The Sony Xperia Z1 marks the second rebirth of the company's premium take on what a smartphone should be like. The Xperia Z was a great foundation and laid the groundwork for the company to expand with the Z1. Yes, the naming scheme doesn't really make sense, but nowadays manufacturers are very frivolous with the names of their products. But we digress.
The company has matured its OmniBalance design philosophy by ever so seductively continuing to use aluminum and glass. This arguably makes the Xperia Z1 one of the nicest looking smartphone ever. While it's a handsome looking brute, Sony's use of premium materials results in the phone's sizable body. It's a large smartphone by the current standards for a five-incher.
We understand why Sony did this. Part of it is due to the larger battery than the Xperia Z. Sadly, it isn't used in the most frugal fashion possible, as we showed you in our extensive battery test. The waterproof nature of the Xperia Z1 also played a significant role in adding bulk to its figure, no doubt.
Nevertheless, the second part of this enlarged body is because of the updated camera. It uses a custom-built 20.7MP sensor, a 27mm wide-angle lens and a wide F2.0 aperture.

The camera however failed to impress us and some of the software features feel a bit gimmicky at times. We also hit a snag with the faulty lens, which made almost half of the frame quite blurry. The 8MP limitation of the Intelligent Auto also had us bewildered.
A major drawback of the original Xperia Z was its display. Washed out and not very good with colors and viewing angles, there was a lot to ask for in the successor. Happily, Sony delivered with the Xperia Z1's 5" full HD Triluminos display and updated X-Reality Engine. The result is the best display that Sony has ever put in a smartphone. That doesn't mean it's the best in the industry, though. The Super AMOLED unit of the Galaxy S4 packs more vibrant colors, while the LG G2's 5.2" screen is brighter and sports better viewing angles. And we're hearing reports that perhaps not all units available worldwide has a display as nice as this one.
Of course, the performance department is where the Sony Xperia Z1 really shines. The Snapdragon 800 chipset packs up a punch and leaves absolutely no room for slowdowns. We're sure that with this chipset, the Android experience would be as smooth as it gets.
The Sony Xperia Z1 offers a unique feature mix, which pretty much limits the number of direct rivals. The plastic build of the LG G2 may put off some of you, but one can't just deny the compact size and gorgeous 5.2" display that is surrounded by virtually no bezels. While not being cheap on its own, Currently, however, the 32GB version of the G2 (this one has no card slot) is more expensive than the 16GB Xperia Z1, but it's equally powerful and it's got a really nice camera as well.