It was a great feeling when I got my hands on Sony Xperia Z1 phone on 24th March 2014.
The phone was slim, looked nice and, was powerful and waterproof!! What more do you need when you have such phone with 6 months accidental warranty provided by Sony itself. I was happy that I bought this phone even though I was being persuaded to by LG G2 instead of Xperia Z1. The happiness was even more when I got Sony Original Portable Battery. The smartphone case that came with the phone was a disappointment though as it had to be stuck using the glue to the phone and the phone was bulky with the case as well.
Now that I had my smartphone, I was eager to unlock the boot loader and root the phone, I just did a search on Google and Whoa!!!!! With a great surprise, I came to know Sony itself provides the instructions and necessary files to unlock the boot loader. You can find the instructions here. Usually, unlocking boot loader violates the warranty of the device and the brands like Samsung, LG, Nexus doesn't provide the instructions to do so, but Sony did!!! though you get some warnings that you are violating the warranty terms of the device.
I did unlocked the boot loader, now I had to go for rooting the phone, its the time I once regretted purchasing this phone, but with great patience and research, I was able to root the phone after almost 7 days of purchase. That's pretty long wait, but once I figured the way out, It was just like the toss of coin, download the file, flash it and its done :D
There are a lot of issues with firmware versions once you decide to root your phone. Because once you root your phone, you can't do perform any OTA updates (especially on Xperia and Nexus Phones, I have no idea about others!!), But you can flash the firmware to upgrade to latest version, and to a great surprise, you can create your own firmware from the updates downloaded via Sony PC Companion.
It was all the experience part which I will explain in more details one by one in my future posts, but as of now, lets get into the pros and cons of the phone and the main question which buzzes everyone's head - Is it worth spending 30k+ (price varies depending on stores) for Xperia Z1?
Before going to pros and cons, you can find the complete specifications of the phone here.
Pros:
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| Sony Xperia Z1 Box |
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| Sony Xperia Z1-Purple |
The phone was slim, looked nice and, was powerful and waterproof!! What more do you need when you have such phone with 6 months accidental warranty provided by Sony itself. I was happy that I bought this phone even though I was being persuaded to by LG G2 instead of Xperia Z1. The happiness was even more when I got Sony Original Portable Battery. The smartphone case that came with the phone was a disappointment though as it had to be stuck using the glue to the phone and the phone was bulky with the case as well.
Now that I had my smartphone, I was eager to unlock the boot loader and root the phone, I just did a search on Google and Whoa!!!!! With a great surprise, I came to know Sony itself provides the instructions and necessary files to unlock the boot loader. You can find the instructions here. Usually, unlocking boot loader violates the warranty of the device and the brands like Samsung, LG, Nexus doesn't provide the instructions to do so, but Sony did!!! though you get some warnings that you are violating the warranty terms of the device.
I did unlocked the boot loader, now I had to go for rooting the phone, its the time I once regretted purchasing this phone, but with great patience and research, I was able to root the phone after almost 7 days of purchase. That's pretty long wait, but once I figured the way out, It was just like the toss of coin, download the file, flash it and its done :D
There are a lot of issues with firmware versions once you decide to root your phone. Because once you root your phone, you can't do perform any OTA updates (especially on Xperia and Nexus Phones, I have no idea about others!!), But you can flash the firmware to upgrade to latest version, and to a great surprise, you can create your own firmware from the updates downloaded via Sony PC Companion.
It was all the experience part which I will explain in more details one by one in my future posts, but as of now, lets get into the pros and cons of the phone and the main question which buzzes everyone's head - Is it worth spending 30k+ (price varies depending on stores) for Xperia Z1?
Before going to pros and cons, you can find the complete specifications of the phone here.
Pros:
- Waterproof & Dust-proof Phone - Travel without worries of your phone
- Ideally I have seen many reviews saying the design of Sony is Bad, But I love it!!
- The LED Notification - Indicates new messages, Charging Indicator
- Camera - perfect to shoot at any light conditions
- Large Battery - Last a day long with few hours of heavy usage - Awesome stamina mode is included
- Intelligent Sony Keyboard App
- Good Noise Cancellation and Sound Quality
Cons:
- Bad Screen Quality - No IPS screen
- Most powerful CPU in market is used - But still lags (Might be because I use loads of apps in parallel but didn't expect it to be that bad)
- Says 2 GB RAM, Has only 1697 MB (Even Nexus have 1850 MB), only 300 MB free just after restart, something Sony neglected but is a serious problem for multitasking
- Phone overheats like crazy, difficult to hold in hands with that much heating
- WiFi is a disappointment, can't connect to the signal outside 20m range
- Phone overheats while using camera and eventually camera app crashes, can't launch it again until the device is cooled down.
The phone has few negatives as well as few positives. It can't be compared with Nexus 5 on same horizon. Nexus 5 boasts a lot of software supports from Android Developers as well as is always the first to taste the latest Android Software. Whereas Sony provides premium build waterproof smartphone with camera way better than what Nexus 5 offers. CPU, RAM, Screen Resolution are all same. Nexus 5 offers Gorilla Glass which is a plus point.
