Preview: Sony Xperia Z Ultra Hands-On | TechTree.com

Preview: Sony Xperia Z Ultra Hands-On

With the new over-sized phone from Sony, things are getting out of hand, literally.

 
Preview: Sony Xperia Z Ultra Hands-On

Following the “bigger the better” philosophy, Sony has launched the ultra-large Xperia Z Ultra. If you thought that Samsung's GALAXY Mega phones were stupendously big, then you must check out this monster.  At first, it looks like an overgrown Xperia Z. But is bigger always better, and more importantly can it justify its premium pricing?

Design And Build Quality
This handset is so big that calling it a “mobile” phone would be technically wrong. If the size wasn’t awkward enough, the glass back panel makes it more difficult to hold. At 6.5 mm, the phone is impressively thin. Sony has also done a great job of keeping this huge handset’s weight down to 220 grams. But still, that is too heavy for a phone, unless you look at it as a tablet with calling functionality.

New Face hiding feature.

The design is clean, and much like the Nexus phones, it lacks capacitive menu navigation keys. The device is a fingerprint magnet, but since it is water-proof, you can easily clean it under a tap. Provided that all ports and covers are firmly closed, the phone can survive under 1.5 metres of water for up to 30 minutes.

Display
The Xperia Z Ultra sports a 6.4" screen with pixel dimensions of 1080x1920. With 345 ppi, it’s one of the sharpest screens in the market. Thanks to Sony's Triluminos tech, the colour reproduction is better than what we’ve seen on the Xperia Z. That said, I'd still prefer the LG Optimus G Pro's IPS-panel over what Sony has to offer.

Specs
This is the first handset in India to pack in a powerful Snapdragon 800 quad-core chip clocked at 2.2 GHz. For photography, there’s an 8 megapixel camera (Exmor RS sensor). Apart from that, it offers a 2 GB of RAM, LTE, NFC, Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth 4, 2 megapixel front-facing camera, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage, microSD card slot, and 3000 mAh battery. Detailed specs can be found at the end of this article.

OS and Apps
The Xperia Z Ultra features Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) with Sony’s customisation on top of it. The interface is almost similar to that of Xperia Z and ZL. The difference here is that you just can’t reach top two rows of the icons with single-handed usage. The lock screen supports quick shortcuts to the default music player and camera. Taking advantage of the big screen size, the notification bar offers quick access to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and device settings. To compete with the likes of GALAXY Note II, this phone comes with handwriting recognition support. It doesn’t ship with a stylus, but even a pencil can get the work done.



During general usage, the Xperia Z Ultra didn’t show any sign of lag or slow-down. The browser was very quick, and the large screen would display webpages in their full glory. Since it’s touted as one of the fastest phones in the world, we tried to gauge its performance by installing standard benchmarking apps. However, these sample units were actually prototypes with certain restrictions that wouldn’t let us run benchmarks.



The phone comes with an 8 megapixel autofocus snapper with Exmor RS sensor. The camera interface is identical to that of Xperia Z. You get multiple scene modes including normal, Burst, Picture effect, and Sweep panorama. If you find that confusing, you can simply activate the Superior auto mode and let the phone decide what's best suited for the situation. From the low-light shots taken at the venue, I found the image quality to be decent. However, shutterbugs will be disappointed due to the absence of a flash. It's a tad weird that Sony could not find a tiny spot for a flash on such a massive real estate.

In A Nutshell
The Xperia Z Ultra is the biggest and costliest phone Sony has ever launched in India. It’s a powerful device with a lot of interesting features. Considering many people use their 7” tablets such as GALAXY Tab 2 as a primary phone, it’s safe to assume that there is a market for oversized handsets. But the question here is that will they be willing to shell out Rs. 47,000 for such device? We will analyse that and other aspects of the Xperia Z Ultra closely in its upcoming detailed review very shortly. Stay tuned.

Specifications:

  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset.
  • Quad-core 2.2 GHz processor.
  • Adreno 330 GPU.
  • Dust and water proof body (IP58 compliant).
  • 6.4-inch screen with 1080x1920 pixels.
  • Display features: Triluminos display, Scratch resistant layer.
  • 16 GB, 3.5 mm jack, MicroSD card slot, 2 GB RAM.
  • Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, micro-USB port.
  • 8 megapixel autofocus camera, No Flash, 2 mp front-facing snapper.
  • Android OS, v4.2 (Jelly Bean).
  • Requires Micro-SIM.
     


Tags : Mobile Phones, Android, Sony, Xperia

 
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