haydn buffoon: Sony Xperia Z: hands-on with the new flagship at CES 2013 (video)

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Sony Xperia Z: hands-on with the new flagship at CES 2013 (video)

Sony has had over a year now to dust away any residual Ericsson branding and with a reinvigorated direction towards mobile, it's welcoming the CES crowds of Las Vegas with two new smartphones -- the Xperia Z and the Xperia ZL. Both are running Android Jelly Bean, have 5-inch 1080p screens laced with Sony's new Bravia Mobile 2 technology, quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro and new 13-megapixel Exmor RS camera sensors, capable of recording HDR video.

Has Sony finally crafted a flagship able to go toe-to-toe with the competition? Well, the Xperia Z exudes class -- and it's light. With about the same thickness as the iPhone, the phone is similar with all straight surfaces, barring some slightly rounded corners. Sony's calling the design language "omnibalance" and you can expect to see similar design licks in its other products in the near future. Picking it up, it feels better and more premium than any phone we've seen from Sony before and, oddly, it's even waterproof. Comparing the Xperia Z against the Xperia ZL, the oblong, broad Xperia Z felt almost too big in our hands; the ZL felt much more at home. Sony's barely unveiled them on stage at its press event, but we got the chance to play with both devices earlier today, (just about) wrapping our fingers around both the Xperia Z and the slightly smaller Xperia ZL. So what did we think? Hop on after the break for our hands-on video and full impressions.

Gallery: Sony Xperia Z hands-on at CES 2013