Hands-on: Sony Xperia Z2

The new Sony Xperia Z2 offers a number of new hardware upgrades and features but in the hands, it is quite hard to differentiate it from the existing Xperia Z1 smart phone. It feels the same with a familiar feeling aluminium frame with glass panels for both front and back. According to the spec sheet, the new model is thinner at 8.2mm and lighter at 158 grams.

The Xperia Z2 is slightly taller and features a larger 5.2″ display that does a Full HD resolution of 1920×1080. While the screen on the older Xperia Z1 was disappointing with bad viewing angles, we are happy to report that Sony has finally addressed the issue on the Xperia Z2. The colours are richer and even light coloured text are now readable when tilted sideways.

A nice addition on the Xperia Z2 is a pair of front facing speakers and they have also replaced the mesh speaker grill for a cleaner looking 3 hole vent design. Other than that, there are some slight changes on the ports with the microSD slot now placed to the right while the left flap covers both microUSB and micro SIM slot. The 20.7MP camera is the same as the previous model but now it is capable of shooting 4K Videos. You can check out the sample after the break.

Out of the box, the Xperia Z2 runs on the latest Android 4.4.2 KitKat and there are a couple of new enhancements in the UI as well. A few features worth mentioning is a new built-in Answering Machine feature where the device can answer unanswered calls and save your caller’s message on the device. Apart from that, there’s also a Smart Backlight Control and Double Tap to wake feature for the display. In our brief hands-on, the Xperia Z2 is very smooth without any noticeable lags. After all, this is running on the very latest 2.3GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of RAM, which puts it among the top spec’ed smart phones for 2014. Battery life should be improved as well since the Xperia Z2 packs a larger capacity 3,200mAh battery, which is 200mAh more than the Xperia Z1.

Check out our hands-on video of the Xperia Z2 and some comparison shots with the Xperia Z1 after the break.

Sample 4K Video recording from the Xperia Z2

Comparison between Xperia Z2 and Xperia Z1