Introduction
Sony thinks Xperia Z3 is a big achievement of the company. Just within 6 months when they had already introduced Z2. The later version is improvement on previous version and has many updates on that. Sony Xperia Z3 is in fact focused to compete the giants from the other companies. They have put new features in to it that include more brightness, unibody, chassis and thinner in size. Moreover it is better water proofed. How it stands in competition with giants like Note 4 that is equipped with Snapdragon 805 processor and QHD display. The other rivals are Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8.
Specifications
Items Description
Operating system Android OS, v4.4.2 (KitKat)
Display and Resolution 5.7 inches , 2560 x 1440 pixels
Processor Quad-core 2.5 GHz Krait 400
Chipset Qualcomm MSM8974AC Snapdragon 801
GPU Adreno 330
Memory 3 GB RAM, 16/32 GB on board, 128 GB external
Camera 20.7 mega pixel rear and 2.2 mega pixel front facing
Battery Non-removable Li-Ion 3100 mAh battery
Make
Sony has improved Xperia Z3 and put the bigger screen then the Xperia Z2. In appearance it measures 5.75 x 2.83 x 0.29 inches. Apparently it is shorter and narrow in width but slimmer than Z2. With its 5.2 inches screen size its still a taller than Z2. It is less in width that makes it easier to handle single handed. The body feature that makes it stand out is the glass and the metal mixed in premium look of the body. The corners are rounded and feel comfortable holding it in hand. Though the white version is also seen but we don’t find any finger prints mark on the body to give it a bad look.
It has batter water proofing and a IP65/68 certification meaning it can stay under water at the depth of 5 feet for an hour and still stay save. The handset has stereo speakers located in front. However the volume button is too small and one has to really look and operate. In regard with water proofing the microSD card ports are well protected with flap covers which are water tight but easy to open or close.
Display
Z3 screen size is 5.2 inches having 1080 x 1920 pixels resolution. The handset has Triluminos Display. Sony has achieved 600nits mark in brightness meaning it is fairly easy to read and see the screen even in very bright light. This feature fights back the screen reflection because of the material used in construction of the screen. The colors and the video quality could be like any other AMOLED display but Sony with its specialty in X-Reality engine has improved the color saturation and contrast and gives sharpness and brightness to colors nearest to reality. You can change the settings but they automatically turnoff after sometime. Its screen gives a cool effect but you can change it with white balance in the setting menu. Sony believes the coldness impact given in the screen is deliberate but you can always change. In the negative points Sony Xperia Z3 has green and red colors over saturated and do not give the standard look of RGB. In this regard Z2 behaves much better and has better performance. It has better visibility from different angles which is a prominent improvement on Z1 and Z2. In performance of colors Xperia Z2 offers much better result showing colors and that way Z3 is not efficient like Z2. However the display is super sensitive and allows you to work while wearing the gloves.
Interface and Functionality
It has some good functions in interface you only have to double tap it to wake it and for other multi tasking apps. It runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat and supports Xepria users interface that makes it simple, clean and has minimum formalities to perform the functions. We can say it is minimalistic. It is change the appearance of most of the all ready existing UI and built-in apps and has added style and uniformity in manner. Sony Xperia Z3 home screen gives the pleasant look to the users get use to it in a very short time. The designers have intelligently created and intuitive experience by placing icons and widgets in a very harmonic manner. As in Sony’s Android based phones the pinch in gesture starts home screen editing. Users can easily make the changes, add/ discard pages, change the wallpaper, add widgets/ apps or change the theme. A good change inherent in Z series is using the double-tap-to-wake instead of searching for a tiny power key to unlock the display anymore.
The menu with otherwise looks standards now contains the host folders and user find the option panel at anytime just by a swipe action from left of the screen. This panel gives you the change option of sorting filtering of your apps catalog and in the same panel you have the uninstalled mode as well. However the functionality of this panel is not perfect because you may accidently open the panel and reveals the options. It does not work perfectly. There is a chance of any mistake. The interface also contains Google Apps folder right on the home screen to let you see all the Google’s new wonders and apps at one place and you don’t have to search for them specially. It also saves the space as well.
The interface also provides space for current apps Small Apps suite. These apps in windowed shape contain calculator, browser, notes and other apps, on top of anything else you are running underneath. These apps are placed on top to be readily available for any extra multi tasking on the main screen. Xperia Z3 allows five such applications to be run and to be resized or can be placed add a convenient location for ease in use. This is lot of flexibility which the previous versions did not have.
Xperia Z3 has another great feature which is screen recording. Video recording shall start by long pressing the power key. Users can record the video with 1080 pixels resolutions easily the handset will continue recording the video while the user is doing anything on the main screen. KitKat introduced this functionality but Sony developed it for their own use in their handsets.
Processor and memory
Sony Xperia Z3 is well furnished handset and does not have any dearth of RAM capacity and the memory.
The Xperia Z3 is powered by Qualcomm's technology. It has quad-core Snapdragon 801 MSM8974-AC processor, the fastest in the 801 family, and has a speed of 2.5 GHz. The Galaxy S5 has the same processor and Z3 is more powerful than its predecessor Xperia 2. Overall performance of the Xperia Z3 is great around the interface, and within apps, including 3D games. It does not suffer the defects or weaknesses that we find in Galaxy S5 but does not have the instantaneous response that is common with iPhone line, or the MIUI Android overlay.
In the account of memory the Xperia Z3 is powerful as the device has 3 GB RAM. At this time this is the highest RAM Android device. Sony gives 16 GB onboard memory to the handset but for the users only 12 GB memory is available for the use remaining memory can be consumed by the handset, but users can extend the on board memory up to 128 GB via microSD card.
Camera
Sony is quite famous for their cameras. Sony Xperia Z3 supports 20.7 mega pixel rear camera with ½.3 inches Exmor RS sensor. The camera has 1.12 micron pixels like Xperia Z2 but Sony improve the new flagship and placed 25mm Lens optic f2.0 which boost the ISO sensitivity up to 12800 at once. This is one of the major improvements in the device.
One important aspect of this camera package is the large 1/2.3” sensor. This sensor is big in size from the sensor which is placed in many handsets for example Galaxy S5 has a ½.6 inches sensor, but this Xperia Z3 sensor is thick and bulky form the other high end devices. Xperia Z3 is a very quick shooter. It shoots an image and immediately ready for the next without any time leaps. It is sort of seamless and continuous action with this camera. It has two stage shutter key; you can setup camera application while in the lock screen and take a picture. It takes a second only and you don’t lose a moment.
Xperia Z3 Camera Interface
Sony Xperia Z3 camera interface is very easy and simple to use particularly in Sony Xperia Auto Mode. This mode will automatically select the best camera setting according to the light condition and make the capturing mode and image prefect while you are trying to take a picture. It is very accurate in its settings and gives the very fine results. If you don’t do anything Sony Xperia Z3's Superior Auto mode shoots at 8 mega pixel this is the default setting of this mode. It uses the full capacity of 20 mega pixel sensor but tapper its down to 8 mega pixel scale of picture. This way users gets the best of 8 mega pixel picture which is high in quality and easy in sharing; however many details not visible.
Superior Auto mode gives the Clear Zoom option to the users for capturing good-looking, lossless-like digital zoom. Beside this Sony has given you the option of manual mode also for HDR photos and gives you a freedom of selecting your own desirable settings using the 20 mp photos. Both modes work perfectly well to the best satisfaction of the user.
Sony Xperia Z3 camera is full of many features. It contains info shot feature that provides you the relevant information and useful data about the object that you are interested to shoot. The other interesting and useful feature in this camera is Social Live that allows you to stream the video of 10 minutes duration directly to your facebook feed. The other aspect of camera is the built-in photo effects along with AR gimmicky effect giving the 3D effect of your real images. If you want only the image to be singular standing out picture without any background details you can do that and for this Sony has placed Background Defocus feature in the camera. It defocuses the background and keeps only the image while taking a short. This feature is similar to that of HTC One M8 which is known as Duo camera feature and incase of Galaxy S5 it is Selective Focus.
Sony is expert in colors. All its video devices have displays showing very vivid and closer to reality colors. It is not out of place to mention the Sony television screens will the most realistic depiction of colors and showing the images very close to reality. The same holds true for the camera of Sony Xperia Z3 that captures the pictures in their true color. However sometimes we may not find them really very perfect.
Sony Xperia Z3 is generously furnished. While it has multi featured rear camera as mentioned above, its 2.2-megapixel front-facing shooter is no less and is pretty good in doing the job when taking selfies. This camera also shows natural colors, enough detail, and correct exposure most of the time outdoors. However the pictures taken indoors under slightly poor light conditions are not prefect and are slightly softer and noisier. They are not bad at all, rather perfectly well taken and usable. It only lacks only in wide-angle lens in front camera to accommodate more details in a picture.
Call quality
There is no doubt that the Xperia Z3 has a many good features. The earpiece of the Xperia Z3 demonstrate standard call quality, as it is powerful enough to hear in strident environments, but the voices coming through sound a bit barely audible, and to some extent unclear at the highest volumes. The noise-canceling microphones, on the other hand, do a great job at the ambient noises, and relaying are voice loud and clear to the other end.
Battery
The latest flagship of Sony known as Xperia Z3 has a slim body but company placed large 3100mAh powerful battery inside the handset. This powerful battery gives the sufficient backup to the handset. The battery provides 16 hours talk time and 37 days stand by time on 3G network. The users can listen the music up to 130 hours or watch the video till 10 hours without any interruption. Sony mentions these things in their specs sheet. In fact, Sony advertises the Z3 as “two-day battery” phone.
While testing the battery it gives fairly good time on screen and it crossed the generally laid down minimum standard. It lasted 9 and half hours which is fairly good. It gave much better performance than many of the big screen flagships, phones or phablets. That way it scores higher marks than them and should satisfy any user who wants uninterrupted performance of their handset for a longer time. Ascend Mate 7 is well known for a huge battery but Xperia Z3 did better. Sony Xperia Z2 was also well known for a very powerful battery. Xperia Z3 has smaller battery in size but energizes the handset for a longer time. Charged once will take you 2 days without any botheration therefore we can rightly call it a Two Day Battery. However its charging time is slightly longer.
Conclusion
Every new product has new features and same is expected from Xperia Z3. We have seen in the above lines all its features and found generally not only satisfactory but also fairly better than others. Starting from its display which is 5.2 inches in specious enough for any application the user may like to perform. It does well.
In appearance and the dimensions we find it of proportionate and quite manageable with one hand. It has many changes in its interface and contains many apps displayed on screen for easy access and allows five applications at a time to be run while you are performing any other task on the main screen. Its inside story is also very rich. It has a powerful RAM, sufficient on board memory and lot of external memory to give you lot of freedom to do anything you like.
Probably the most important feature of this handset is its camera. If we go in details we find it a complete and compact studio and photographic equipment. It fails you nowhere, you do what you like and shoot the type of pictures, quality of pictures and with different settings as suit you the best.
The entire machine depend on the energy it consumes from the power source. This aspect has been very well taken care of and the battery gives the energy to the handset for a fairly long time, may go up to two days which is a source of satisfaction for the users and keeps him away from the worry of charging it frequently.