Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Sony Xperia Z1, three months on

After three months and a succession of software updates, what do we really think of Sony’s Xperia Z1?

The past year has been a pivotal one for Sony Mobile. After meandering through 2012 with a less than memorable product lineup, Sony introduced some of its strongest devices in 2013, along with a revamped design language. Among these was the company’s most impressive phone to date, the Xperia Z1, announced at the IFA conference in Berlin September and released shortly afterwards. The Z1 wasn’t a revolutionary change compared to the Xperia Z, Sony’s early-2013 standard-bearer, but it finally nailed a few important areas of the smartphone experience — specifically performance, battery life and camera.

I’ve been using the Z1 regularly over the past three months, and I’ve found that over the course of three successive software updates it’s become an even better phone than it was at launch. That said, some bugbears remain, and unfortunately many of them are longstanding issues common to Sony’s Xperia lineup.

Join us after the break for our long-term thoughts on the Sony Xperia Z1.