Sony Xperia Z: Has Sony finally got a smartphone right?

The ports are spread out with the headphone jack up top, the SIM slot and volume rocker on the right – either side of a silver standby button – while both the microSD and charging ports are on the left, alongside contacts for accessories. A watertight port covers each.

The front of the Sony Xperia Z is minimalist – showing off only a Sony logo and front-facing camera. The rear is a little busier, with various tech info printed on it, plus the Sony Xperia logo, an NFC badge, camera light and the all-important lens. That back is stuck fast – as is becoming the custom, you’ll have no luck if you want to remove the battery.

Turn it on, and you’re not disappointed. Coming from the blackness, the 5-inch screen springs into life. Whether or not you’ll like it is down to personal choice.

Some who’ve used the Sony Xperia Z describe the screen as a disappointment because Sony has gone for TFT – albeit with 1080 x 1920 pixels, giving a pixel density of 441ppi, which would explain why it looks a bit washed out. If you’ve come from a Super AMOLED screen you’ll definitely feel the difference.

We’re still fans – this is a razor sharp display from one of the world’s premier screen manufacturers, although it doesn’t have the wow factor of the HTC One‘s Super LCD 3 screen.

The only thing that lets it down is viewing angles – if you look at the Sony Xperia Z’s screen, dead on, it’s sharp enough. If you look at it from the side, it has a strange ability to look incredibly washed out. It’s no huge problem though – unless you like to look at things side on. In which case, see a doctor.

One of the selling points of the Sony Xperia Z is that it is also water resistant. There’s something slightly unnerving about taking a £529 (around US$817/AU$789) phone and dropping it in the sink – but that’s exactly what we did. And it worked absolutely fine.

Clearly, you’ll need to make sure the ports are covered using those watertight protectors, that much goes without saying.

And at £529 (around US$817/AU$789) in the UK, this is not a cheap handset by any stretch of the imagination. It’s actually the same price as the comparable SIM-free 16GB iPhone 5. Now, that’s not to say that Apple product prices should set the benchmark, but considering we’ve often thrown out there that we think iOS devices are hideously overpriced, this is a very brave move from Sony.

Maybe it’s trying to be bold and use the price to show it’s confident the Sony Xperia Z is better than the iPhone.

In fact, the iPhone 5 is the only real competition in its class for now – with the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S3 both starting to show their age. Indeed, until the imminent arrival of the new HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4, this is probably the most advanced Android smartphone out there.

If you don’t want to stump up the cash in one go, monthly contracts are of course available. But again, be willing to sell your grandmother to afford one.

The Sony Xperia Z will not be provided free in the UK unless you sign up for a deal starting at around £37 a month and commit for two years.

Review continues

This article by  Phil Lavelle appeared on Techradar.com, a Burn Media publishing partner.