A high-end mobile phone - not the ultimate cameraphone

Seeking a cell phone that is my daily companion. A mobile phone with the broadest possible range of applications - but with a clear focus on the private use and less social interaction. In this context, I replace many other devices, the mobile phone, including the camera. I used to be a supporter of the team Nokia 808 / Symbian Belle.

! Gravity of the review will be use as a camera phone.

Externals
The Z1 is large for a cell phone and even men's hands hardly handed to use. The on / off is relatively close to the volume rocker, which leads more often that I first meet rocker instead of the on / off. The camera button is nice, but it is rarely used by me. I have found that one in the use of a camera button, the phone stops moving and thus the photos more blurred, as when using the touch screen. (This is true in my opinion, but to all camera buttons to.)

The holder for the cell phone strap is great (and with such a large mobile duty in my opinion). The main camera is very close to the edge, so that you can easily with your finger covers the sensor. The Message LED is useful.

Front and back are covered with an anti-shatter film which is slightly scratch prone. For the front I have therefore stuck a protective glass shield (screen 139 650 Devil - Display protection glass). Seriously, forget the protectors and used glass windshields. Really. :-) The back is with me by a shell protection (Z1 crystal clear hard shell). The alternative would be an additional frame (eBay: "Aluminum Alloy Metal Bumper Case Slider") Overall, you should not hide the Z1. :-)

CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the Z1 is beautiful and an eye-catcher. Half point deduction in this category for me because it is a little too large for convenient one-hand operation for a cell phone with 5Zoll display. 4.5 of 5 points.

HARDWARE
Technically, the Z1 almost on the top. Processor, graphics chip, memory, battery, receiving antennas, camera lenses, brightness, SD Slot (64GB), USB OTG, IP certification: everything absolutely perfect. Must be said. Light flaws there are in:

1. viewing angle stability of the display (disrupts almost not at all)
With regard to the display technology divorced yes the spirits ... I would have an AMOLED preferred. Regardless of the Z1-display is already good.

2. speaker volume
The lack of volume of the loudspeaker leads to a slight limitation of use as Navi. Can you live with. Correct annoying it is but, if you put the phone in your car in a cradle on listening. One must even listen very carefully to the maximum in order to understand the interlocutor. Who coupled his cell phone via Bluetooth, this problem has not. There is at XDA-Developers a "volume boost" mod for the Z1.

CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the Z1 even months after the release technical Alphatier in the barn. Half point deduction in this category for me, because of the low volume during a call with listening in the car. 4.5 of 5 points.

TYPICAL USAGE SCENARIOS
Making calls: good connections (two antennas) and comprehensibility (volume when listening time left out). WLAN / Internet: good connections. LTE-capable.
Listen to music: very good. Cute Walkman app and additional offers. Those like me who uses the cell phone during sports, needs a Handyarmtasche and a headset with a controller: Z1 SHOCKSOCK BRACELET SPORT and HTC Stereo Headset RC-E160.
eBook, videos: all good.
Social networking: all good (as far as I use that)
Games / surfing ...: due to the hardware muscle can not scare the Z1. Everything was great.
Navigation / route tracking: due to the good hardware and the SD card not an issue. Maps stored locally on the SD card (for example, with Navigon) and enjoy. GPS is found very quickly.
The power saving features in standby are very good. I charge cycles of a little more than two days at about 5 to 6 hours DisplayOn time. This is a very good value for a 5Zoll phone. (Note: big screen = more power consumption)

The Sony-surface like it very much. Wherever it makes sense, Sony has additional functions. For example, in the app-management or in the personalization / customization. With the help of "issues" can the surface be optically converted. Also the rooting and flashing is not an issue: On the web there is sufficient support for a CFW.

CONCLUSION: As a general purpose instrument, the Z1 is very well positioned. 5 of 5 points.

CAMERA

Here's my personal downer. Contrary to various tests in magazines and advertising the Sony Z1 is the ultimate camera phone. Those like me who comes from 808 and has also worked with the 1020, which has slightly higher claims.

The hardware is good! The Sony lenses are good hardware, both in regard to the photosensitivity, the focal length. The photo sensor has 20 Mpx also potential. Accordingly makes the Z1 good to very good daylight photos. But even the iPhone 5s or S4 make good daylight photos (1020 times we let the outside before, because it is a WP-mobile). Even the LG G2 makes good daylight photos. But from a top camera phone I expect more: the need to provide good to excellent photos even in the border areas ...

The Z1 has three different usage scenarios for the camera:
- "Superior Auto"
- Manual
- "Scene Select"

The "Superior Auto" should be the default setting for snapshots. Quasi the counterpart to the camera app of the iPhone, in which the user can also adjust nix. Prints, finished. Unfortunately, this works the Z1 only in daylight. The automatic has clearly a tendency to choose the ISO too high and the exposure to short. This results in interior photos, dusk or at night to clear noise in the photos. This noise is anyway a plague in the Sony camera software. (However, there is no longer the color noise than ever with the Sony Z!) The ISO range of the automatic Z1 goes 50-1600 (manually up to 3200). 1600 is in itself not much; but for the software of the Z1 apparently too much: The Sony app can not make it, at such ISO values ​​wegzurechnen noise. Also not at 8Mpx what is already compressed twice (once for conversion of 20Mpx to 8 Mpx and the second time due to the loss-prone jpg format) and for the avoidance of doubt nothing to do with noise has blurred. That should work in such ISO values ​​with a tripod or rest, is self-Sufficient daylight assuming selects the automatic ISO 50 and 1 / 250sec -. That gives very good pictures. For snapshots triggering is depending on the situation a bit too long (up to 0.6 sec)

The Scene option is to provide better for extreme situations photos, for example at dusk. For this, the software adjusts the exposure time and the color space. In the scene "night photo" I had, for example, an exposure of 0.7 sec. Unfortunately it does not work as good as you would like. For example, the white balance is almost never true. Very often, a yellowish tinge available. Unfortunately, in the scene selection, no manual intervention in the white balance is impossible. Even ISO, exposure time or whatever is exempt from attachment. Not even the focus point can be manually set (available in the Scene selection only Autofocus)!

In the manual dial you can set white balance, ISO, Focus point and brightness. That's it. No Focus range, no exposure, no gamut mapping. And the ISO setting has no direct impact on the exposure time - it was a real negative surprise for me. The exposure was always 1/8. The set ISO value is unknown reasons sometimes switched from the camera app (64 instead of 50 or 200 instead of 100). There is no storage space - so you have to make all the settings again and again.
[EDIT] On 12/02/2014 there was a firmware update on 14.2.A.1.136. since this update seems to be a change of ISO in manual mode now correctly convert the exposure time. I will test more accurately.

The 20Mpx mode is almost impossible to use: the noise is too much. There is always a better choice to take pictures directly on 8Mpx and convert if required later.

The problem with the three described above usage scenarios: none of the three is perfect and each selection levers the other out. In the scene selection, the exposure is adjusted, but you lose the manual focus point and manual white balance. In manual mode you can adjust everything apparently, but the exposure time is not - and you can also save nothing. The feature only works in daylight.

In addition, the Z1 lens is sensitive to its own flash. Already a protective sheet or a protective cover can cause the flash is reflected in the lens and the photos get a bright rim.

Also HDR is suboptimal. First of all, there is only a limited HRD mode with two instead of three photos. That would be OK; but the photos are often not superimposed clean. If you have branches in the foreground and in the background a landscape (mountain or so), then produced on the branches a kind of Doppler effect.

The macro mode is also somewhat hit and miss.

The ambitious users attempting instead to use with the Sony-app other camera apps.

Since there would be, for example, "Perfectly Clear". This app is not better than the stock app, but only makes a (surprisingly good) post. For example, the noise is calculated away again later.
Nevertheless, the app is not for me:
1. It is for me not in question, rework each photo so complicated method. In addition I have neither the time nor the inclination. Takes everything too long, too many clicks.
2. The app gives me too much else. I did not make it at first, just to get a noise reduction; the image has been brightened simultaneously sharpened contrasts ...

Or you could "FV-5" taste. Since you can adjust more. Another possibility would be "Better camera".

CONCLUSION: The Sony Z1 can not even begin to play the capabilities of the lens and the sensor. The camera app and the Berechnungsalgorythmen stand in the way. Apart from daylight photos have virtually all photographs clearly visible noise. And completely unnecessary - since a 20Mpx sensor there should be no problem to calculate perfect 5Mpx photos or even pretty good 8Mpx photos. Unfortunately, only 4 out of 5 points. Again very clear: a Z1 does NOT worse photos than a G2 or S4. But maybe not always better. And that's what I would have expected given the hardware (lenses, sensor).

Anyone interested in going on: there is a rough camera test at Connect: "Sony Xperia Z1: The camera in the test" and a very extensive test at GSMArena: "Sony Xperia Z1 review: Walking on Water". And the technical cleanest test can be found in digitalkamera.de: "tested image quality of the Sony Xperia Z1" All tests are still with the build 136. The update to Build 290 brought slight improvements in color, saturation and contrast.

****
Who counted: I am now for the Z1 exactly at 4.5 points. Whether it makes 4 points or 5 depends solely on the usage scenario. If one looks a real camera phone, then you are unfortunately only at 4 good points - like me. If one looks to be an all-purpose device with 5 points with slight deductions.

Either way, the Z1 is a great phone with great value for money. To me it was just important that potential buyers know the pros and cons and be able to assess in advance whether the Z1 matches a.