It is September 2013, and Sony has just unleashed the ‘Honami’, the Xperia Z1. This is the device that finally unites Sony’s disparate technical empires of Bravia, Walkman, and Cyber-shot into a single, water-resistant glass slab. In the UK, it has arrived as the sophisticated, waterproof alternative to the plastic-heavy competition. It is a 170g masterclass in the ‘OmniBalance’ design language, featuring a solid aluminium frame and tempered glass on both the front and back. It feels like a high-end luxury watch, and with its IP58 rating, it is technically capable of surviving a 30-minute swim in 1.5 metres of freshwater, making it the definitive ‘festival phone’ for a rainy British summer.
The technical headline is the 20.7-megapixel camera. Sony has managed to squeeze a 1/2.3” Exmor RS sensor, the same size found in many dedicated point-and-shoot cameras, into a phone just 8.5mm thick. Combined with a wide-angle 27mm G Lens and a dedicated ‘BIONZ’ image processing engine, the Z1 captures a level of detail that is genuinely startling for 2013. It also features a physical camera button, allowing you to focus and fire even when the screen is wet. The display is a 5.0-inch Full HD ‘Triluminos’ panel (1920 x 1080) with 441 PPI. While the viewing angles are slightly narrower than its IPS rivals, the colour reproduction is incredibly wide and natural, powered by the ‘X-Reality’ engine for mobile.
Under the hood, the Z1 is a performance beast, powered by a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor and 2GB of RAM. It handles Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with a clinical efficiency, making it one of the fastest handsets in the world. Connectivity is exhaustive: 4G LTE, Wi-Fi ac, NFC for ‘One-touch’ pairing with Sony headphones, and MHL 2.0 for TV output. Because it’s a sealed unit, Sony has packed in a massive 3,000 mAh battery that provides enough juice for a full day of heavy photography and media use. The Xperia Z1 is a technical triumph of convergence; it is a beautiful, rugged, and incredibly powerful machine that proved Sony could truly compete at the very highest level.