Gadgetory

sony has made a big push this year to gain some traction in the US market and the xperia x z is their newest flagship for the second half of 2016 from a design standpoint it's been refreshed in a few different ways but it still has that signature rectangular slab look that makes it easily recognizable as a Sony phone the XZ is made from a combination of materials with glass on the front and all metal backplate and plastic along the sides it has what sony calls a loop design which basically means that the sides are rounded and tapered towards the front in the back to make the transition between the different materials feel more seamless and also gives the phone a very comfortable feel in the hand the build quality is what you expect from Sony it feels very sturdy and because it only has a 5.2 inch display it's generally pretty easy to operate in one hand it comes in a few different colors like blue silver and this black version that you see here and the black is more of a satin finish it's not super glossy but it does still tend to pick up fingerprints but overall the black on black gives us phone a very sleek and stealthy look because the back is completely made of metal with no plastic breaks or inserts the NFC chip is not on the back of this phone where we normally expect it to be and instead has been moved to the front next to the front-facing camera this isn't the first time that we've seen Sony do this but it does make tapping this phone to other devices or payment terminals a little bit more awkward unlike the ex compact that was announced right alongside the x/z the XZ is ip68 dust and water resistant which means you can dunk it in water and use it in the rain and it'll be perfectly fine going around the device you have the headphone jack up top USB type-c port on the bottom a SIM card slot that also doubles as a micro SD card slot on the left and finally on the right side you have the power button volume rocker and sony signature dedicated camera shortcut key now I said this in the xperia x compact review and I'll say here again for the Xperia XZ having the dedicated camera shortcut key is a very convenient and quick way to get into the camera but having the power button volume rocker and camera key all on one side makes the whole right side of the phone feel very cluttered sony puts the volume buttons by the camera key to controlling digital zoom with the camera feel much more natural but for controlling volume it's very awkward and uncomfortable to press with your thumb the xperia x ease power button does function as a fingerprint sensor but just like the X compact and previous devices that Sony has released here in the States the US version will not come with a fingerprint sensor and it's unfortunate because fingerprint sensors are starting to become the norm and a lot of smartphones and sony hasn't exactly made it clear why it's getting left out audio is a pretty big part of the experience on the Xperia XZ by plugging in a pair of headphones you can take advantage of the XDS built-in support for high res audio files like flak and it can upscale any compressed music files to give it more of a high-res sound the xperia x ii also has two small slits that sit above and below the display for stereo front-facing speakers which sound great and don't get distorted but in comparison to something like the Nexus 6p they aren't anywhere near as loud and don't have as much low-end punch the 5.2 inch display uses LCD technology with a resolution of 1080p which some may be disappointed by simply because most high-end flagships if not all of them are coming with quad HD displays but unless you plan on using this phone for VR you're not going to notice any difference the screen still looks plenty sharp for comfortable reading text and web browsing has excellent viewing angles and is surprisingly very vibrant it gets plenty bright that is easily viewable outdoors and you also have the usual white balance controls and Sony's x-reality engine built in to give you a sharper and more natural-looking image when looking at photos and videos there's also some benefits to having a lower resolution display one of those benefits is performance the XC has three gigabytes of RAM instead of the usual four that we've been getting accustomed to on flagships but it does come with the Snapdragon 820 which we all know is a great processor with a 1080p panel the processor won't have to work as hard to push all those pixels so you'll generally get much smoother gameplay and graphics performance because there's less strain on the GPU and gameplay on the XC is definitely very smooth games look great and I never noticed any stutters or drop frames with high-end games day to day operations such as web browsing opening apps checking emails watching videos has also been very smooth and despite having three gigabytes of RAM I haven't managed to slow this phone down with heavy amounts of multitasking the software also plays a big part in why this phone performs so well it's running Android 6.0 marshmallow but Sony's custom skin but Sony has scaled back a lot of their customizations to keep the experience fairly light you still have Sony's own launcher settings menu app icons and a built in theme engine but the majority of the experience feels very close to stock and they've even added the Google now homescreen into their own launcher that makes it feel even more like stock Android even though this phone is unlocked and free of carriers it does come with quite a few pre-installed bloatware applications like AVG protection Amazon shopping and Sony's own list of apps but otherwise it's a very clean and simple Android experience at 2,900 milliamp hours the xperia x II has a relatively small battery in comparison to a lot of flagships out there but it's been more than good enough to last me comfortably through a day but don't expect it to last much more beyond just a single day even with a few hours of gaming per day on top of the usual social media email and texting I still manage at least 12 hours off the charger which is definitely not bad for heavy usage so I could imagine this phone lasting much longer for people who don't play a lot of games or videos on their smart phone it does come a quick charge 3.0 to make it easy and quick to charge back up but if you're really hurting for battery life and can't get to a charger you do have Sony's usual stamina and ultra stamina modes that limit certain functions and performance in favor of longer battery life Sony's been known to make some really great camera sensors for smartphones however when it came to their own smartphones they never managed to get the camera quite right but they've made a lot of improvements to this new sensor on the XZ it's sharing the same 23 megapixel rear camera as the smaller X compact with five axis image stabilization and we've added a new laser autofocus sensor and a color sensor to help you get the most accurate white balance no matter the lighting situation something to know about the five axis image stabilization is that it's purely software based so there's no physical moving parts here to make this all happen and the five axis image stabilization only kicks in when you're recording close-ups or macro shots otherwise you're getting three axis stabilization but even then Sony's in-camera stabilization works extremely well for video and stabilizes the footage without any noticeable warping or Distortion where the XZ differs from the X compact is with the front-facing camera instead of five megapixels you have a 13 megapixel shooter which works very well for taking selfies there's plenty of detail in color and at 13 megapixels this gives you a lot more flexibility with zooming and cropping the rest of the camera experience is pretty typical sony the camera app is fairly simplistic and navigating between superior Auto manual video recording or switching to the front-facing camera can all be done by simply swiping on the screen and you also have all Sony's usual fun and playful modes like AR effect sweet panorama and time shift video the only quirk what's tony's camera app is that HDR mode still continues to be buried in the settings and only accessible when shooting in manual mode but otherwise it's a mostly straightforward camera app the camera itself is very quick to launch and snap photos especially with the dedicated camera key and the pictures that it takes are surprisingly very good they're extremely sharp and detailed and it produces colors that are much more natural and true to life but at the same time are still very pleasing to the eye the predictive hybrid autofocus feature that Sony has been using for a while now also works well for tracking moving subjects and capturing them without motion blur and as long as the subject is moving at a reasonable speed you'll be able to get a crystal-clear shot in low-light there's still a fair amount of detail and the images come out relatively noise-free but it does tend to overexposed and have a lot of blooming in the highlights the camera can also be really slow to capture in low-light situations and if you aren't holding the phone perfectly steady you'll wind up getting a lot of blurry shots if you're looking to get this phone the price is going to be something to contend with as $700 it's not exactly an impulse purchase and puts in the same price range as other flagships like the s7 edge and Google's brand new pixel phones then there's phones at the other end of the spectrum like the axon 7 + 1 + 3 that offer flagship experiences at a fraction of the price I will admit that I generally do like this phone and it's the first time in a long while that a Sony phone has impressed me it's got a refreshing new and beautiful design that at the same time is still true to Sony and it has a beautiful display excellent performance and a really great camera there was so much to like about this phone that I was able to forgive things like a lack of a fingerprint sensor and a qHD screen is a $700 forgivable to most people it might not be but if you choose to buy it you're getting the best phone that Sony has made in a long while as always thank you guys so much for watching this video I hope you enjoyed this review of the Xperia XZ and if you did please give it a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and check us out on social media instagram twitter snapchat google+ all that good stuff will be linked down below and feel free to follow me on twitter as well and as always check the website for more in-depth coverage and jordan 30.com because we are your source for all things Android you