Xperia XZ 5.2 inch 32 GB SIM-Free Smart Phone - Mineral Black

I am reviewing the XZ as I have had it for a few weeks now. The phone has surpassed all my expectations in every way. I was using a z5 before and previous to my z5 I had a Z3 for 2 years. I will be comparing the XZ, z5/z3 and other phones I have used. Design The design has improved from the z3 and the z5, the phone feels solid and fits perfectly in your hand , the metal back feels nice and solid, it is more durable than the glass back of the z3/ z5 and the corners are rounded too, making it very comfortable in the hand. The screen has a rounded lip towards the edge, this is a nice touch and adds a degree of sophistication to the design. There are enough design changes made to the XZ, that makes it look refreshing and different from the z5. It feels like a rolls Royce, solid and not light weight and flimsy like the Samsung s7 with its glass build. Screen The full 1080p 5.2 screen is sharp and vivid, the colours are more natural and balanced than the over saturated colours of Samsung OLED screens. Comparing the Z5 and XZ the XZ brightness is greater and the contrast is also better, whites are more realistic than the z5. Having a full HD screen is an advantage because not only does it give you decent resolution it will put less stress on your processor, but will also preserve your battery life. This gives the ZX an advantage with phones with 2k screens. Overall a very sharp glossy looking picture, it really stands out. I think Sony have coated their x series of phones screens with a glossy coating. The IPS panel combined with the x reality pro engine ,which is used in there tvs , gives the XZ one the best screens I've seen. Performance As expected the Sony XZ is equipped with the latest snapdragon 820 chipset, with 3GB ram. The performance is rapid, smooth and without lag. The apps open instantly , browsers/ YouTube/casting/ and the camera instantly open. multitasking is excellent there is no lag. I would say it is about 15% faster than the previous snapdragon 810, Which my Z5 was equipped with. There is no overheating issues and the phone stays cool only getting slightly warm when gaming. When doing a side by side comparison with the z5, IE multi tasking, (app switching) the XZ was slightly faster in every test i did, when compared with the z5. The z5 and XZ are very similar, in day to day performance and there is not much difference between them, and most people wouldn't notice , unless your were gaming. Sony have the hardware and software tweaked very well. The phone is equipped with 3gb ram, and it shows no lag, sony have optimized the phone really well, Having 4/5 GB ram would only waste battery and wouldn't make much difference to performance, because android uses very little ram, the extra gig would be wasted. Sony take on android is clean with having very little bloatware. Its almost a stock android experience. One of the new feature on this phone is tip notifications, basically the phone learns your behaviour and then trys to advise you by giving info on "how to take better pictures" etc. The Setup of the phone was so easy, basically I tapped my z5 and XZ together, all my goggle account, apps and contacts were ported over using NFC. Overall the XZ performs as good as any flagship from Samsung or htc, the big bonus is that the Sony is cheaper than most flagships. Sound and Camera Voice calls are very clear , there is no distortion. Speakerphone is also clear evan at loud volumes. The XZ supports hi res audio and LDAC Bluetooth compression. When streaming music to a wireless Bluetooth speaker, the sound quality is detailed and clear with decent bass, LDAC seems to work and compression is kept to the minimum. The on-board stereo speakers are loud and clear , the stereo separation is done very well, the only negative point is that it does lack bass, but its a compromise I can live with , due to the waterproofing of the speaker grills. Playing low quality MP3s are improved with DSEE HX UPSCALING and improves sound quality via audio jack or streaming or headphones. This is a accomplished music player. Camera quality has improved too , it has a new 23 megapixel sensor, what ever you throw at it you will see some of the best pictures a Smartphone can offer. Not going to bore you with all the features and things this camera can do , but it is one impressive camera. Pictures are very detailed and sharp, colours are natural, no oversaturation like I have seen on Samsung phones. The autofocus systems is fast you can take picture under a second without a blur. This camera is probably the best on the market. The Video quality is up there with the best, lots of detail and real colours, i filmed a 1080p video of my 4 year old son playing in the park , the camera even picked up the individual whites stones in the tarmac. That's the sort detail were talking about. Battery life is about the same as my z5 just over a day and half , I like to way Sony have included a USB-C charging port, this will be the standard soon and its good Sony have implemented the XZ with this, making it future proof, you can put the charging cable either way without breaking the usb port. I wish Sony had INCLUDED THE FAST CHARGER, They make you buy this separately. conclusion The XZ is a accomplished phone it excels in all areas , everything is put together perfectly in a single package , you have the best camera , best display, excellent build quality, waterproofing , Hi res audio . triple sensor camera, the list goes on. The XZ is also priced cheaper then all the current flagships. I would say if your looking for a quality waterproof android flagship, you wont be disappointed. If your upgrading from a z3 or earlier, then this is a major improvement and worth going for. For Z5 owners i would say its an improvement in the right areas when comparing the z5 but not a massive one, if you happy with your z5 then stick with it. if you can afford to upgrade to XZ then you will enjoy the new design and new features. The XZ is priced at £520 , not only is it cheaper then the S7 and apple iphone 7 but it offers all the specification, bell and whistle at lower price. Buy it with confidence and you wont go back.

Upgraded to this from an LG G2. In summary: - Design is great. Nice and slim but you might want to wack it in a case. (personal preference. A lot of people hate the Sony industrial look) - Fingerprint reader is snappy and makes life so much easier. I will never go back to a non fingerprint scanner phone. - OS has minimal bloatware. Whilst it does have some of the Sony apps on there it is not loaded with rubbish. - The Battery saver is sometimes annoying. occasionally it will not charge my phone in time for my wake up schedule. For the majority of time it is fairly intelligent and after a week or two of having the phone it understood my sleeping patterns well enough to be a minor nuisance. No idea if ti is a gimmick or not as I likely wont have the phone long enough to see if it actually extends the life of the battery! - Great screen. Hurts my eyeballs on max brightness and even having it set to 33% brightness I can forget that it is not on full - Sony quick with updates to the OS I have been a fan of Sony phones for a while. My last one was the Xperia Z1 that unfortunately went faulty. I purcahsed this for around £460 and it was worth the money. I think it will definitely hold up for a couple more years at least. With the recent launch of the ZX+ I believe the price will drop further making this a bargain! I cant comment on camera as I do not use it that much. Not had a problem running any apps and it does not seem to encounter the overheating issues that I have seen on the Z5 model. EDIT: Dec 2017 update. - Still going strong - SONY still smashing the updates to android - really great frequency of these. - Camera is not that great comapred to some of the phones out there now but still very good. - The battery saver now works perfectly and understand my routine - no problems with charging anymore. - Very rarely I do need a full reset to "refresh" the phone and make it feel like new again, perhaps once every 2 to 3 months. Apart from the occasional slowdown it is still very snappy and responsive. - no problems overheating

[update -- three months on] The headphone jack has failed -- the phone no longer even recognizes that headphones are plugged in. This is a wild guess, but I suspect that the headphone jacks on waterproof phones are prone to collecting pocket lint and other crud. In a non-waterproof phone this stuff would just fall "harmlessly" into the body of the phone; in the XZ, it just accumulates in the waterproof jack socket, and gets compacted every time you plug headphones in. This seems to be a common problem in this model, and it was a problem in the Z3 as well (also waterproof). Kudos to Amazon for offering a replacement, rather than sending it back to Sony, but it still shouldn't happen in a 400-quid phone. [original review] Even after the recent price reductions, this Xperia XZ is a whole three times the price of the Xperia XA. Is it three times as good? Well, let's see... For the record, I need an Android phone that 1. Is waterproof and relatively shockproof (seems to be a "yes") 2. Is fast enough to run interactive mapping applications, which I use all the time (yes) 3. Offers 2-3 day battery life with modest use (maybe -- jury still out) 4. Has expandable storage, or large internal storage (yes) 5. Has a proper, wired headphone jack (yes) 6. Runs a web browser with the same sort of speed as a desktop PC (yes) 7. Can be used one-handed (um...) 8. Small and light enough to run cross-country with it in my pocket (no -- not even close) Nice to have, but not deal-breakers (for me) are: 9. Fingerprint sensor (yes) 10. Not too much vendor cruft added to the operating system (maybe) Of course, everybody's requirements and preferences vary; I appreciate, for example, that environmental robustness isn't a requirement for many people. It's hard to fault the speed and general productivity of this phone. Almost everything I do happens almost instantly. My previous phone (Z3 Compact) was fast, but this is faster. Some of the differences are due, I guess, to the later Android version, and some to the faster CPU. I expect that using a 1080p screen rather than the 720p of my old phone takes away some of the speed advantage that the CPU provides, but I guess everybody wants these high-res screens now. Presumably we all look at our phones through microscopes now. The industrial, slab-like appearance won't be to everybody's taste, but it's distinctive, and looks businesslike. The case feels really sturdy and the weight -- which is substantial -- reinforces that impression. Both the looks, and the hardware specification -- which is modest for this price bracket -- create the feel of a phone for grown-ups: something that will still be plodding on when the fancy, over-specified teenager's phones are all in landfill. I like that in a phone. Heck, I like it in a suit, or a kitchen appliance, if it comes to that. Although probably not of much interest to most people, I was pleased to find that Sony's proprietary noise-cancelling earbuds, which I used with earlier Xperia phones, still work with this one. In fact, the existence of a wired headphone jack itself is a deal-breaker for me. The quality of Bluetooth audio isn't that bad with APT-X compatible headphones; but you need a wired headset for those occasions when your wireless set has a flat battery -- which is nearly always, in my experience. The "magnetic" charging offered my some earlier models is gone (why? This was a killer feature), but it does have a type-C reversible USB port for charging, and it is claimed to support Qualcomm Quick Charge (but I haven't tested this yet). Even with an ordinary charger, charging seems pretty quick compared to other phones I have used. I think I will be able to get 2-3 days modest use on a full charge, but I haven't tested this so far, because it's mostly been sitting on my desk charger. The camera, in my limited testing, is OK. I'd love to have a camera on a phone that offers the same sort of performance as even a cheap compact camera, but I've not found one before, and I've not found one now. The XZ is supposed to have a 23 megapixel sensor, and no doubt it has -- on paper. However, you can have as many pixels as you like, but the picture will only be as good as the optical parts allow. Maybe the camera on this phone is better than on other phones, as Sony claims; but twice as good as rubbish is still rubbish. It's OK for Facebook and similar, but for real photography? Don't even go there. This isn't really a criticism of the XZ, but of phone marketing in general. I can't fault the camera, as a phone camera. The Android implementation is relative free of vendor bloat, but it's not completely absent. What there is, can't be uninstalled, although it can mostly be disabled. I have no idea why Sony chooses to bundle things like Facebook, when they can be installed from the Google Play Store in a few seconds. Perhaps they just assume that everybody on Earth uses Facebook. Happily, storage is cheap these days, so this isn't the problem it would have been in the past. A lot of things that vendors used to provided as true added-value features, like split-screen operation, are now part of Android, so perhaps vendors have to feel they are doing their bit by filling phones with unnecessary cruft? I don't know -- I wish they'd stop. Still, Sony are nowhere near as bad in this respect as Samsung. The fingerprint sensor is very effective -- it doesn't require accurate finger placement, and multiple fingers can be recorded. Putting the sensor in the power button means that switching on and unlocking become the same operation. This isn't the case, of course, if you prefer the tap-screen-to-wake configuration; but you can use a PIN or password as an alternative to fingerprint in those cases -- using fingerprints doesn't prevent the use of other locking mechanisms. To be honest, the more I use the fingerprint sensor, the less I would want to go back to a phone without one. The real problems for me with this phone are (a) it's size/weight, and (b) the price. This is a big phone, make no mistake. I can (just about) use it one-handed, but it's not comfortable. To be fair, it has nice rounded sides, and it's a reasonable shape -- it's just that combination of that size and that weight is a problem. When I used to run cross-country every day, I kept my Z3 Compact in my pocket for recording my route and times. I'm too old and fat for this kind of training now, which is a good thing because there's no way I would want to run with an XZ in my pocket -- my trousers would fall down. Actually, it's isn't a good thing at all -- if I could lose ten years and fifty pounds, I would cheerfully buy a second phone. At any rate, this is a phone to live on a desk or in a jacket or handbag. But the biggest problem is simply the price. It's just very difficult for me to understand how Sony can justify asking three times the price of the XA (until recently four times the price), for very modest improvements. The XZ has a higher-resolution screen, to be sure -- but in a screen this size you would need a magnifying glass to tell the difference. The XZ has a faster CPU, but I suspect a lot of the practical benefit is lost in running the screen. In ordinary, day-to-day operations like e-mail and web browsing, the XA and the XZ behave similarly. The Gb of extra RAM in the XZ probably helps a bit with multi-tasking -- but how much does a Gb of RAM cost these days? The XZ has a higher battery capacity but, again, I suspect that the screen will offset any advantage there. It's true that the XZ is waterproof and dustproof, and has a more robust, metal body -- and these things are important to me. But -- and here's the clincher -- I could break and replace an XA twice, and still spend no more money than I spent on the XZ. And the XA is significantly lighter, and easier to hold. In short, unless certified environmental protection and waterproofing are at the top of your list of must-have features, you can get what is essentially the same phone -- for most practicable purposes -- for one third the price. Or, for true one-handed operation, the X Compact for 40% less. Or, if you don't care about size and weight, the mighty OnePlus 3T costs about the same, and out-performs the XZ in most benchmarks. The XZ is a very capable phone, but it doesn't justify the price.

I am a Sony fanboy preferring the Sony way to Galaxy, Pixel, G5s and iphones. I used Xperia Z, Z2 and now the XZ. Looks - The phone is classic Sony. Undestated but with nice touched such as the etched Xperia icon on the back. All surfaces are clean and minialistic. The Screen has a nice curved edge which is not S7 edge curvey but a nice touch. Feel - It does have a nice glass front with a metal alloy finish on the back. It feels very premium but the sides are plastic. Fingerprints will collect everywhere. The camera lens is not recessed into the frame so it could be scratched potentially. Though it would have to be a direct blow as it's now glass and not easily scuffed plastic lens. Battery - I get easily a days use from it no problem. I do make sure I'm not having 10 apps open when it's in my pocket. Stamina and ultrastamina modes are useful when trying to eeek a few more hours from 10%. The USB C connection does mean you should invest some extra USB cables! Charges quicker than expected. Screen - Looks great. I dont care about viewing angles. Solid screen with good colours. I only need max brightness when in direct sunlight. Software - Android 7.0 has some great features and sony's own spin on it doesn't contain too much bloatware. Camera - Reviewers and offical camera tests will criticize the Sony camera at not performing as well as it's potential BUT, in every single social event with friends who have Samsungs, LGs, and iPhones- my camera takes the best photos and other friends want to borrow my photos. This is especally apparent in dark situations. The camera shutter button is a must have feature. Automode does allow some great adjustment in warmth and tone to make some quick top ups. For selfies, this takes some very good pictures The phone has never crashed on me yet. It's slick and 3GB is good enough for me. The camera is topnotch and performs better in the real world than artifical testing. Drawbacks - Plastic edges on phone. It will warm up when being used heavily. Also the XZ premium was announced less than 6 months after this came out. If you want a solid phone, this is a definitely one you should consider.

The phone itself is wonderful and the functions are great but the sound system is too quiet. Unless you are near the phone it is virtually impossible to hear any sounds coming from it, that is with music playing or even receiving a call. I have bought two of the same product and ended up with the same result. This has never happened to any of my other Sony phones I've previously. To say I am unsatisfied is quite an understatement as I would expect better from Sony!!!

An utter garbage! If you want the battery to last at least 6 hours, look well away from this subject. It doesn't even last 5, before you need to charge it again. It has all sorts of smart battery managers which are supposed to learn your charging and discharging habits, but it just doesn't work, and the battery capacity is so small that it just never goes beyond 5 hours on average, while just using a browser, maybe kindle, a bit of youtube and an IM. Usually when running apps like Whatsapp, or browser, I can see the battery discharging right after disconnecting from the charger. It goes down to like 75% in just 15 minutes. Obviously, reset didn't help at all, which didn't stop SONY support from insisting on resetting it anyway. The forums are full of battery problems, yet SONY dismissed any knowledge of such battery problems - so typical. The rest of the phone is quite good, the case is made of nice glass like composite, the buttons are all well sunk into the case, but protruding enough to easily click them. The physical camera button is a real time saver. The CPU and memory is quite good and there are no noticable slowdowns, but the CPU gets hot real quick, even when just using IM app. The Camera is not the worst, the pictures are software post-procesessed, and there's no way to turn it off, but the pictures are quite adequate representation of the real scene, as long as intelligentAI is off - due to it oversaturating the image with various colours, or turning the brightness down too much. The screen and touch sensor are both good, though nothing special. The colours on the screen are bright, sharp and well saturated. There's a lot of bloatware added by SONY, and there's no way to remove it. It takes almost 50% of storage. The OS also crashes on occassion, but not much more than other brands, so I wouldn't count this one as a big negative. All in all, I don't recommend this phone or any new SONY phone to anyone, as they are simply too expensive for the quality you get. The lack of helpful support doesn't help it at all.

I found it great, excellent smart phone, value of money. Beautiful features, head phones and fantastic camera. The main problem I get relates to overheating of device and camera.

I've previously owned the Xperia Z and the Z3, so I'm used to Sony's flagship phones and I'm a big fan. The XZ does not disappoint, with bringing the line up to date with its rounded screen edges and USB-C charging port. It's a shame to lose the docking station compatibility from the Z3, but I guess the charging point on the edge of the phone was a bit ugly. The transfer of old data to the new handset was a pleasure, an area that has seen dramatic improvement on Android phones over the last few years. The only annoying thing is having to sign in to the apps again after they have all automatically installed on the new handset. You can even have the homescreen transferred across, but I like to reorganise so didn't take up the offer. The phone feels quick in use, the fingerprint scanner is easy to set up and works so quick you almost forget it's there until you use a different finger (you can add extra fingers and thumbs to prevent this being an issue though, it's very easy to set up). There's only one flap on the phone now - a joint slot for the micro SD and sim cards. The ability to use a standalone micro SD card is a big selling point for me. The charger comes with a decent enough cable length to fit on a bedside table, but only just. I'll probably get a docking station if Sony release one (they show the phone standing vertically in it on the Sony website but you don't seem to be able to buy it yet in the UK). There's a very limited choice of good quality cases as yet, but hopefully this will change now the phone has been released. One thing that might be an issue is the glass screen cover I've bought doesn't stick properly to the phone screen down both sides because of the slightly curved edges on the sides of the phone screen. I'm hoping it will stick down in the next few days, otherwise I won't be able to use a glass screen protector which would be a real shame. Other than these points I'm really pleased with the phone and glad I've stayed with Sony. It feels every bit as premium as any other top phone and the price isn't too bad in comparison.