Sony Xperia Ultra Z Review - Display, Features and Price.

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INTRODUCTION

With no less than 30 devices in their Xperia smartphone range, Sony certainly doesn’t shy away from releasing multitudes of Android devices. This year’s Xperia Z flagship is competing well against the heavyweights from Samsung, HTC and Nokia, while other phones such as the Xperia SP and Xperia E give consumers options in the lower reaches of the market. And let’s not forget tablets like the Xperia Tablet Z, praised by many for its slick design and water resistance.

Continuing Sony’s Android ambitions is the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, a handset witha 6.4 inch screen and impressive specifications. Falling into the phablet category, the Z Ultra brings over some of the best elements of their high-end smartphones into the ‘tiny tablet’ form factor.

For the first time, the Japanese company has released a phablet, one which truly straddles the line between high-end smartphones and small tablets.

SCREEN

The biggest selling point of the Xperia Z Ultra is its massive, 6.4-inch 1080p display, which is perfect for content consumption. It’s a larger version of their e-IPS TFT LCD panel used on the Xperia Z. e-IPS is essentially a cost-friendly version of full IPS panels, with reduced viewing angles but largely the same color output and clarity as you’d expect from a higher-end display

At 1920 x 1080, this display comes in with a pixel density of 344 pixels-per-inch (PPI).Sony likes to throw around a lot of marketing terms such as “Triluminous Display with X-Reality”, “OptiContrast Panel” and “Mobile Bravia Engine 2” to describe the Z Ultra’s display. In actual fact these just refer to a range of the display’s basic features, and truthfully Sony doesn’t need to use jargon like this because the display is very good.

DESIGN

Just like the Xperia Z the Z Ultra meets the IP55 protection standard, and adds IP58. This handset is covered against dust, low pressure water jets, waterproof, shatter proof, and scratch resistant.

On the one hand, Sony has crafted an astoundingly beautiful smartphone, combining a slim design with premium materials. On the other, the device is ridiculously large, pushing the boundaries of what can be considered a phone, and making it somewhat hard to use.

At just 6.5mm thick, the phone feels really nice in the hand, and even though it’s just a few millimeters slimmer than a phone like the Galaxy S4, it seems like there’s a huge difference. Sony has used glass for both the front and the back of the phone, which improves the overall build quality, but can make it a considerable fingerprint magnet as well.

It comes with 16 GB of internal storage, 2 GB of RAM, supporter for microSD cards, and a screen which is a 6.4 inch monster, with a FullHD resolution of 1920×1080 pixels (giving 342 ppi), and a 3,050 mAh battery to keep it all running. But it’s the processor that should catch your eye, it’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, running at 2.2 GHz with four cores. That makes the Z Ultra one of the fastest Android handsets out there.

Around the edges, the left side has a concealed micro-USB port at the top, and a dock connector around half way down. While the connector is magnetic, it’s strange that it wasn’t made flush with the edge; instead you get a small ridge that can be uncomfortable while holding the phone normally. It also doesn’t quite fit with the design: upon first taking the device out of the box.

BATTERY

Sony Xperia Z Ultra is powered by a 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor alongside 2GB of RAM. It's safe to say it is the fastest device we've come across, handling everything that we threw at it with great aplomb. From multi-tasking and switching between apps, to casual as well as heavy duty games, everything was butter smooth.

Battery life is another area where the Xperia Z Ultra just about does the job and it should last a full working day with moderate to heavy use. The giant display on the device is a bit of a battery guzzler and power users will likely find themselves reaching for the charger before the day is over.

PRICE

Rs. 46,990 in India.

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