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The Best Android Phone of H1 2014

Started Jul 23, 2014 | User reviews
Faisal Armand New Member • Posts: 2
The Best Android Phone of H1 2014

Design: so sexy, elegeant, and sleek. Plus it has IP58 waterproof certification and camera shutter button, which offer humongous advantage.

Overall Specifications: It has IPS 1080p screen, Snapdragon 801, 3GB of RAM, 20.7MP camera, 3200mah battery.. Definitely top of the line specs

Screen: I am generally very pleased with the 5.2" IPS TRILUMINOS screen as it has wide colour gamut, pleasantly saturated colours, and excellent viewing angles. But the screen struggles a bit in direct sunlight, but nothing drastic.

Processing power: with snapdragon 801 which is currently the fastest chipset on the market and 3GB of RAM, the overall performance is lag free and buttery smooth even if intensive apps and games are running

UI: user interface is very elegant, simplistic, simple, and very close to stock android interface. And addition of user friendly features such as double tap to wake, bring to ear to answer calls, glove mode, pencil stylus, etc input are great and very much appreciated.

Camera: The image quality is one of my most important aspects in terms of reviewing a phone. And thankfully, I am very astounded with the image quality. It has plenty of detail, even in low light. Great spot on exposure, accurate colours, great dynamic range, and very good noise levels with no chroma noise and only finely grained luminance noise. In comparison, The camera of Xperia Z2 is able to totally obliterate the best 13MP cameras such as galaxy S4 and note 3. And it is on par with the galaxy s5 in daylight and beats it in indoors, night, and low light shots. However I would very much love RAW image support and settings for shutter speed and manual focus in manual mode, hopefully sony adds those in future updates.

4K video recording: Very great. Astonishing details, accurate colours, and very good stabilization.

Multimedia experience: PERFECT. The dual stereo speaker quality is greater than any smartphone out there and second only to HTC One M8. Understandable though because Z2 has waterproofing which has some effect to speaker loudness & quality.

And I am fortunate enough to get the digital noise cancelling headset. The quality really is awesome, I tested it in the noisiest of all environments such as streets where a lot of cars & motorcycle go by and I can't hear them, the only thing I heard is the music I listened to.

Walkman app is polished, eyecatching and user friendly as it has the functionality to edit music info & album arts, and to comfortably arrange a playlist.

Video watching app is great as well. Very good cinema like looking.

Album app is great, good looking, and offers very good functionality. But I would like the ISO and Shutter speed to be displayed when I look into the details of the images captured by the camera so I can improvise manual camera shooting in tricky conditions.

Battery life: OUTSTANDING! Xperia Z2 is also easily the best when it comes to battery life. The endurance rating is much better than galaxy s5, HTC M8, galaxy note 3, and even LG G2. No matter how heavy I use my Z2, the battery can never drain in a day. That kind of battery endurance is simply unheard of in smartphones these days, very outstanding indeed.

That is it for my review. And here is my general scoring plus my pros and cons of the Xperia Z2.

Design: 100
Specs: 100
User Friendliness: 93
Processing Performance: 100
Screen Quality: 98
Image & Video Quality: 96
Battery Life: 97
Audio & Multimedia Quality: 100
Value for Money: 70

Overall Rating: 95

Pros:
- Great, sleek, waterproof design with a camera shutter button
- The best chipset available with 3GB of RAM
- Great display
- Camera class image quality.
- Great camcorder capabilities
- Rich and excellent multimedia experience
- Outstanding battery life
- Elegant and simplistic UI with a lot of user friendly features

Cons:
- No option for 32GB internal storage
- Noise cancelling headset and magnetic charging dock is not available on all retail units
- A bit big for a people with small hands

 Faisal Armand's gear list:Faisal Armand's gear list
Sony Xperia Z2
Sony Xperia Z2
5.2 screen • 21 megapixels (rear) • 2 megapixels (front)
Announced: Feb 24, 2014
Faisal Armand's score
5.0
Average community score
5.0
Sony Xperia Z2
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