Sony Xperia Z2 Hands-On & First Impressions

The Sony Xperia Z2 from Sony came in at the right time to compete with the flagship from Samsung, the Galaxy S5, but the appeal was all about the S5 because of the features such as heart rate sensor, an improved camera and a lot more, while although Sony has given the waterproof body to this, Samsung’s marketing of the water resistance feature in the S5 caught all eyes.

For us, though, Sony hasn’t done any poor job with its flagship for this year, as the Xperia Z2 is quite a beauty for many reasons – from the design to the camera. First off, the design is as always quite neat and the aluminum on the sides, glass on the front and back meet together in the edges to bring a neat blend. But again, I have used the Xperia Z1 and this doesn’t feel much different, so a point to be noted for the Z1 users who are thinking to upgrade. No compromise with the stuff on the exterior to bring about a change in the screen size from 5.0 to 5.2-inch from the predecessor, the Xperia Z2 has the same unibody with the buttons on the left and right, the top having a headset jack and secondary mic, and the bottom having the speaker grill and the mic. The MicroUSB slot, slots for SIM card and MicroSD card too are seen on the side, under the cover.

The IP55/58 certification for waterproofing and dust resistance is what many would want if they live in moist conditions most of the time, and they never should be worried about the device falling into trouble if it is accidentally dropped in a swimming pool. I might be exaggerating but that’s what this device is capable of – just like the Xperia Z1 which was given some hard testing by us and it resisted everything quite well.

The 5.2-inch screen has underneath it, the 1080p Full HD Triluminos display with the Sony X Reality engine. Internally, there’s the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset, clocking at 2.3 GHz and the phone has got 3GB RAM to round it off and make it one of the best powered smartphones in the current market.

The phone runs Android 4.4 KitKat with Sony’s own customized interface, which although looks good, we feel it should be slowing down with time because of the gestures and intuitive features which don’t keep up the speed when the device storage starts getting loaded up with apps, media etc.

The camera in the Xperia Z2 is similar to what was given in the Z1, but that’s only if you look at the numbers for the optics. Sony has made quite a few changes with the camera features, with the 20.7 MP Exmor RS for mobile image sensor, and this camera does some excellent captures, and for the video recording – Sony enters the list of limited number of phones which can record 4K videos. To add to this, there’s the BIONZ processing system for the images, thus one can easily capture 61 photos in two seconds using the Timeshift Lapse feature, and the ultra slow 120fps video recording apart from the several other options. Best in all, you could just start the camera, dive into the pool and take excellent videos.

Overall, for the initial impressions, the Sony Xperia Z2 looks quite brilliant, given the waterproofing, the 1080p display, 20.7MP camera with the 4K video recording and the latest Android OS. Whether this would be strong enough to compete the Samsung Galaxy S5, is not really an easy question as both the devices give a different level of experience, and the Xperia Z2 comes with a better camera, and is waterproof compared to the water resistant S5, while the other device in the competition, i.e. HTC One M8 might not be able to match both of these due to the lack of the water resistance, but the presence of Duo camera might attract a different set of buyers.

Sony Xperia Z2 Hands-on Video