My Sony Xperia Z2 Full Review

On paper, the Xperia Z2 is arguably the best phone money can buy. In the past, we have seen that it's not always about having the best specs sheet,but actually delivering the best experience. So this begs the question, how well does the Z2 actually do in the real world? I'm sure you want to find out, I do too. Welcome to my Sony Xperia Z2 FULL REVIEW! 





I have had the Xperia Z2 now for exactly 2 weeks now and i'm almost certain I have covered everything that has to do with this phone or at least the important parts and not how many times i have taken it with me to do the number 2. Yes! I love it that much, sue me!  If you have read any of my reviews previously, you will know that I like to divide the review into various sections which i guess the first thing you always notice when you pick up any phone is how it looks. How does the Xperia Z2 look? Design...


DESIGN/BUILD
It's true that Sony has stuck with the Omni-balance look for quite sometime now, however i tell you... There is nothing wrong about how the Z2 looks, don't fix it if it isn't broken.HTC went with this (M7 to M8), Samsung are famous for this (Not the good-famous however).
The Xperia Z2 sit in the box, looking all black, it looks great. Then taking it out of the box and having a first feel of the device, everything SCREAMS premium. Tempered front and back glass, held together by a carefully finished aluminum strip in the middle to hold them together really does give this device a fantastic feel. The edges might feel a little bit sharp but this is expected from a rectangular device, it looks like a MAN'S device. Something my cousin James Bond could use. B| Sometimes i just look at my phone when it's shut off and wonder.. 'WOW'. Yeah it's that captivating and beautiful to look at even when it's asleep.  However, due to the glass, if you keep this device on a very smooth surface, even a well laid bed, it can easily go 'walk abouts' Lol. So know where and how you keep ur device. One handed use just sits on the line between comfortable and uncomfortable so unless you have really big hands, u'll still use this device with 2 hands most times.
About the build quality itself. I'm not totally impressed with the build of the Unit i have because i guess if you pay this much for a smartphone you expect PURE PERFECTION. Sony had some production problems as we heard so i guess that's why some of this Z2s aren't coming out perfect. They are releasing it in batches. The first batch being 14w14 which i think means 14th week of 2014. The Unit I have is 14w17 and it has about 0.8mm gap at the top right corner between the glass and the aluminum also a maybe 1mm gap at the bottom left corner also, now this is not something that you will ever notice unless you are looking for it (I was when i found it). So when it came to building the phone Sony didn't perfect it. Something else which i had in mind was maybe this could be Sony's way of 'temporarily' resolving the Self-cracking screen issue mostly found in Xperia Z and Z1 (Some Z2 users reported same too). I really don't know, but i think it's a build issue. I know the next question should be will the phone still be waterproof? Answer - Entirely! It still is!  The flaps also feels easier to open and close than on the Z1, love what they did with the flaps.As I said earlier again, this is not a deal breaker because you almost never notice it. And it affects nothing else. It's still a very brilliant-looking phone.
Now we know what the Z2 looks and feels like lets power it on to see how beautiful it looks inside, of course we will notice it's Screen first...


SCREEN
Powering on the Xperia Z2 and getting that first vibration of a new phone that feels like a new life was just born.  Then you are greeted by a Beautiful Beautiful display, and right away, you know that Sony's 'Display NIGHTMARE' has come to an end, or at least is close to the end. The decision to go with an IPS display was a good one. The Xperia Z2's display is very vibrant and indeed lovely to look at. Viewing angles are GREAT, no matter how you look at it.. It's not losing any color or contrast it just looks same as when you view it head-on. I found everything to be great about the screen EXCEPT it's 'whites'. By default, the whites on the Xperia Z2 are off, they look maybe redish or brownish. But THANK GOD Sony added the options in the settings to edit the White Balance of the screen.If you have a Z2, set it to R = 5, G = 35 and B = 80 and you have PERFECT whites. YOU ARE WELCOME!  
Under the Sunlight, the Xperia Z2's screen is not the best but it is far from the worst either, it gets bright enough but it doesn't get 'crazy' bright like some other phones out there. So using under the Sunlight, that experience should be better. But it's usable. Yes it is. 
Talking about the screen without mentioning X-Reality Engine won't be complete now would it? X-Reality Engine is NOT a Gimmick. On the Z2 at least, it's not. The icons look great normally but if you turn on X-Reality then they actually appear more 'solid', more '3D'. Same thing for viewing Images and Videos. It's adds kind of like an extra dimension for your viewing Satisfaction. Good Job Sony! 
Yeah Yeah, the Z2 has a good screen, it's better than the previous Xperia devices but how does the Z2 perform? What does it look like inside?


PERFORMANCE / UI
Think of a picture of Rambo, now think about a picture of the Terminator. Pretty Bad Bottom huh?!
Armed with a Snapdragon 801 CPU, Adreno 330 GPU and 3GB of RAM. The Xperia Z2 will eat anything you throw at it and then ask for more! So, I'm not here to talk about all it's technical specs, because we all know dat already and if you don't know, I won't tell you. Not here at least. The Z2 can handle any task you can possibly think suited for a mobile device. No problem there. Again nothing to discuss really.
Regarding the UI itself, I think Timescape is a 'big boy' now, noticed that i said 'big boy'?. Because i think Timescape UI by Sony has come a long way since it came along. But it's not just 'there' yet. However, Sony are on the right track because everything looks 'Cleaner' now, and refined. You have everything you need at least 2 touches away. Timescape UI is smooth, smoother than the Famous Famous Touchwhiz from Samsung (Again, not good-famous) but it's not as smooth and silk as the Sense UI which i think HTC has done a magnificent job with. Using the Z2 for the first few minutes, i was worried about how laggy it was, forgetting that I had just copied over 8GB of media files and what not to the internal sd.
At the same time i had inserted a more than half full 16GB class '6' sd card into the sd card slot, so it was probably creating thumbnails, scanning media and all that good stuff.
Ever since then, it's been smooth sailing, plus i have disabled a couple of Sony bloat (Sony Select, Play Station App and the rest) and now i always have 1.9GB Free RAM. I'm not even rooted (at the time of this review).
Bottom Line, Performance wise.. The Z2 is a BEAST, and UI is great but HTC set the bar high with Sense (Let's forget Vanilla UI, it's ugly ).
All this horse power under the hood, the Z2 must be power hungry right? I bet it can't hold a charge for too long? Let's find out how the battery does. 


BATTERY LIFE
I don't know the exact reason, whether it is the Snapdragon 801 doing a fantastic job, or Sony somehow managed to optimize almost 2 times better they did Z1, or whether because Samsung has made me under-rate how good a 3200mAh battery can actually be, or whether it's just Black Magic, i really don't know... but the Battery on the Z2 is nothing short of PHENOMENAL! It is Amazing! The Z2 keeps going and going and going! I had doubts about a non-removable battery before, but Sony changed my mind. If you can optimize it, and do it right? Why not? I get around 10 to 11 hours of screen time on the Z2 with regular usage in a full day. And of course, my phone is well setup.where i have shared my ideas on how to get the best out of your Z2's battery.
Anyways, however what this means is that the Z2 should 'comfortably' take you 2 days of use with medium usage and this is great as the battery is not swappable, not easily at least. No wonder Gsmarena got an endurance rating of 89 hrs. M8 (71 hrs), S5 (72 hrs), Note 3 (75 hrs). Bottomline, You will NOT be complaining about battery life on the Z2.
Okay, battery life is good.. You gotta find stuffs to do with such great battery right? How enjoyable is Multimedia on this device?


MULTIMEDIA
It's maybe weird, but anytime i hear 'Sony', unlike Samsung.. The first thing my mind goes to is 'Multimedia', 'Walkman', 'Sound'. Why? I do not know, but i guess the idea is that i believe they are the best in this,or at least, they were the best at one time. Oh well, this section is divided into 2 sub-sections. The Sound and The Camera. Let's go.

- THE SOUND
If the HTC One M8 had not been launched yet, i would probably say to you that the Z2 speakers were Fantastic. But yet again, the M8 has picked the pockets of the Z2 to be the king of sound. Now do not get me wrong, the Z2 doesn't sound poorly if at all, it's pretty good. Better than what i heard from the Xperia Z1 and many other devices out there. But i just feel like stereo speakers should come with more 'OOMPH' and you don't get dat when playing songs through the speakers. You get just 'above regular' sounding speakers. However, i have a different view to this when watching movies on this device. I guess in landscape mode, the speakers just hit you on a sweeter spot or maybe the amazing screen captures you too much. Lol. Movie experience is richer through the loud speakers than the Music experience.
I was lucky to get the Premium Sony MDR-NC31E earphones out of the box.  And it is just Magic! This earphones coupled with the Noise cancellation on board the Xperia Z2, it's just the perfect marriage and the experience is pretty amazing (HTC, U mad bro?!)  Let me give you an instance, I was watching a soccer game, then plugged in the earphones to my ears then plugged in to the phone. Even without playing any music, i couldn't hear the crowd cheer anymore. I could hear only the commentator's voice, clearly. Now this is definitely one area that the Xperia Z2 really excels. It's not a Gimmick! It does work! Hats Off to Sony for this!

- THE CAMERA
Say you drive a Saloon car for instance, it might be easier to adopt to an SUV but what about when u have to drive a heavy duty vehicle? Like a Huge Tractor!
This practically explains what the Z2 camera is, for the regular person, the Z2's camera on Manual mode will seem 'Hit and miss', why? Because this is heavy duty. You need to put in extra work, more effort. So in manual mode, if you can get the perfect settings.. You get Fantastic shots! Nothing less.
In the other mode, Superior Auto mode... The Z2 knocks the ball out of the park every single time! The photos are the most amazing photos I have ever seen a mobile phone produce in my time, and trust me I have used ALOT of mobile phones. It's really something. Only downside is it only takes the photos in 8MP. However, If you are rooted then there are mods to use 20.7MP in Superior Auto Mod.
What amazes most about the Z2's camera is it's NO-light performance also, i took a pic of a COMPLETELY dark room and the flash filled the Entire room and i could see just almost everything as if to say the lights were on. Even when i took a photo without anyflash in Really dark places, the pictures were not completely dark, you still get traces to show that there is actually something there. This just goes to show how much light it lets in. And yes it out performs the 4 Ultra Super Duper Extra Mega Pixels of the M8 in Low light (HTC can call it whatever they want really). Pictures in low light look outstanding, Close to DSLR experience (Especially with the Background Defocus mode). However, the S5s camera will beat out the Z2's camera in certain situations. When it comes to cameras, Samsung always does very well. Bottomline, if you give the Z2s camera what it wants, it would give you what you want.

MISC
Charging time of the Z2 is pretty basic (A 1500mAh charger charging a massive 3200mAh battery). Yes, so basic! 2 to 3 hours to get full.
However, i also got the Magnetic dock out of the box which actually charges the device faster but the device isn't as usable when charging with the dock as phone goes to Landscape mode.
It's nice to see it has an FM Radio (coming from a recent Samsung flagship device), even tho i will almost never use it.
Power button and Volume rockers are easier to press than the Xperia Z1, which is really good as you want one click to be once click, and not two.
Not too much bloat on the Z2. And they would actually be useful to certain people. Not me tho, I'm a Bloat-Terminator! B|
I haven't dunked it into water just because i don't have any sort of warranty on this device (It's an Imported one), I'm pretty sure it will survive as many users with 'gaps' have reported it did, I just don't want to dunk it for just no reason. Not yet at least, I'm sure I will do it soon because some days are like dat. 
4K recording is cool, however phone tends to get warm when you use it for long periods, but will you actually be using this if you don't have a 4K TV? Hopefully software fixes are around the corner.


CONCLUSION
The Z2 clearly was a way for Sony to say 'Sorry for the Z1, we shouldn't have released that'. The Xperia Z2 corrects everything that was wrong with the Z1 (such as Screen, Battery, Sound).
Coming from the Note 3, this doesn't feel like it's on par with the Note 3 at all, even if they share (3200mAh battery and 3GB of RAM). THANKS TOUCHWIZ! The Z2 feels a step ahead of the Note 3.
I don't even get why the M8 or S5 should be considered direct rivals to the Z2, but if at all, Snapdragon S5 seems like a more realistic comparison (The HTC fan boys are tired of reading at this point  ).
Sorry about the comparisons, they are inevitable, we all know that. But the Z2 really is the best of the 3 (on paper AT LEAST). It is a well tailored phone made to perfectly fit you.
Get this picture, The HTC One M8 and the Galaxy S5 slugging it out in one corner (2GB RAM, >3000mAh battery) while the Z2 is in the other corner waiting to fight LG's Big Bad Wolf. The LG G3. 

On a final note, if you don't care about features or camera, you just want a very stylish phone and a SUPER smooth UI go for the HTC One M8,
If you like features features features and don't care about how your phone looks as long as it's good enough, the Samsung Galaxy S5 is the phone for you.
But if you want to stay straight down the middle, and get the best of both worlds, look no further but the Sony Xperia Z2.
As Sony has not only showed that they can play the game but they can do it right! The Best of Sony is here to Stay, the Best from Sony is truly the Best of All! Cheers!