Sony Xperia Z Ultra: personal impressions and the opening of one of the biggest smart cards
To be honest, I have never used smart cards in everyday life (they are also ceiling lamps, they are fablets). There is a smartphone, there is a tablet. You make them different, tasks practically do not overlap. To carry both is not difficult in general, especially after the appearance of 7-inch tablets. Yes, and have to drag infrequently.
And yet, the number of people around with different versions of the Galaxy Note hinted that there is a demand for such devices, which means it is at least strange to ignore smartphones. Therefore, use - I do not use, but I write about them quite regularly. And now one of the most gigantic smartphones has fallen into the hands - Sony Xperia Z Ultra. I tried it in and, according to tradition, looked inside to learn the details of the design.
')
On Habré recently published a review of this device , and I will try not to repeat. I will focus on personal impressions and internal structure.
I'll start with an unexpected moment for many. When thinking about buying a smart card, be sure to check if there are suitable covers for it. After all, in the pocket of your jeans you most likely will not be able to wear it - it hurts healthy. We'll have to put it in a jacket pocket or even in a bag, and there are coins, keys, flash drives ... A colleague recently bought a not the most famous brand smart card and at first was very happy about the machine itself and notable savings. But it was not possible to pick up a normal case due to non-standard dimensions, and somehow I didn’t want to stick a smart card into a sock like. As a result, in just a month of operation, the gadget was pretty much torn off.
Xperia Z Ultra - the device (for now?) Is not the most common, but there are enough covers for it. At the time of my acquaintance, I took Krusell from white leatherette. Issue price of 1300 rubles. You can find cheaper, but I was bribed by a strict appearance and a built-in stand, thanks to which the smart card can be conveniently positioned on the table or on your lap when watching movies.
Included with the Xperia Z Ultra comes a compact docking station. This is, in fact, great news, because the smartphone, like all Sony's flagship mobile devices, is waterproof and dustproof. You can take it with you to the shower and write piercing tweets about reptiles who have turned off the hot water. Or, sowing in the bathroom, you can look at a rather large screen, the latest series of "Dexter". But there is a moisture resistance and a downside: all connectors, including micro USB, are closed with special plugs. Accordingly, if you charge a smart card in the usual way, the latter will have to be pulled back and forth, and one day something bad will happen to it. The docking station solves the problem: just enough to put on it a smart card and the process will go. Unfortunately, for this you have to remove it from the case.
Please note that the dock connector has changed (on top is the Xperia Z smartphone). Hopefully, the new one will remain relevant for more than a year.
The SmartSet itself makes an impressive impression. The screen diagonal is already 6.4 inches, and this is really a lot. The length of the device is only slightly inferior to the iPad mini. Probably the best place for such a giant is a man purse or pocket bag with a laptop.
The screen resolution is standard for top devices - 1920x1080 pixels. Part of it eats off for the panel with control buttons. All of them, according to the tradition of Sony, are virtual.
The quality of the picture suited me perfectly. The screen is clear, with a good color reproduction. Black is similar to black (although in fact, of course, slightly grayish). The backlight is uniform, without annoying spots in the corners. Web pages, photos, movies - everything looks great. Unfortunately, the Z Ultra, unlike the Sony Tablet Z, is devoid of a magnetic latch that allows it to turn on when you open the front cover of the case. You have to press a button. Well, nothing, we are familiar guys.
After Z Ultra, even quite big Z and Z1 (above) seem very compact.
The basis of the smart card is the Qualcomm MSM8974 chipset with a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor belonging to the Snapdragon 800 line. This is the best that Qualcomm has to offer today. It is also used in the recently released Xperia Z1 and surprisingly decent LG G2 (I also plan to write about them soon). Interestingly, most of the time, the processor operates at a frequency of 300 to 650 MHz, and to a peak (it is 2150 MHz in practice) it accelerates only under load.
The indicators in AnTuTu Benchmark fascinate ...
RAM 2 gigabytes. That is quite enough. The onboard flash memory of 16 gigabytes is a slot for microSD. I inserted a 64 gigabyte flash drive, it worked without problems.
No complaints about performance. Very, very fast machine. Probably, over time, as it is usual for guglofonov, small slowdowns still appear, but for now - a delight.
The Wi-Fi module is dual-band, so if you have the correct router, you can go to the unspent 5 GHz band. His sensitivity is very decent: in the secluded corners of the apartment, where the Xperia Z smartphone usually loses the signal, the Z Ultra clings to it rather tenaciously.
As for mobile communication, here the “tenacity” is quite ordinary. No worse and no better than Xperia Z. Works great in our LTE networks. I tried with sims of MTS and MegaFon, the flight is normal, no dancing with a tambourine is required.
Do not forget about the support of NFC. Not long ago, I was indifferent to this technology, but after the appearance of the LG mobile printer and the Sony DSC-QX10 smart-graph in the household , I appreciated the convenience and began to pay attention. Especially since the wireless headphones with NFC went.
Speaking of headphones. Some review authors were outraged that the connector for them is located on the side. Of course, if the smart card got into his pocket, it could be annoying. But, as we have said, wearing it is better in something more spacious, which means that half a centimeter on the side of the weather will not do. Moreover, with a horizontal arrangement, the connector on top is more than appropriate. And thanks to Sony for finally learning how to make moisture-proof headphone jacks that do not require annoying plugs.
The volume of the Z Ultra is decent, headphones are well pumped even with a resistance of 64 ohms. But the very sound quality inspired medium. You can listen, but the elaboration of the details leaves much to be desired. Xperia Z sounds more interesting. And nothing of the LG G2 with its separate Wolfson audio chip.
The camera in Z Ultra is average. Feels like it migrated to this device from the Xperia V, the smartphone of the last generation. Megapixels is enough, as many as eight pieces. But the quality of shooting is very ordinary. In the bright sunshine it is still here and there, but it is worth the sun to hide, as the noise crawls, the detail falls ... I was particularly alarmed by the work in the panoramic shooting mode: even on the street, the camera clearly “smears” it. I do not know why they put such a module. Taking into account the price (which is lower) and the capabilities of Sony (its photo modules are used in almost all top products of competitors), it was possible to choose a more vigorous option. By the way, the flash also saved a lot - they just did not install it.
Here are some shooting examples. All photos were taken at intervals of a few seconds. In all pairs, there is a snapshot of the Xperia Z Ultra on top, and the LG G2, for comparison, from below.
Example of shooting panorama in daylight
The originals of all the pictures in one archive can be downloaded here .
On this, about the hardware, for now, let's return to it in the process of gutting the device. And now let's take a closer look at the software and how it is optimized for the enlarged screen.
Little about software
In the review of the tablet Sony Tablet Z, I already wrote that I really like the experience of the company on finishing Android'a. Sony makes it very neat and humanized, for which she thanks a lot, because a lot of things are instantly taken over by business colleagues. Yes, I know that there are people who consider the perfect bare Android. This is partly true. But Sony's refinements do not distort the essence of the original, but introduce additional conveniences into it.
In the case of the Z Ultra Smart Card, there were no major improvements for a particular device. Everything is exactly the same as on the new Xperia Z1, only a little more “smeared”, taking into account the increased screen area. Even the keyboard is the same, but stretched, with larger keys. There are no complaints about the convenience of management, but, looking at how Samsung is finishing the Note firmware, I would like to see some gadgets that allow you to feel more use from the huge screen.
The total similarity with the interface Z1 is evident
Even the same software is recommended for smartphones and smartphones.
And one more question tormented me for a long time. Dear Sony! You're so all multimedia, and with filmmakers are friends in full growth. When will you finally make your video player more omnivorous? On Samsung and LG devices I can watch any movies in any formats from home NAS on DLNA. There are, of course, gags with poorly compressed files, but not more than once a month. On Sony’s smartphones and tablets, a very large portion of the video library plays without sound. Of course, you can put a third-party player and not suffer. But the "matryoshka" has long become almost a standard, and even stupid TVs play it well. And here such power, such heat of intellectuality - and silence. Strange same.
Given the prevalence of FullHD resolution, no problems with applications could be noticed. What works on smartphones, will work here. Some leapfrog may occur with the size of the controls, but nothing shocking.
Yes, of course, you can make a call on the tablet, like on a regular smartphone, but at the same time you will look pretty strange. Therefore, it is better to get a wireless headset and, for greater solidity, smart watches showing the number of the caller and a lot of other conventionally useful information.
Inside
And now it's time for my favorite item in the program, the autopsy. It is worth noting that the Xperia Z Ultra at first managed to perplex even such a seasoned guy, like master Alexander Levchenko. Out of habit, he was looking for bolts or latches, but all of them were not and were not. As a result, the guess came that the whole body was assembled on glue. It was confirmed when it was possible to quite easily remove the back cover from the smart card heated at the soldering station and finally get access to the content. At the same time, Sasha more than once or twice mumbled “It's a Sony“. Repeat this procedure at home, I'm afraid it is impossible.
An autopsy showed that two-thirds of the space inside the case is occupied by a 3000 mAh battery. This in itself is quite a lot, and smartphones with a smaller screen (for example, Sony Xperia Z1 or LG G2) live from it all day long and the next one remains pretty decent. Unfortunately, the huge screen area increases the power consumption of the backlight, so the Z Ultra does not demonstrate any wonders of longevity. Enough for a working day, and in the evening welcome to the docking station for charging. It's sad of course. A pair of autonomous days would be a powerful competitive advantage.
The main load on the battery is exactly the screen. If the smartphone is just lying in sync with three social networks at the same time, downloading mail and playing music in the background, about 15 percent of the charge is spent per day. But it is necessary to start poking at the screen, as the percentages creep down. In the video player mode, the Z Ultra is good, one charge is enough for the whole “Interns” season (20 episodes of 25 minutes each), that is, even during a long flight you will have something to have fun with. But an external battery just in case still does not hurt.
The layout of the motherboard is pretty standard. There is no such dense placement of components, as on the iPhone 5s , which gives a little more chance of repair without a complete replacement of the board. The processor, according to tradition, we can not see - it is hiding under the square chip of RAM.
We paid attention to the abundance of mysterious inscriptions with a blue marker on the front and back sides of the motherboard. Perhaps the workers of the factory in China wanted to send us some message. But, most likely, you will not find anything like this in your copy of Z Ultra, because on our box were the inscriptions DEMO ONLY and NOT FOR SALE. These are signs of trial batches of apparatuses falling into ordinary people only in very specific ways.
A strong impression is made by the design of the lower plume. Interestingly, despite the formidable appearance, it is relatively inexpensive, around $ 15. It is even slightly cheaper than a set of pieces of special double-sided tape that allows you to return the device to its original state. That's just for the work on the replacement can take at exorbitant prices, because without a soldering station normally Z Ultra can not be disassembled and not assembled.
Without electronics, the case looks pretty ... budget, surprising, perhaps, with the seriousness of the approach to screening. It is a pity, of course, that only Apple seriously thinks about how its products look from the inside.
In the traditional group portrait, we see all the components ready for reassembly. A little more magic on the soldering station, meticulously pressing the back cover and “plinths” on a hot smartphone, and now it’s even impossible to believe that ten minutes ago he was lying in front of me in a bunch of parts.
Total
We spent a week together with the Xperia Z Ultra. It is very cool to study the contents of web pages and social networks - here it is not inferior to a 7-inch tablet. It's fun to send video and music to a TV screen with one click - this refers to the standard chips of Sony smartphones and tablets. Nice, okay tailored device.
But in the new Sony mobile devices, over the past year I have been accustomed to seeing a certain zest. Something unusual, which is not found in the products of other companies. In Z Ultra this zest is not felt. In fact, we have an enlarged version of the Xperia Z smartphone with a more decent screen with a large diagonal, an improved processor version and a degraded camera.
About the same way Samsung went, releasing Galaxy Mega 6.3 . A kind of Note 2 for the poor. But for him, even in chain stores, they ask for no more than 20,000 rubles, and “Seryak” is sold for 13,000. The price of Sony Xperia Z Ultra from the parties officially delivered to Russia ranges from 29,990 to 31,990 rubles. "Gray" instances can be found for 20 000.
Of course, it’s ridiculous to compare these products directly. They are hardware very, very different. But nevertheless from Sony's smart phone I was waiting for a flight of fancy, and not just scaling the platform onto an enlarged screen. You get used to good things very quickly ...
But apart from the overestimated expectations, the Xperia Z Ultra is a solid, high-performance and solid-looking device. I think many connoisseurs of large forms will be happy with him.
And I'm already looking forward to the Xperia Z1 lying next to it.
And yet, the number of people around with different versions of the Galaxy Note hinted that there is a demand for such devices, which means it is at least strange to ignore smartphones. Therefore, use - I do not use, but I write about them quite regularly. And now one of the most gigantic smartphones has fallen into the hands - Sony Xperia Z Ultra. I tried it in and, according to tradition, looked inside to learn the details of the design.
')
On Habré recently published a review of this device , and I will try not to repeat. I will focus on personal impressions and internal structure.
I'll start with an unexpected moment for many. When thinking about buying a smart card, be sure to check if there are suitable covers for it. After all, in the pocket of your jeans you most likely will not be able to wear it - it hurts healthy. We'll have to put it in a jacket pocket or even in a bag, and there are coins, keys, flash drives ... A colleague recently bought a not the most famous brand smart card and at first was very happy about the machine itself and notable savings. But it was not possible to pick up a normal case due to non-standard dimensions, and somehow I didn’t want to stick a smart card into a sock like. As a result, in just a month of operation, the gadget was pretty much torn off.
Xperia Z Ultra - the device (for now?) Is not the most common, but there are enough covers for it. At the time of my acquaintance, I took Krusell from white leatherette. Issue price of 1300 rubles. You can find cheaper, but I was bribed by a strict appearance and a built-in stand, thanks to which the smart card can be conveniently positioned on the table or on your lap when watching movies.
Included with the Xperia Z Ultra comes a compact docking station. This is, in fact, great news, because the smartphone, like all Sony's flagship mobile devices, is waterproof and dustproof. You can take it with you to the shower and write piercing tweets about reptiles who have turned off the hot water. Or, sowing in the bathroom, you can look at a rather large screen, the latest series of "Dexter". But there is a moisture resistance and a downside: all connectors, including micro USB, are closed with special plugs. Accordingly, if you charge a smart card in the usual way, the latter will have to be pulled back and forth, and one day something bad will happen to it. The docking station solves the problem: just enough to put on it a smart card and the process will go. Unfortunately, for this you have to remove it from the case.
Please note that the dock connector has changed (on top is the Xperia Z smartphone). Hopefully, the new one will remain relevant for more than a year.
The SmartSet itself makes an impressive impression. The screen diagonal is already 6.4 inches, and this is really a lot. The length of the device is only slightly inferior to the iPad mini. Probably the best place for such a giant is a man purse or pocket bag with a laptop.
The screen resolution is standard for top devices - 1920x1080 pixels. Part of it eats off for the panel with control buttons. All of them, according to the tradition of Sony, are virtual.
The quality of the picture suited me perfectly. The screen is clear, with a good color reproduction. Black is similar to black (although in fact, of course, slightly grayish). The backlight is uniform, without annoying spots in the corners. Web pages, photos, movies - everything looks great. Unfortunately, the Z Ultra, unlike the Sony Tablet Z, is devoid of a magnetic latch that allows it to turn on when you open the front cover of the case. You have to press a button. Well, nothing, we are familiar guys.
After Z Ultra, even quite big Z and Z1 (above) seem very compact.
The basis of the smart card is the Qualcomm MSM8974 chipset with a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor belonging to the Snapdragon 800 line. This is the best that Qualcomm has to offer today. It is also used in the recently released Xperia Z1 and surprisingly decent LG G2 (I also plan to write about them soon). Interestingly, most of the time, the processor operates at a frequency of 300 to 650 MHz, and to a peak (it is 2150 MHz in practice) it accelerates only under load.
The indicators in AnTuTu Benchmark fascinate ...
RAM 2 gigabytes. That is quite enough. The onboard flash memory of 16 gigabytes is a slot for microSD. I inserted a 64 gigabyte flash drive, it worked without problems.
No complaints about performance. Very, very fast machine. Probably, over time, as it is usual for guglofonov, small slowdowns still appear, but for now - a delight.
The Wi-Fi module is dual-band, so if you have the correct router, you can go to the unspent 5 GHz band. His sensitivity is very decent: in the secluded corners of the apartment, where the Xperia Z smartphone usually loses the signal, the Z Ultra clings to it rather tenaciously.
As for mobile communication, here the “tenacity” is quite ordinary. No worse and no better than Xperia Z. Works great in our LTE networks. I tried with sims of MTS and MegaFon, the flight is normal, no dancing with a tambourine is required.
Do not forget about the support of NFC. Not long ago, I was indifferent to this technology, but after the appearance of the LG mobile printer and the Sony DSC-QX10 smart-graph in the household , I appreciated the convenience and began to pay attention. Especially since the wireless headphones with NFC went.
Speaking of headphones. Some review authors were outraged that the connector for them is located on the side. Of course, if the smart card got into his pocket, it could be annoying. But, as we have said, wearing it is better in something more spacious, which means that half a centimeter on the side of the weather will not do. Moreover, with a horizontal arrangement, the connector on top is more than appropriate. And thanks to Sony for finally learning how to make moisture-proof headphone jacks that do not require annoying plugs.
The volume of the Z Ultra is decent, headphones are well pumped even with a resistance of 64 ohms. But the very sound quality inspired medium. You can listen, but the elaboration of the details leaves much to be desired. Xperia Z sounds more interesting. And nothing of the LG G2 with its separate Wolfson audio chip.
The camera in Z Ultra is average. Feels like it migrated to this device from the Xperia V, the smartphone of the last generation. Megapixels is enough, as many as eight pieces. But the quality of shooting is very ordinary. In the bright sunshine it is still here and there, but it is worth the sun to hide, as the noise crawls, the detail falls ... I was particularly alarmed by the work in the panoramic shooting mode: even on the street, the camera clearly “smears” it. I do not know why they put such a module. Taking into account the price (which is lower) and the capabilities of Sony (its photo modules are used in almost all top products of competitors), it was possible to choose a more vigorous option. By the way, the flash also saved a lot - they just did not install it.
Here are some shooting examples. All photos were taken at intervals of a few seconds. In all pairs, there is a snapshot of the Xperia Z Ultra on top, and the LG G2, for comparison, from below.
Example of shooting panorama in daylight
The originals of all the pictures in one archive can be downloaded here .
On this, about the hardware, for now, let's return to it in the process of gutting the device. And now let's take a closer look at the software and how it is optimized for the enlarged screen.
Little about software
In the review of the tablet Sony Tablet Z, I already wrote that I really like the experience of the company on finishing Android'a. Sony makes it very neat and humanized, for which she thanks a lot, because a lot of things are instantly taken over by business colleagues. Yes, I know that there are people who consider the perfect bare Android. This is partly true. But Sony's refinements do not distort the essence of the original, but introduce additional conveniences into it.
In the case of the Z Ultra Smart Card, there were no major improvements for a particular device. Everything is exactly the same as on the new Xperia Z1, only a little more “smeared”, taking into account the increased screen area. Even the keyboard is the same, but stretched, with larger keys. There are no complaints about the convenience of management, but, looking at how Samsung is finishing the Note firmware, I would like to see some gadgets that allow you to feel more use from the huge screen.
The total similarity with the interface Z1 is evident
Even the same software is recommended for smartphones and smartphones.
And one more question tormented me for a long time. Dear Sony! You're so all multimedia, and with filmmakers are friends in full growth. When will you finally make your video player more omnivorous? On Samsung and LG devices I can watch any movies in any formats from home NAS on DLNA. There are, of course, gags with poorly compressed files, but not more than once a month. On Sony’s smartphones and tablets, a very large portion of the video library plays without sound. Of course, you can put a third-party player and not suffer. But the "matryoshka" has long become almost a standard, and even stupid TVs play it well. And here such power, such heat of intellectuality - and silence. Strange same.
Given the prevalence of FullHD resolution, no problems with applications could be noticed. What works on smartphones, will work here. Some leapfrog may occur with the size of the controls, but nothing shocking.
Yes, of course, you can make a call on the tablet, like on a regular smartphone, but at the same time you will look pretty strange. Therefore, it is better to get a wireless headset and, for greater solidity, smart watches showing the number of the caller and a lot of other conventionally useful information.
Inside
And now it's time for my favorite item in the program, the autopsy. It is worth noting that the Xperia Z Ultra at first managed to perplex even such a seasoned guy, like master Alexander Levchenko. Out of habit, he was looking for bolts or latches, but all of them were not and were not. As a result, the guess came that the whole body was assembled on glue. It was confirmed when it was possible to quite easily remove the back cover from the smart card heated at the soldering station and finally get access to the content. At the same time, Sasha more than once or twice mumbled “It's a Sony“. Repeat this procedure at home, I'm afraid it is impossible.
An autopsy showed that two-thirds of the space inside the case is occupied by a 3000 mAh battery. This in itself is quite a lot, and smartphones with a smaller screen (for example, Sony Xperia Z1 or LG G2) live from it all day long and the next one remains pretty decent. Unfortunately, the huge screen area increases the power consumption of the backlight, so the Z Ultra does not demonstrate any wonders of longevity. Enough for a working day, and in the evening welcome to the docking station for charging. It's sad of course. A pair of autonomous days would be a powerful competitive advantage.
The main load on the battery is exactly the screen. If the smartphone is just lying in sync with three social networks at the same time, downloading mail and playing music in the background, about 15 percent of the charge is spent per day. But it is necessary to start poking at the screen, as the percentages creep down. In the video player mode, the Z Ultra is good, one charge is enough for the whole “Interns” season (20 episodes of 25 minutes each), that is, even during a long flight you will have something to have fun with. But an external battery just in case still does not hurt.
The layout of the motherboard is pretty standard. There is no such dense placement of components, as on the iPhone 5s , which gives a little more chance of repair without a complete replacement of the board. The processor, according to tradition, we can not see - it is hiding under the square chip of RAM.
We paid attention to the abundance of mysterious inscriptions with a blue marker on the front and back sides of the motherboard. Perhaps the workers of the factory in China wanted to send us some message. But, most likely, you will not find anything like this in your copy of Z Ultra, because on our box were the inscriptions DEMO ONLY and NOT FOR SALE. These are signs of trial batches of apparatuses falling into ordinary people only in very specific ways.
A strong impression is made by the design of the lower plume. Interestingly, despite the formidable appearance, it is relatively inexpensive, around $ 15. It is even slightly cheaper than a set of pieces of special double-sided tape that allows you to return the device to its original state. That's just for the work on the replacement can take at exorbitant prices, because without a soldering station normally Z Ultra can not be disassembled and not assembled.
Without electronics, the case looks pretty ... budget, surprising, perhaps, with the seriousness of the approach to screening. It is a pity, of course, that only Apple seriously thinks about how its products look from the inside.
In the traditional group portrait, we see all the components ready for reassembly. A little more magic on the soldering station, meticulously pressing the back cover and “plinths” on a hot smartphone, and now it’s even impossible to believe that ten minutes ago he was lying in front of me in a bunch of parts.
Total
We spent a week together with the Xperia Z Ultra. It is very cool to study the contents of web pages and social networks - here it is not inferior to a 7-inch tablet. It's fun to send video and music to a TV screen with one click - this refers to the standard chips of Sony smartphones and tablets. Nice, okay tailored device.
But in the new Sony mobile devices, over the past year I have been accustomed to seeing a certain zest. Something unusual, which is not found in the products of other companies. In Z Ultra this zest is not felt. In fact, we have an enlarged version of the Xperia Z smartphone with a more decent screen with a large diagonal, an improved processor version and a degraded camera.
About the same way Samsung went, releasing Galaxy Mega 6.3 . A kind of Note 2 for the poor. But for him, even in chain stores, they ask for no more than 20,000 rubles, and “Seryak” is sold for 13,000. The price of Sony Xperia Z Ultra from the parties officially delivered to Russia ranges from 29,990 to 31,990 rubles. "Gray" instances can be found for 20 000.
Of course, it’s ridiculous to compare these products directly. They are hardware very, very different. But nevertheless from Sony's smart phone I was waiting for a flight of fancy, and not just scaling the platform onto an enlarged screen. You get used to good things very quickly ...
But apart from the overestimated expectations, the Xperia Z Ultra is a solid, high-performance and solid-looking device. I think many connoisseurs of large forms will be happy with him.
And I'm already looking forward to the Xperia Z1 lying next to it.
The author thanks Alexander Levchenko ( www.tech-town.ru ) for his help in preparing the material.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/195758/
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