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The Sony Xperia Z is an Android-based
smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...
by
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
. Announced at
CES 2013 CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...
the phone was officially released on 9 February 2013 in Japan and 1 March 2013 in Singapore and the UK. It was released in the U.S months later. The Xperia Z was initially shipped with the Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) operating system. The smartphone has Ingress Protection Ratings of IP55 and IP57. It also contains a 13.1 MP Exmor RS camera sensor, and the screen of the phone consists of a TFT 1920x1080 display, with 441 ppi. It would be the first smartphone in the Sony Xperia Z series, continuing all the way up to the Xperia Z5. Alongside the Xperia Z, Sony unveiled a variant called the Sony Xperia ZL, which uses the same hardware as the Xperia Z, but sacrifices water resistance for a smaller frame, a physical camera button and an infrared blaster. In June 2013, Sony unveiled a
phablet A phablet (, ) is a mobile device combining or straddling the size formats of smartphones and tablets. The word is a blend word of ''phone'' and ''tablet''. The term was largely unused by the late 2010s, since average phone sizes eventually morph ...
version of the Xperia Z called the
Sony Xperia Z Ultra The Sony Xperia Z Ultra is a 2013 Android (operating system), Android phablet designed and manufactured by Sony Mobile Communications, Sony Mobile. Codenamed ''Togari'' and marketed as "the world's slimmest Full HD smartphone it is the first pho ...
. Its successor, the
Sony Xperia Z1 The Sony Xperia Z1 is an Android (operating system), Android smartphone produced by Sony Mobile Communications, Sony. The Z1, at that point known by the project code name "Honami", was unveiled during a press conference in Internationale Funka ...
, was released on 20 September 2013.


Design

The body of the Xperia Z is a rectangular slab compared to Sony's more curved Xperia T and Xperia Arc S. This design is called "OmniBalance", which "is focused on creating balance and symmetry in all directions", according to Sony. The Xperia Z has subtly rounded edges and reflective surfaces on all sides, which are held together by a skeleton frame made from glass fiber polyamide. The aluminum power button is placed on the right-hand side of the device, which is said to make one-handed operation of the phone easier.


Hardware


Dimensions, design, and battery

The phone's dimensions are stated to be 139 x 71 x 7.9 mm, and its weight is 146 grams (including the battery). It has a non-user-replaceable lithium-ion battery, rated at 2330 mAh. The phone is covered on the front and back by tempered glass, where the front is Dragontrail Glass from
Asahi Glass Company , formerly Asahi Glass Co., Ltd.'(旭硝子株式会社), is a Japanese global glass manufacturing company, headquartered in Tokyo. It is the largest glass company in the world and one of the core Mitsubishi companies. The company is listed on ...
resin-bonded to the LCD, and the back is Corning
Gorilla Glass Gorilla Glass is a brand of chemically strengthened glass developed and manufactured by Corning Inc. Currently in its ninth generation, it is designed to be thin, light, and damage-resistant. Its surface strength and crack-resistance are achieve ...
.


Camera

It includes a 13.1-
megapixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...
rear camera with an Exmor RS IMX135 image sensor, flash, image stabilization, HDR, face detection (with red-eye reduction), Sweep Panorama, scene recognition and 16x digital zoom, and a 2.2-megapixel front camera with a
Sony Exmor R Exmor is a technology developed by Sony and implemented on some of their CMOS image sensors. It performs on-chip analog/digital signal conversion and two-step noise reduction in parallel on each column of the CMOS sensor. Sensors from the Exm ...
sensor. Both cameras record video at 1080p. The rear camera is one of the first mobile phone cameras that can capture
HDR video High-dynamic-range television (HDR-TV) is a technology that uses high dynamic range (HDR) to improve the quality of display signals. It is contrasted with the retroactively-named standard dynamic range (SDR). HDR changes the way the luminance a ...
. The camera software is equipped with a ''quick launch'' feature, also known as ''fast capture,'' allowing the optional automatic capture of a photo or record video immediately after launch from the lock screen. The burst shot mode of the Xperia Z has three-speed settings: high speed (0.9 megapixels), middle (9.6 megapixels), and low (2.1 megapixels). For unknown reasons, the resolution at the lowest speed setting is lower than at the medium speed setting. At the highest speed setting, the device can capture 1000 photos within 68 seconds. Tests suggest that poor image processing in the automatic (standard) camera mode leads to a quality loss that photos captured through burst mode appear higher in comparison.


Display

The smartphone has a capacitive
touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...
with a size of 5", and its resolution is 1920x1080 pixels (
1080p 1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...
) at 441 ppi, with 16 million colors. The screen uses Sony's Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2 for picture and video enhancement.


Chipsets and storage

The smartphone ships with a
Qualcomm Qualcomm Incorporated () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless techn ...
Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB of internal storage flash memory (with approx. 11 GB available to the user) and a
microSD Secure Digital (SD) is a proprietary hardware, proprietary, non-volatile memory, non-volatile, flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA). Owing to their compact size, SD cards have been widely adopted in a variety of port ...
card slot which accepts cards up to 128 GB.


Interfaces and connectivity

The smartphone has a built-in 3.5 mm audio jack for
headphones Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound. Headphones let a single user listen to an ...
,
GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...
and
GLONASS GLONASS (, ; ) is a Russian satellite navigation system operating as part of a radionavigation-satellite service. It provides an alternative to Global Positioning System (GPS) and is the second navigational system in operation with global cove ...
support,
Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...
4.0,
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...
,
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gam ...
(via MHL), MirrorLink 1.0,
Miracast Miracast is a Wireless, wireless communications standard created by the Wi-Fi Alliance which is designed to transmit video and sound from devices (such as laptops or smartphones) to display receivers (such as TVs, monitors, or projectors). It uses ...
and NFC, in addition to being DLNA certified. In Japan, the smartphone features an
infrared blaster An infrared blaster (IR blaster) is a device that relays commands from a remote control to one or more devices that require infrared remote control. For instance, it may also allow radio-frequency-based (RF) remotes (including those using Blueto ...
. NFC is a core feature of the device. The device is certified to IP55 and IP57 standards to be dust-protected, low-pressure water jet-protected and waterproof, allowing immersion under 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes.


Software

The Xperia Z originally ran Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with Sony's launcher and additional applications, including Sony's media applications (Walkman, Album, and Movies), as well as a battery stamina mode. The device received an update to Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) on 24 June 2013. In December 2013, the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean software update rolled out for Xperia Z devices. In May 2014, the Android 4.4.2 KitKat software update rolled out, followed by Android 4.4.4 in September 2014. On 16 October 2014, Sony reported that it would be updating the entire Xperia Z lineup of devices to Android 5.0 Lollipop, beginning in early 2015, for the core Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z2 devices, with others following soon after. Later in CES 2015 at Sony's event, they announced that the Android 5.0 Lollipop would be rolled out to the Xperia Z series starting in February 2015. On 29 May 2015, Sony released Android 5.0 Lollipop for the Xperia Z, followed by Android 5.0.2 on 23 May 2015. On 7 September 2015, Sony released Android 5.1 Lollipop for the Xperia Z. This was the final firmware update for the device, as Android 6.0 Marshmallow was released for the Xperia Z2 and later Xperia devices only.


Network compatibility

The following table shows which
UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technolog ...
and
LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a mobile telephony standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement ** LTE Advanced Pro, a further enhancement * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers * Leukotrie ...
bands are supported. See the list of UMTS networks and the list of LTE networks to find which bands are required to use a cell phone service provider. All variants support four 2G GSM bands: 850/900/1800/1900.


Reception and sales

The Xperia Z has received mostly positive reviews from critics. Damien McFerren of CNET gave the phone 4 and a half stars out of five and said "The Sony Xperia Z combines looks, power and connectivity to supply one of the most impressive Android experiences we've seen in quite some time. The lack of Android 4.2 at launch is unfortunate and that 5-inch screen isn't going to suit everyone, but there's little room for complaint elsewhere. This is easily Sony's best phone yet, and one of the best Android phones ever released". Android Central gave the phone a positive review, saying "For Android fans, the Sony Xperia Z was one of the highlights of a fairly quiet CES. A 5-inch, 1080p phone with a bold new design language and fancy new camera technology, the Xperia Z was probably the most compelling phone of the show. And just a couple of months later, it's now available to buy in the UK. Without a doubt, Sony Mobile's new baby is one of the largest, with full specs Android phones around". Audience reactions to the phone have also been positive. At
CES 2013 CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...
, the Xperia Z won the ‘Best Smartphone' and ‘Best of Show' awards. According to Sony executive Calum McDougall, early Xperia Z sales have been strong. He states, "It he Xperia smartphonesold over 150,000 units in its first week in Japan, taking a 24 percent market share straight away." "It may be a bit too early to say but the first signs are very positive."


See also

* Sony Xperia Z series *
LTE (telecommunication) In telecommunications, long-term evolution (LTE) is a standard for wireless broadband communication for cellular mobile devices and data terminals. It is considered to be a "transitional" 4G technology, and is therefore also referred to as 3 ...
(3GPP Long Term Evolution) *
LTE Advanced LTE Advanced, also named or recognized as LTE+, LTE-A or 4G+, is a 4G mobile Cellular network, cellular communication standard developed by 3GPP as a major enhancement of the LTE (telecommunication), Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. Three tec ...
(next version of LTE) * List of LTE networks *
UMTS frequency bands The UMTS frequency bands are radio frequencies used by third generation (3G) wireless Universal Mobile Telecommunications System networks. They were allocated by delegates to the World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC-92) held in Málaga-To ...
*
E-UTRA E-UTRA is the air interface of 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) upgrade path for mobile networks. It is an acronym for Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access, also known as the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radi ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control Android (operating system) devices Mobile phones introduced in 2013 Digital audio players Discontinued flagship smartphones Sony smartphones