Key Features: 6.44 inch Full-HD screen;
Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 2.2GHz processor;
MicroSD card slot
Manufacturer: Sony
Sony Xperia Z Ultra hands-on review
Sony Xperia Z Ultra
Following on the heels of the Xperia Z smartphone and Xperia Tablet Z
is Sony’s foray into the world of the giant phone or ‘phablet’, the
Sony Xperia Z Ultra. Weighing in with a Galaxy Note 2 busting 6.44-inch
full HD screen, the Xperia Ultra Z is an incredibly slim, waterproof
phone and is the first to use the fastest smartphone processor in the
world, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800.
Sony Xperia Z Ultra - Design
The
Sony Xperia Z Ultra retains the ‘OmniBalance’ design principles that
provide the Xperia Z line with its distinctive angular looks, and it
squeeze and impressively large screen into a 6.5mm thick body. This is
thinner than any other Full HD smartphone, and you can really tell when
holding it. Surprisingly for such a large phone (179.4 x 92.2 x 6.5 mm)
the Z Ultra is reasonably easy to use one-handed and fits in a back
pocket, widthways at least. The top pokes out of the top of anything but
the largest pockets, not that you’ll want to keep where you’re likely
to sit on it.
It’s made from metal frame sandwiched between two panes of tempered glass and weighs 212g, making it slightly heavier than the competition. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 weighs 183g including stylus, while the Huawei Ascend Mate is also lighter at 198g. Not that you particularly feel the extra weight in your hand. With such a large phone the thinness is more important, and Sony has done a good job keeping the Xperia Z Ultra as slim as possible – with the thin side bezel showing of the screen at its best.
Sony has kept faith with the round power button seen on other Xperia models. This sits in the middle of the right hand side of the phone, making it easily accessible during one-handed use. The volume rocker can be found just underneath, again easy to get to without needing both hands.
Unlike most phones, the 3.5mm headphone jack is on the side of the Xperia Z Ultra. This is exposed, enabling you to plug headphones in without messing about with fiddly flaps. Even though there’s no plug or cover the headphone jack is water-resistant and therefore does not affect the water proofing of the phone.
Other aspects of the design include a contact for wireless charging - a special dock can be purchased separately for this purpose – while flaps cover the microSD and SIM slots, just like the Xperia Z phone and tablet.
It’s made from metal frame sandwiched between two panes of tempered glass and weighs 212g, making it slightly heavier than the competition. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 weighs 183g including stylus, while the Huawei Ascend Mate is also lighter at 198g. Not that you particularly feel the extra weight in your hand. With such a large phone the thinness is more important, and Sony has done a good job keeping the Xperia Z Ultra as slim as possible – with the thin side bezel showing of the screen at its best.
Sony has kept faith with the round power button seen on other Xperia models. This sits in the middle of the right hand side of the phone, making it easily accessible during one-handed use. The volume rocker can be found just underneath, again easy to get to without needing both hands.
Unlike most phones, the 3.5mm headphone jack is on the side of the Xperia Z Ultra. This is exposed, enabling you to plug headphones in without messing about with fiddly flaps. Even though there’s no plug or cover the headphone jack is water-resistant and therefore does not affect the water proofing of the phone.
Other aspects of the design include a contact for wireless charging - a special dock can be purchased separately for this purpose – while flaps cover the microSD and SIM slots, just like the Xperia Z phone and tablet.
Sony Xperia Z Ultra – Screen
One
of the most impressive aspects of the Xperia Z Ultra is its screen. The
6.44-inch full HD screen has great viewing angles and deep, accurate
colour reproduction. The dark surroundings in which we were testing made
the screen look its best , but also meant we were not able tell how
well it performs in sunlight.
Sony has added its Triluminos display technology, previously only available on its Bravia TVs, to the Xperia Z Ultra. This allows the screen to display a wider palette of colours. In our testing the Xperia Z Ultra replicated colour well, particularly reds and skin tones.
Another benefit Triluminos brings to the Z Ultra is X-Reality. X-Reality takes lo-res images and video and optimises it to improve its quality – think up-scaling SD content to HD on a TV. While this wasn’t available to test during our hand-ons it does offer the intriguing potential to sharpen up lower resolution YouTube video and web images. This type of up-scaling requires plenty of power, which leads us nicely into the beast of a processor on the Xperia Z Ultra.
Sony has added its Triluminos display technology, previously only available on its Bravia TVs, to the Xperia Z Ultra. This allows the screen to display a wider palette of colours. In our testing the Xperia Z Ultra replicated colour well, particularly reds and skin tones.
Another benefit Triluminos brings to the Z Ultra is X-Reality. X-Reality takes lo-res images and video and optimises it to improve its quality – think up-scaling SD content to HD on a TV. While this wasn’t available to test during our hand-ons it does offer the intriguing potential to sharpen up lower resolution YouTube video and web images. This type of up-scaling requires plenty of power, which leads us nicely into the beast of a processor on the Xperia Z Ultra.
Sony Xperia Z Ultra – Performance
Touted
as the fastest mobile processor ever, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 that
powers the Xperia Z Ultra is a quad-core processor running at 2.2GHz. As
expected with sort of power behind it, the Z Ultra zips through the
Android 4.2 Jelly Bean menus and we found no hint of lag when opening or
running apps. Full HD video content also ran very smoothly.
A quick test using the 3D Mark benchmark test, Ice Storm Extreme, saw it score an incredible 11,896. What does that mean in real terms? Well the Galaxy S4 is certainly no slouch, but it can only get to around 6,700 in the same test.
A quick test using the 3D Mark benchmark test, Ice Storm Extreme, saw it score an incredible 11,896. What does that mean in real terms? Well the Galaxy S4 is certainly no slouch, but it can only get to around 6,700 in the same test.
Sony Xperia Z Ultra – Features
The Xperia Z
Ultra ups the ante on the water-proofing stakes and is IP55 and IP58
rated. This means that the Ultra can withstand dust and submersion under
water. Where it beats the Xperia Z is that the Ultra can go deeper than
the 1m limit of its little brother.
The rear camera is an 8-megapixel affair while the front facing camera is 2 megapixel, perfect for video calling but not much else. We’ll be bringing you more about how these perform when we fully review the phone.
The rear camera is an 8-megapixel affair while the front facing camera is 2 megapixel, perfect for video calling but not much else. We’ll be bringing you more about how these perform when we fully review the phone.
The Xperia Z family
While the Xperia Z Ultra doesn’t come with a stylus it does allow any pen or pencil to be used as one, impressive considering all other phones require a capacitive stylus to be used. Of course this is a far cry from the pressure sensitive digitisers we are used to on the likes of the Samsung’s Galaxy Note series, but we found writing notes on the Xperia Z Ultra works well. Handwriting recognitions is intelligent, it managed to comprehend even our scrawls with good accuracy.
As a sweetener Sony will offer a £21 voucher plus 30 days free access to Music Unlimited with every purchase of the Z Ultra when it launches later this year.
Sony also announced the SBH52 with the Xperia Z Ultra. This is a 'Smart Bluetooth Handset' that lets you answer calls and view text messages while your phone is in your bag. It is splash proof and also has a built in FM radio with RDS.
While the Xperia Z Ultra doesn’t come with a stylus it does allow any pen or pencil to be used as one, impressive considering all other phones require a capacitive stylus to be used. Of course this is a far cry from the pressure sensitive digitisers we are used to on the likes of the Samsung’s Galaxy Note series, but we found writing notes on the Xperia Z Ultra works well. Handwriting recognitions is intelligent, it managed to comprehend even our scrawls with good accuracy.
As a sweetener Sony will offer a £21 voucher plus 30 days free access to Music Unlimited with every purchase of the Z Ultra when it launches later this year.
Sony also announced the SBH52 with the Xperia Z Ultra. This is a 'Smart Bluetooth Handset' that lets you answer calls and view text messages while your phone is in your bag. It is splash proof and also has a built in FM radio with RDS.
Sony Xperia Z Ultra - Battery Life
The
main concern we have with the Xperia Z Ultra is battery life. The
6.44-inch HD screen will doubtless be thirsty and we hope the 3,000mAh
battery can cope. The smaller and lower resolution Galaxy Note 2 packs a
3,100mAh battery and has great battery life so we hope the Z Ultra can
compare. As with the rest of the Xperia range it will come with Sony’s
Battery Stamina Mode to make the most out of battery life.
First Impressions
Sony
has entered the large smartphone market with a bang. The Xperia Z Ultra
is good-looking, has a great screen and is incredibly slim. We’ll have
to see how the Galaxy Note 3 stacks up to it when Samsung finally show
it off in Autumn
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