I used various phones without any protection, no screen protector, no case at all. And never had any bad things happen to it either, no scratches, no dent whatsoever. I really hate the shatter proof screen protector but since its there and the glass itself is not oleophobic coated I'm not bother removing it. Although I do have a cheap way to make the screen fingerprint proof but for a short time, by applying rain repellant like Rain-X on the glass

It's not easily scratched unless you intentionally scratch on it I don't know why people ever bother with screen protector and case nowadays that phone got every bit of protection it got (drop resistant, water resistant etc.) I guess people are just paranoid about it.

Still wonder how badly is it? And where did you put it that it can actually accumulates those scratches?

I guess soon manufacturer will start engrave Sony logos on it. But it didn't matter to me one bit as I prefer clean design without any sort of logo. I hate the shatter proof protector because it easily accumulate dust on it and hard to clean

Its easy to fix the NFC not working bug, there is a thread on it on XDADeveloper forum. Just need to delete /data/usf folder and you are good to go

Reroot? I don't need to reroot after the OTA update to .434

Of course, That is what I just did. Even with unlocked bootloader you can still do OTA update.

Of course its getting warm, there's quad core CPU inside running 1.5GHz among various other things that develop heat. I find it kinda annoying that's why I rooted it and use SetCPU to lower it's speed. Still warm though.

You running custom kernel aren't you?

There isn't any to the system but the battery could wear faster because of heat.

That's the problem, there isn't any for Xperia ZL yet

You don't have to, the page move so fats is because the reason being the thread grows like hell is because:
1) People who wanted/planned/undecided to buy this keeps posting asking opinion and such
2) People who wanted to buy SP/case/dock for it and still haven't got it yet, either rage or keep asking when it will arrive or 'PM'ed" post
3) People talk random things

Main reason why I'd opt for ZL instead of Z. I choose ergonomic over bling any time of the day. It's not because of the weight, more of the boxy shape of it with no contour for your hand to grasp on it. ZL is heavier than the Z but I don't feel the weight at all and feel so comfortable on hand because of the contour and textured back.

On a side note I don't like the stock Xperia launcher as it can get laggy at times, changed to stock 4.2 JellyBean launcher and it's smooth as butter

Just Google for stock JellyBean launcher, it's not that hard to find

You could use Light Flow apps to change notification color

Like benny said all C6502 are non LTE, that means all original set in Malaysia is non LTE no matter what that storekeeper said.

Yup I would like the phone to have clean design without any logos. Looks sleeker that way

No because the camera protrudes a little bit so the sound is actually slightly better with it on the table. But don't put it on bed or something soft because they absorb sound rather than reflect it

I think his power button problem is an isolated case as I didn't hear anyone else having it, and my power button is fine

What are your priorities? If you care more about bling and showing off like dunking your phone for no reason into a bowl of water and such by all means go with the Z if you don't mind paying for extra. I'm choosing the ZL because it's smaller so it fits better in pockets, and the curved textured rubber back offers better ergonomics and just feels more comfortable to hold and those annoying flaps mandatory to make Z watertight going to get loose or broken in few months, I just can't live with that.

The first problem is more of an OCD problem than anything else

The second one is quite a bother but who look at the back of the phone all the time?

Oh another reason I chose ZL is the loudspeaker performance is excellent since anyone being harping about low volume on the Z, that is one thing I can't stand at all because I HATE bad speaker and low volume because tons of cheap laptops nowadays come with a speaker resembles a mouse try to squeak. With big display and good speaker I put tons of movies on it and watch it on the go

It's all self preferences, there are no perfect devices so live with some sacrifice to gain another.

There is a couple of custom ROM available for ZL now on xda forum for anyone interested, AOKP and CM10.1.

On the other note, ZL remote control app is pretty cool. At first I thought it only supports Sony devices but there is tons of supported devices there. I have yet to find the right one to control Astro

Root is necessary if you wanted to mod any file system. Yep custom ROM usually mean you need to unlock bootloader and root phone first to install custom recovery, although there is custom ROM on locked bootloader but the functionality is limited because of stock kernel. Custom kernel can unlock more functionality like voltage controls and such. But that is not all, you need to read more then you know what's what.

If you mean pureXaudio you need to read the thread carefully here. It looks like you can use pureXaudio with locked bootloader but you need custom recovery like clockworkmod. Everyone a newbie from the start, the only difference is to learn and do it yourself