very similar, the small change Sony made in adding rounded corners and a curved outer bezel has transformed the ergonomics of the handset. Instead of a device with chamfered edges that was uncomfortable to hold, the Xperia Z3 is a joy to use in the hands.
Like past devices, the 5.1 inch Full HD display dominates the front of the handset and Sony continues to use excessive amounts of bezel above and below the display (although this is a personal issue with the design and may be fine for other people). The biggest change from past devices is that finally Sony has a display to be truly proud of. We’re not sure exactly how they have managed it (the IPS LCD and Triluminos technology are probably two key factors) but the Xperia Z3 has one of our favourite displays ever on a smartphone before.
In order to keep the handset dust and water proof, the key ports (such as sim card, charger and micro SD card) are protected by covers. These are easy to open and close and seem somewhat robust enough not to break with normal usage. The headphone jack is uncovered but after our underwater test it continued to operate fine so there’s clearly some protection there.
The back glass panel remains our one key concern with the design – the smooth texture provides a lack of grip and we managed to drop ours a few times so the fear of it slipping out of your hands when you don’t have a case on is a real concern. In fairness to Sony, the handset is built to withstand the odd knock or two and continued to work fine with the only visible damage being a few small scuff marks on the corners.
Overall the Xperia Z3 hardware is elegant yet functional and really is a joy to use in the hands. So the hardware is good but what about the software?
Software & Performance
Sony’s software hasn’t changed an awful lot since the first Xperia Z smartphone with each new iteration of software bringing a few new features and more of the same. In the Android arena, there are many different versions of interface – Samsung have the bloat-heavy TouchWiz UI, LG the sleeker yet somewhat buggy G UI and HTC the clever and intelligent Sense UI but many users feel that these interfaces detract away from the core Android experience too much.
Then there’s Google with the Nexus range and the pure Android philosophy which also attracts its own users. In Sony’s case, the company has taken the decision to remain as close as possible to the core Android experience whilst adding a few useful tweaks of their own. The overall experience is definitely much smoother than previous Xperia Z smartphones and the latest interface is quite possibly Sony’s best ever experience. The notifications centre and quick settings menu have both been updated with the former offering all your notifications in a single place (although it needs some improvement) and the latter offering quick access to toggle up to 12 settings.
In terms of performance, the Xperia Z3 should be up their with the very best smartphones. Under the hood it is powered by a quad-core 2.5GHz Krait 400 processor (clocked slightly higher than the 2.3GHz CPU on the Xperia Z2) along with 3GB RAM and a choice of either 16GB or 32GB (market-dependent); we had the 16GB variant and the handset came with 11.57GB available at launch (the Sony interface only displays the capacity as 11.57GB and doesn’t provide access to the remaining storage which is reserved for the system).
However whilst the handset is pretty snappy without visible signs of lag, we did come across the odd issue with apps not updating correctly and I personally found the notification centre somewhat unintuitive as you can barely hear notification sounds and the status bar (when the notification centre isn’t open) doesn’t display icons for all the apps with unread notifications (as other Android devices do).
The software, whilst being completely functional, does have a few bugs that we were surprised to see – one of them was that the InCallUI often froze when a call came in resulting in you being unable to answer or reject the call. We also noticed that occasionally apps didn’t update (although they worked fine on other Android devices) whilst on occasion the home screen also decided to freeze and force close. These are just a few issues that we spotted and whilst they do impact on the usability, they do not detract away from the overall experience (which is very positive).
Camera
One area where I’ve often felt that Sony have been let down is by the quality of their camera. Although the company provides the 8MP camera modules for the Apple iPhone, their 20MP camera seems to pale in comparison. On paper the Xperia Z3 offers everything you would look for in a modern smartphone camera including a 20.7MP G Lens sensor, single LED flash, HDR, Panorama and wide-angle photos. As with other Z models, the full sensor resolution isn’t used in Superior Auto mode (which uses 8 megapixels instead) and you can’t use the full resolution in HDR mode either.
In practice we found the camera to be satisfactory and produced crisp images during well-lit daylight conditions. The photos below are some examples of images captured on the Xperia Z3:
However in darker surroundings, we found that the Xperia Z3 was either too dark or too light with the handset sometimes struggling to capture the scene.
Here’s a couple of night time images of fireworks captured on the Xperia Z3:
One of the other changes in the Xperia Z3 camera is the addition of 4K video recording abilities. Now the Xperia Z3 captures Full HD video at 60 frames per second, 4k video at 30 frames per second and 720p slo-mo video at 120 frames per second. Here’s an example of how the Xperia Z3 handles recording fireworks at night in Full HD.
PS4 Remote Play
One of the key features on both the Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact is the PS4 Remote Play feature that allows you to use your smartphone as a viewfinder for your PS4. As long as both are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, you can use your Xperia Z3/Z3 Compact smartphone and play your PS4 game on your device (especially handy if your partner/girlfriend/family aren’t letting you near the TV!)
During the time we had the Xperia Z3, we were unable to test this feature but we’ll come back and update this review once we’ve tested this. For now, here’s a video from T3 showing off PS4 Remote Play:
Battery life
This is one area where Sony have really surprised us. Normally we add the battery life section to Performance but for the Xperia Z3, this deserved a mention on its own. Sony have claimed that the Xperia Z3 will last two days without needing a charge and when manufacturers normally make such claims, the handset usually has to be in laboratory conditions.
However the Xperia Z3 is different and wow, it’s very impressive. During our testing, the Xperia Z3 lasted two to three days on average and for a modern smartphone, this is absolutely fantastic battery life. With an average of 3 to 4 hours of screen on time per day, the Xperia Z3 finally achieves what all smartphones aspire to do – provide solid battery life without requiring a charge every day whilst offering the smartest features.
Furthermore, the battery life can be doubled (well up to double) by enabling some of Sony’s smart power-saving features including STAMINA mode, Ultra STAMINA mode and low-battery mode. Sony’s Power Management suite also displays the consumption of apps (including those that use power and mobile data when the screen is offer) and you can disable these to further enhance your battery life.
There’s just no denying it – when Sony say the Xperia Z3 can survive two days without a charge, they’re certainly not being optimistic. In fact, they’re probably being conservative with this estimate and despite the capacity being just 3100 mAh, the handset could quite easily last a week with very little usage.
Conclusion
The Xperia Z3 comes hot on the heels of the Xperia Z2 and it’s quite symbolic of Sony that we’re already hearing rumours pertaining to its successor, the Xperia Z4. With its replacement hot on the horizon, is the Xperia Z3 worthy of your hard earned money? The short answer is: yes.
Like the handsets before it, the Z3 certainly isn’t perfect but is definitely one of the most complete Android smartphones on the market to-date. The excellent design, outstanding battery life, superior performance and incredible durability combine to produce a handset that isn’t perfect but comes oh so very close to achieving perfect. Without doubt, the Xperia Z3 is one of the best Android smartphones on the market today and a handset that is a very worthy purchase.
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