Smartphone review: Sony Xperia Z1

Made of a solid one-piece aluminium frame with tempered glass on the front and back, the Sony Xperia Z1 combines beauty and durability.

It is the only water- and dust-resistant smartphone in this round-up and it complies with international protection rating standards. It can endure low-pressure jets of water from all directions and can be kept under 1.5m of freshwater for up to 30minutes. You never have to worry about splashing coffee on this phone or dropping it into a water basin.

The smartphone's 5-inch display features Sony's unique Triluminos technology, which is capable of exhibiting more than 16million colours to display rich and natural colours.

Despite its 8.5mm-thin body, the smartphone has a wide-angle 27mm lens with a large aperture of f2. Its camera uses a high-sensitivity 1/2.3-inch CMOS image sensor - the size of image sensors found in many digital compact cameras - and Sony's Bionz image processing engine to produce images with less noise and sharp crisp images.

The smartphone features the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 2.2GHz quad-core processor that uses the latest graphics processing unit and dual image signal processor unit for better graphics, video and gaming performance.

It has a 3,000mAh battery that has a long battery life and uses Sony's Battery Stamina mode to automatically switch off certain functions when they are not in use to save power.

TECH SPECS

Price: $998 (16GB) without contract

Availability: Oct 4

Processor: 2.2GHz quad-core

Operating system: Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

Display: 5-inch full high-definition Super Amoled; 1,920 x 1,080 pixels

Cameras: 20.7 megapixels (rear), 2megapixels (front)

Weight: 170g

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