Gadgetory

it's jar of a gar from android authority what's going on everybody let's take a quick look back at the xperia z it holds on its shoulders the hope that sony becomes not only more relevant in the smartphone market but one of the top manufacturers in the game in my review of this pretty spectacular phone i said that sony got a lot of things right so what we are doing here is comparing the xperia z2 a couple of other phones that helped propel their respective companies higher than they already were the best-selling samsung galaxy s3 and the iphone 5 by apple how does the xperia z as the newest device stack up against a couple phones that were honestly built to stand the test of time let's find out in this vs. Triple Threat we start off by looking at design there is no other way around it the Xperia Z is the biggest phone in this bunch the black slate look is further enhanced by the completely flat design found all around and the rectangular shape that you honestly don't see enough of anymore the big power button and volume rockers are found together on the right side of the phone right where your thumb would land all ports are covered by a tethered piece of material to help with the phone's water resistance and it also keeps it quite literally flat all around the glass all around helps make this one of our favorite looking phones but it is an incredible fingerprint magnet Samsung's Galaxy s3 has arguably the most endearing design to date as many phones have been modeled after the phone Giants more rounded look the 4.8 inch screen lends itself to a smaller form factor that is easier to grip the button layouts are signature Samsung with the power button on the right side opposite the volume rockers the home button below the screen is flanked by menu and back buttons the back cover is removable but it and the rest of the body are made up of that trademark plastic that Samsung has pretty much put in all of their phone since and with the iphone 5 we have the smallest phone of this comparison Apple took a stand against large screens and kept the one on the five the same width as the for just a little bit taller the smaller size does make this the easiest phone to grip and hold without needing to adjust too often the buttons are signature Apple with the power button at the top with the volume buttons and the Cylons toggle on the left the trademark home button is on the face below the screen the aluminum unibody is definitely a tried and true designed for Apple that has been deserving of praise at the bottom is the controversial charging port however that did cause a few headaches for those with original iphone accessories ultimately I have to give the design point to the Xperia Z primarily because it brings us a design that we haven't seen in a while if at all everything these days is so rounded in the smartphone market and honestly I prefer this more rigid rectangular design on top of all of that Samsung has taken the plastic feel and look of the samsung galaxy s3 and has put it in pretty much all of their phones since it's a design that honestly we're getting a little bit tired of and as with the iPhone 5 it's basically the iphone for just a little bit bigger I give props to the Xperia z4 giving us something new that all being said however when it comes to the point for feel I have to give the second point in this comparison to the samsung galaxy s3 yes the Xperia Z is a wonderful looker and its larger screen size gives us a lot to be happy about but it isn't something we're completely used to yet 2013 is the year of the 1080p screen but any newcomers to that particular market will find a learning curve before we think I'm just picking on the iPhone however I do have to say that having a 4.7 inch phone for a while now has made me used to it now when I pick up an iPhone it just seems way too small and it's feels really foreign and weird thus the comfort and feel point does have to end up going to the tried and true design of the galaxy s3 the battle for the display might seem like an uphill battle and that is kind of true the screen on the Xperia Z is after all what we're going to be seeing more of in the coming months 5 inches and 1080p resolution the 441 ppi pixel density also helps propel the screen to great heights in sharpness a nice touch further is the high refresh rate which makes this phone seem like a tiny bravia television the only real gripe here is the color production which is unfortunately pretty poor for a top-tier device colors look a little washed out and our further hurt by the viewing angles it might not be a deal-breaker for many but it is definitely worth the mention the Super AMOLED display of the galaxy s3 on the other hand makes its already colorful TouchWiz UI pop out of the screen and basically punch you in the face the smaller screen makes for a 720 resolution in dead and a pretty low 306 PPI pixel density thus things aren't necessarily as sharp as the Xperia Z but there's still quite viewable though the specs are a little bit low the practice on this display is still ultimately pretty great and most users these days will still be very happy with the display found on the galaxy s3 the iphone continues its smaller stature rolled by having the 4-inch display capable of 11 36 x 640 resolution and in this case the medium level 2 326 ppi pixel density it is a very good display ferd size and it does hold its own with good colour production and decent sharpness this is actually Apple's greatest display on any of their phones and it does deserve that praise now I have been getting to know the 5-inch display phones quite well and to be honest I get it now 1080p displays do a great job of making media even better than on smaller screens or lower resolution displays or god forbid both the Xperia Z screen is an example of our future as smartphone users even if the screen does have some lackluster color vibrancy I have to admit it is still the most enjoyable time of this bunch for me so it gets the point in display in terms of performance the experience he has the advantage of being the newest phone it sports the incredible quad-core 1.5 gigahertz Snapdragon s4 pro processor backed by an Adreno 320 GPU a set that powers current top devices it gets over 20,000 in antutu benchmark which is very impressive indeed the galaxy s3 on the other hand has the Exynos cortex a9 processor that clocks at one point 4 gigahertz with a mali-400mp graphics processor this was the most advanced phone about half a year ago but even if it has been blown away by current offerings it still does hold its ground as a more than capable performer and finally we have the iphone 5 with an in-house developed dual-core 1.2 gigahertz a6 processor backed by a power vr sgx graphics processor it is a package that has been able to power some of the best that the Apple App Store has had to offer and that is a feat in and of itself some good optimization and control by Apple's part makes this phone still seem as sprightly as the day it was first released though practice means more than scores you just can't deny how much the Xperia Z excels all the great scores that has been putting out definitely translate into usage so it gets the point for great performance in this round when we look at hardware we look primarily at extras now two features that many top-tier devices have been lacking as of late are removable batteries and expandable memory while the unibody design of the Xperia Z does keep the battery fixed one of the many covered ports is indeed the SD card slot NFC and the rest of the connectivity bevy are still available here as well the samsung galaxy s3 has a removable back cover however which allows full access to both the battery and the SD card slot just part of all the things that it did get right at release NFC in this case takes the form of S beam in the s3 and it was a very well marketed feature and finally the iPhones signature aluminium body design keeps all of these bits from being available there's no replaceable battery no expandable memory and also no NFC so for all that it does the samsung galaxy s3 gets the point for having everything our users crave from their top tier devices some true differences are found in the software the Sony Xperia Z sports jellybean 4.1 and thus includes with its customized UI Google now the inclusion of small apps makes multitasking even easier aside from all this however sony has put in a few of their own touches generally however the Xperia U I hear actually looks a lot like ice cream sandwich the black and grey tones are accented by blue by default and the whole interface looks very simplistic while remaining functional I find that you either love TouchWiz or hate it it is one of the most colorful user interfaces for Android and sticks with rounded almost bubbly design choices rather than the more rigid field of other operating systems jellybean 4.1 is what you have here if you updated recently so the great google now is also available however the feature that i want to mention here is multi view which allows you to essentially cut the display in half for two different apps to run at the same time it does take multitasking to a whole new level and finally we have iOS which is only found on the iPhone as one of the first truly advanced interfaces for mobile phones it was quite the innovation however despite changes here and there through the years the operating system essentially looks and works the same there is no app drawer and all apps are put on the home screen to be organized by folders only in the last couple iterations did apple finally include the notification drop-down that lacks the power widgets found in the other two in this comparison that all being said however the controlled app ecosystem doesn't sure that the general feel of iOS is pretty seamless it has smooth transitions and generally continues to perform about as well as it did out-of-the-box optimization in a system without fragmentation is one good advantage here but I've never quite been a fan of the app centric design of iOS the lack of widgets an easy customization make iOS unappealing to me and to most Android users if I have to pick one here it would have to be the Xperia Z because of its simplistic design that does just enough to look good while remaining functional and as far as multi-view goes imagine how good that will look on a 5-inch 1080p display and finally we have the camera the Xperia Z has the most megapixels in this bunch with 13 it is definitely the biggest gun and all those mega pixels are for the most part use quite well pictures have a nice color reproduction and the details and photos are very good obviously lighting takes a big role here as it should for any photography the samsung galaxy s3 with 8 megapixels however has largely the same kind of deal colors in this and the Xperia Z tend to take on a cooler tone and the detail quality is still quite nice but then you got the iphone 5s camera which takes on the obvious warm tones that you notice quite immediately while detail is great across the board with these three cameras this warmer tone that the iPhone gives just looks more pleasing and this yields a more usable picture I don't like how the iPhone 5 has very few options for tweaking the camera as 16 by 9 ratio is more my style than the 4 by 3 that it will always do in the built-in camera app nonetheless I am happy with the pictures from the Xperia Z and the galaxy s3 but with the iphone's camera once used to film an entire independent film my mind you it is definitely deserving of all of that praise and so there you have it I have one point that I want to drive home here while the Xperia Z did walk away with the most points I look at these three phones and realize that the mere act of just picking one of these phones is really awesome here we have three phones with great specifications across the board for people to choose from iphone what the smaller screen is still one of the most capable smartphones existence the best-selling galaxy s3 is the wonderfully built phone that continues to be marketed and sold for good reason and the Xperia Z is the phone that might make sony one of the biggest names in the smartphone market again it is also the example here of the smartphones of our future so it deserves its praised for being the most powerful and enjoyable of the bunch at least for me in this comparison so stay tuned to android authority because we have a lot coming in the following weeks as we are your source for all things android