HTC One M8 review: looks great, but is it still worth buying?

HTC One M8 review: looks great, but is it still worth buying?

Robert Zak 2015-04-14T00:00:01Z3 weeks ago Robert Zak A tech aficionado since he first picked up a NES controller, Robert has written about technology, videogames, and film across a range of sites and magazines, including Den of Geek, Gamasutra, and Computeractive. At AndroidPIT, he'll be bringing you the latest Android news and reviews from the front line in the UK.

When we did our initial HTC One M8?review last year, we were in awe of the phone's stunning design. It was?more than just a pretty chassis too,?complemented by powerful hardware and genuinely useful, unintrusive software. But a new generation of flagships has since arrived in the form of the HTC One M9, Samsung Galaxy S6 and (soon) the LG G4. Is HTC's flagship of yesteryear?still capable of mixing it up with the best of them? Read our updated HTC One M8 review to see how it holds up.

c ANDROIDPIT Good?? ?Stunning metallic design?Flawless for multitasking and gaming?Sense UI is slick and lightweight?BoomSound stereo speakersBad?? ?UltraPixel camera was never fit for a flagship camera

The HTC One M8 release date was way back in March 2014, so it can easily be picked up on networks or off-contract just about anywhere in the US and UK. As you'd expect, the HTC One M8 price has dropped a fair old bit since its release, and it can now be picked up for around $500 in the US, or ￡350 in the UK.

As we well know, the M8 is a looker, and asserted HTC as the undisputed champion of smartphone design in 2014. It retains the satisfyingly weighty aluminum chassis of its predecessor, but adds a slight curve to the back, making it more comfortable to hold. The Gun Metal version has a brushed metal finish on the rear, while the Glacial Silver and Amber Gold have a metallic speckle. Of the three, the Gun Metal version is my favorite, and makes the One M8 virtually indistinguishable from its successor, the One M9.

THE HTC One M8 is still one of the best-designed smartphones in the world, and not too expensive now either. / c ANDROIDPIT

At the top and bottom of the M8’s rear are two horizontal plastic strips which help the phone’s antennae get better signal. The fact that Apple has since used several of these design traits in their iPhone 6 is a testament to what a well-built device the M8 is. On the front, the M8 has two strips of pinprick holes above and below the screen housing a pair of BoomSound stereo speakers. This – along with the curved back – makes the One M8 a bit longer and thicker than the Samsung Galaxy S6, which also has a marginally larger screen by 0.1”.

HTC One M8 and HTC One M9 - can you really tell the difference? / c ANDRODIPIT

The charger port and headphone jack are tucked away at the bottom-right of the M8. While most people are indifferent about the charger port’s positioning, there are some who feel that the headphone jack rightly belongs at the top of a phone. After some time with the M8 however, I found that keeping a phone upside-down in the pocket - as required if you have headphones plugged into a jack at the bottom - makes it easier to slip into the hand in an upright position when you pull it out.

On the M8's right side we have the nanoSIM tray and volume buttons. The buttons are perfectly positioned to control with your thumb, but for me they were too flush with the chassis. This made them hard to press when I wanted to use the volume rocker through my trousers with the phone in my pocket (I'm not the only person who does this, right?). While making the buttons more pronounced could've tainted the finely-crafted look of the phone, they could at least have been designed to be more sensitive.

The shot of the bottom of the phone also reveals the curved back of the phone, distinguishing it from the flat-backed HTC One (M7) / c ANDROIDPIT

Answering criticisms aimed at its predecessor, the M8 features a microSD slot on its left side, expanding the phone’s memory by up to 128GB.

Finally, at the top of the One M8 is a black plastic strip, housing the power button at the top right, and an infrared sensor, which you can use to control home theatre systems, TVs and set-top boxes. The strip also works with the plastic lines on the back of the phone to help the wireless technologies inside communicate with the outside world.

The infrared sensor at the top of the One M8 is an inspired touch. / c ANDROIDPIT

At 5 inches, the One M8 display is larger than its predecessor's. With a 1080p resolution, it’s actually got a lower pixel density than the One (M7), which can be attributed to the fact that the latter has a 4.7-inch screen. With that said, the display on the M8 is certainly brighter, and replicates colors more naturally.

The Full HD display on the HTC One M8 still looks great to the casual eye. After all, HTC did choose to stick with it for the One M9. / c ANDROIDPIT

The One M8 screen doesn't quite compete with that of the Galaxy Note 4, or the Quad HD displays on the Galaxy S6 and LG G3, but let's remember that the M8 is a year older than those phones – which is a long time in the smartphone universe. The One M8 display may not be top of the pile any more, but it's a testament to its quality that HTC chose to stick with the exact same display for the One M9. It still looks great.

The One M8 comes out of the box with Android 4.4.2 KitKat overlaid by HTC Sense 6, but has since received the Android 5.0 Lollipop update,?as well as?some UI tweaks in preparation for Sense 7.

The OS is?well integrated with Google, and features the usual line-up of Google apps as well as some welcome Lollipop elements - such as the Recent Apps cards and smart locking. Crucially, Sense?is a minimal and unintrusive UI, comprised of sharp, skinny fonts and an array of customization options.

The Sense UI looks and feels great, and is set to become a lot more customizeable when it gets updated to Sense 7. / c ANDROIDPIT

HTC Themes was released for the One M8 in April 2015, offering?a level of customization previously unseen with major manufacturer UIs. Themes lets you take photos, then uses the photo data to match it with appropriate icons and fonts. If what it selects doesn't suit you, you can always edit these things yourself.?Not all the customization options are available yet on the One M8 (you'll have to wait until the Sense 7 UI update, probably in May), but it's a fantastic feature for those who want to personalize their phones without committing to custom ROMs.

Swipe to the left of the homescreen and you arrive at BlinkFeed, the well-presented tile interface with echoes of Windows’ Metro theme. Despite my scepticism towards receiving a mishmash of news, social media feeds and calendar events all on one screen, BlinkFeed proved surprisingly good at knowing what I was interested in. It shows popular news stories and Facebook posts from people you actually interact with, rather than just random snippets from all your news sources. BlinkFeed lets you add your own feeds, and read posts using an in-built reader, saving you from having to open the corresponding app.

The Sense UI neatly integrates Android Lollipop's best features. / c ANDROIDPIT

One of the unsung One M8 features is the ability to to turn it into an infrared remote control for TVs, set-top boxes and sound systems. In April, HTC dropped support for its 'TV' remote control app -?which worked perfectly well - and replaced it with Peel Smart Remote. While the new app offers some handy features like TV guides, setting favorite shows and so on, it's proven prone to crashing when we've been using it, and we'll stick with using the original TV app as long as we can.

The quad-core Snapdragon 801 chipset, clocked to 2.3GHz, means that the One M8 specs don't quite top the table any more, having since been trumped by the Sony Xperia Z3, LG G3 and Galaxy Note 4, not to mention recent flagships like the Galaxy S6 and HTC's own One M9.

Nevertheless, it is an efficient and powerful processor that will let you heedlessly leave a large number of apps running in the background and have 20 websites open at once without any adverse effects. Some of the credit here has to go to the svelte Sense UI for being so sparing in its use of CPU resources.?In our AnTuTu test, the One M8 performed better than the OnePlus One and Galaxy S5, and remains a powerful phone that will handle demanding Android tasks for a couple of years yet.

One year on, and the HTC One M8 still looks good in the AnTuTu benchmarks. / c ANDROIDPIT

Fuelling the graphics power in the M8 is the Adreno 330 GPU. Once again, a few phones have since surpassed it, but it still plays many of the most graphically demanding games without a hitch. Deus Ex: Fall and Riptide GP, for example, both run brilliantly. It did, however, stutter ever so slightly on the strenuous Real Racing 3.

The One M8 houses a pair of BoomSound speakers which deliver crystal-clear sound that tops most flagships even a year on (in fact, the only smartphone speakers to have clearly outdone those on the One M8 are those on the One M9). Mid-high notes are very clear, while it's a little lacking in the bass and volume departments.

The BoomSound speakers on the One M8 continue to deliver top-of-the-market sound. / c ANDROIDPIT

The One M8 utilizes its BoomSound speaker for phone calls, using the piezo driver in the the speaker to deliver deep, clear call quality. We had no problems with signal quality either, suggesting that the plastic signal strips on the back of the phone are doing their jobs properly.

The One M8 camera uses UltraPixel technology, which HTC believes more than makes up for the fact that it's only 4MP. According to HTC, because the pixels on its camera are bigger, the M8 can process more light, resulting in clearer, more balanced photos.

The Duo Camera on the HTC One M8 adds depth information to photos, making for some interesting effects. / c ANDROIDPIT

With the help of a f/2.0 wide-angle lens, photos taken with the M8 look well-balanced, if a little over-exposed in bright conditions. Conversely, it’s good for low-lighting shots, and does a good job of picking out details, while suffering from less noise in the dark than rival phones.

The Duo Camera is a sensor above the rear camera that measures depth information, allowing for some interesting bokeh-style effects. These look good, with the cartoonised, sketched, or otherwise jazzed-up backgrounds always being clearly demarcated from objects in the foreground. A bit more gimmicky – but entertaining nonetheless - are the options to have animated confetti or snow falling over the photos you've taken, or 'Dimension Plus', whereby you can tilt your camera to create the illusion of looking at a photo from different angles.?

The HTC One M8 camera has the usual collection of trendy filters. / c ANDROIDPIT

Since the release of the selfie-oriented Desire Eye, HTC has boosted several of the M8’s camera features with the ‘Eye Experience’ update. Dual Capture has been replaced with Split Capture, which takes snaps or videos with the front and rear cameras simultaneously. These photos take up half the screen each, and you can retake photos in either of the pictures if they’re not quite right. Face Fusion is a freaky feature that lets you transplant faces from one body to another, and you can now take voice-activated selfies.

The 4MP camera held up surprisingly well to the high-end phones of last year, but even then didn't quite match up to phones like the Galaxy S5 or iPhone 6. Colours aren't as natural, macro shots don't capture as much detail, and photos feel like they're taken for uploading to Facebook rather than printing and treasuring.

The rear camera on the One M8 is one area in which the phone now feels somewhat dated, and it's no surprise that it was demoted to being a front camera on the One M9 (a job which it's very good at).

The One M8 battery is 2600mAh, and irons out many of the issues faced by its predecessor. While most high-end phones now have a 3000mAH or bigger battery, some clever engineering and the Sense UI mean that the One M8 can last for a surprisingly long time.

Light users who browse the web, make phone calls and use some apps can expect to squeeze two days’ use out of their M8. Should you leave the screen on constantly, then it clocks around seven hours, which isn't far off the endurance expected from a bulky-batteried phablet. HTC also claims that its Extreme Power Saver Mode can get 15 hours life out of just 5 per cent battery.

${device-htc-441} Dimensions:146.4 x 70.6 x 9.4 mmScreen:1920 x 1080 pixels (441 ppi)Android version:4.4.2 - KitKatChipset:Qualcomm Snapdragon 801Connectivity:HSPA, LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0

The HTC One M8 is a perfectly balanced smartphone, offering high-end, intelligently-designed features across its hardware and software that work together to form a true technological gestalt. In a world where smartphone tend to be defined by the size and luridity of their screens, the One M8 is an embodiment of elegance.

The only major complaint I have about the One M8 is its camera. I respect HTC’s audacity in claiming that megapixels don’t matter, but the M8's glitzy features, UltraPixels and Duo Camera just don't match up to the top-end phone cameras out there.

Even a year after its release, the One M8 is a near-perfect phone, and it's little surprise that HTC kept its design for the One M9. With the One M8 price dropping in response to rivals’ recent releases, now is a good a time as any to consider this stand-out smartphone.

HTC One M8. A year on it's a bit cheaper, and still brilliant. / c ANDROIDPIT

Does our HTC One M8 review tempt you to go back and get this great phone now that it's cheaper, or is it a bit 'last year' for you? Let us know in the comments.

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Google Nexus 6 review: still the biggest, but is it the best?

Google Nexus 6 review: still the biggest, but is it the best?

Loie Favre 2015-03-30T14:00:00Z1 month ago Loie Favre Loie Favre found her way to her present passion for Android and smartphone technology after experiencing an epiphany when she held her Galaxy Note 2. From that point onwards, you can find her with her nose buried in countless Android apps and different smartphone models, and thanking her lucky stars that she gets to work at something she loves.

Ever since the Galaxy Nexus appeared on the scene, Nexus phones have been associated with exceptional value for money, and flagship quality. The?Nexus 6?bucked that?trend a bit, with a lofty price tag and a six-inch screen that was beautiful, but too big for many peoples' hands.?Our initial skeptical feelings towards the Nexus 6 were eventually quite positive, as we gave it a four-star review when it was released. But several months on, and with fierce competition in the form of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9, does it still stand strong among flagship smartphones? Read our updated Google Nexus 6 review to find out.

c ANDROIDPIT Good?? ?Huge screen (for big hands)?Stereo speakers?Quality camera?Great battery lifeBad?? ?Huge screen (for small hands)?Problems with wireless Nexus charging dock?Relatively dark display, with slight pink hue at lowest brightness

The Nexus 6 price is higher than previous Nexus phones when they first came out. It?is available to buy now in the US and UK at Amazon, the Play Store and Motorola, and other outlets. The 32 GB variant costs 649 USD, while the 64 GB version costs 699 USD (￡499 and ￡549 in the UK, respectively). It's available in Cloud White and Midnight Blue colors.?

US

The Nexus 6 looks like an oversized Moto X (2014), which may leave some thinking that Motorola took a bit of a shortcut on the design. But let's not nitpick -?the Moto X is a wonderfully-designed phone, and the Nexus 6 is well-crafted and?feels great to hold. It has?an elegant yet practical?design thanks to the slightly rounded back.

The back side in convex and gets thinner near the bottom, which makes it lie comfortably in the hand. / c ANDROIDPIT

Then there is the matter of the size. The Nexus 6 is so big that?you could even hide a?Galaxy Note 4?behind it. The phone is definitely not great for people with small hands, and even a relatively big-handed person like me had to get used to it. Top-of-the-phone tasks like pulling down the notifications bar and tapping the Google search bar will most likely require the use of a second hand.?This should be clear to all those who are considering buying the Nexus 6, but I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I acclimatized to its large size, which also?has obvious usability advantages - typing, greater precision with navigation, bigger text etc.

In this picture, it's quite apparent how much bigger the Nexus 6 is compared to the Nexus 5. / c ANDROIDPIT

The raised stereo speakers unfortunately attract?dust particles and dirt, and the?display suffered from the same slight stickiness as?the?Nexus 5. ?On the plus side, the Nexus 6 is more resistant to fingerprints than its predecessor, so at least the screen stays looking fresh even if it could feel a bit better.

The backside with the reputed font: the letters don't peel off either. / c ANDROIDPIT

Also, worrying rumors about the letters on the back of the Nexus 6 peeling off proved unfounded in our review. We gave them a good scratching and rubbing (no scalpels were involved), and the letters stayed visible and in place. So there's another malicious Nexus 6 rumor quashed.

Google and Motorola planted a 6-inch AMOLED display with QHD (2,560 x 1,440) resolution on the Nexus 6, with?a pixel density of 493 PPI. Individual pixels could only be distinguished with a magnifying glass and even then they are hard to make out. The text is razor sharp, colors vibrant yet not oversaturated.

The maximum brightness is slightly?darker on the Nexus 6 than other smartphones. When placing the Nexus 5 next to the Nexus 6, with both displays at 100% brightness, the predecessor was clearly brighter. That said, I had no?issues reading the screen in the bright outdoors nor in any other scenarios thanks to the well-functioning auto-brightness.

Pure whites?on the screen have the slightest pink hue, though not enough to be a distraction to the casual observer. For a pricey flagship phone however, you don't expect such niggles - however minor - and in this regard the Nexus 6 falls just short of the flagship competition.

Sharp colors: the Nexus 6 has a nice, big display with only a few weaknesses. / c ANDROIDPIT

There was some talk of screen burn-in among certain users, but we didn't manage to reproduce this, so as far as we know these were just isolated incidents.

The Nexus 6 supports Qi wireless charging, if you buy?a Qi charging dock seperately. This feature worked well with the?Nexus 5, which was magnetically attached to its official?charging dock and didn’t budge when the phone vibrated.?Unfortunately, the curved back on the Nexus 6 means it?has issues laying on flat surfaces, so when it received messages while lying on the dock,?it would steadily rotate as it vibrated. This is also due to the fact that the magnetic docking function of the Nexus 5 is missing with the Nexus 6.?

The aluminium frame gives the Nexus 6 a classy look. / c ANDROIDPIT

The Nexus 6 comes with a Turbo Charger cable, which delivers on its promise to deliver a six-hour charge in just 15 minutes.

The Nexus 6 comes with?stock Android 5.0 Lollipop, and is first in line to receive the latest OS updates.?Lollipop is the biggest update in the history of Android and brings with it many functional and visual changes.

The Nexus 6 comes with Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box, and the stock Android user interface. / c ANDROIDPIT

A new software feature which is for now exclusive to the Nexus 6, is called the Ambient Display, which displays important notifications in black-and-white?as soon as you receive them or pick up your phone (similarly to Moto Display on the Moto X). The feature is extremely practical, because?all you need to do is reach your hand towards the devices for the notifications to appear. It does, however, replace the trusty LED light on the front of your phone, which is a bit disappointing. The Nexus 6 does actually have an RGB LED light, but it's disabled unless you do a bit of software tweaking to the phone.

The Nexus 6 runs buttery smooth, which is to be expected with?its powerful specs.?Apps start?quickly, animations are?silky, and most games can be played without any jitters (which is exceptionally fun on a 6-inch screen). Having said that, the QHD resolution is much more demanding than 1080p?and this was noticeable now and again, especially with very demanding games, which inevitably run less smoothly than on Full HD screens. This problem isn't unique to the Nexus 6 though, as other?QHD devices like the LG G3, Galaxy Note 4, and even the Galaxy S6 suffer from the same symptoms.

Nexus 6 in the AnTuTu Benchmark test. / c ANDROIDPIT

The stereo speakers on the Nexus 6?look and sound great. They're loud and crisp (as smartphone speakers go), but please don't?get carried away using them on trains and buses - unless you're surrounded by audio enthusiasts, no one will appreciate their sound in the way that you do. When you start hitting parks in the summer with your friends though, then the Nexus 6 speakers will serve you well.

Reception and voice quality on the Nexus 6 get straight full marks. On the same network as the Nexus 5, ?the Nexus 6 would sometimes get three bars of signal where its predecessor would only get one. Phone calls sounded crystal clear, with no background noise or other nasty interference getting in the way. With the incoming Android 5.1 update, Google has also promised to include HD audio calls, which should further boost phone call quality.

The 13MP camera in the?Nexus 6 takes great pictures. Pictures taken in low light conditions have very little noise and the amount of detail is satisfactory. Sometimes the camera needed a little longer to focus, but otherwise?there is very little to complain about. We didn't notice any?advantages to the ring-shaped Dual LED flash on the phone, with flashed pictures not looking any better or worse than on other phones.

The Nexus 6 camera with its dual LED ring. / c ANDROIDPIT

Take a look at our image gallery to see the results of our camera test.

Blasting away all worries that a massive 6-inch display would be a battery drain, the 3220 mAh battery on the Nexus 6 ?ensures that you'll?have more than enough juice to get through the day. During my testing, I took countless pictures, watched videos, listened to music,?and surfed the internet. After about 27 hours of use, the battery was down to 17% with the display having bee?active for three hours. The Nexus 6 isn’t as long-lasting as the Sony Xperia Z3,?but at least you?won’t have to worry that the battery will be drained after just half a day's use.

Nexus 6 battery consumption: you can manually adjust the screen time on. / c ANDROIDPIT Model:Sorry, not yet available! Dimensions:159.26 x 82.98 x 10.06 mmScreen:2560 x 1440 pixels (493 ppi)Android version:5.0 - LollipopRemovable storage:Not availableChipset:Qualcomm Snapdragon 805Connectivity:HSPA, LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 4.1

Google and Motorola pushed the bar way up for future Nexus phones, with the Nexus 6 addressing past problems with the camera and battery. If you can deal with its formidable size and?want to stay on the front-line of Android updates?then the Nexus 6 is for you.

In terms of processing power, it's no longer a match for the likes of the HTC One M9 and Samsung Galaxy S6, but it can also be found for quite a bit cheaper now, and its phablet screen is unmatched for its combination of size and quality. The Nexus 6 is a unique and bold phone, and is still worth considering even in light of recent competition.

What do you think of our Nexus 6 review? Has it persuaded you to get a Nexus 6,?or are you waiting to see what flagship phone?Google has in store for us in 2015?

Updated 30/3/15 by Robert Zak, Translated from AndroidPIT Germany's Nico Heister.

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Sony Xperia Z3 review: is it still worth the investment in 2015?

Sony Xperia Z3 review: is it still worth the investment in 2015?

Loie Favre 2015-04-06T19:00:00Z4 weeks ago Loie Favre Loie Favre found her way to her present passion for Android and smartphone technology after experiencing an epiphany when she held her Galaxy Note 2. From that point onwards, you can find her with her nose buried in countless Android apps and different smartphone models, and thanking her lucky stars that she gets to work at something she loves.

Sony said it was leading a smartphone revolution with the?Sony?Xperia Z3,?but did?the device?truly live up to this claim? With the Xperia Z4 on the horizon, we look?back at last year's major Sony flagship?to discover if it is still worth the asking price in 2015.?Find out in our Xperia Z3 review.

c ANDROIDPIT Good?? ?Design and craftsmanship?Multimedia features?Great Sony camera?Strong battery lifeBad?? ?16 GB of internal storage is too little for a flagship?Side-flaps can become annoying

In terms of the Sony Xperia Z3 release date, it was first announced at the IFA 2014 and later made available to consumers near the end of September 2014. The phone started at 799.99 USD but the Xperia Z3?price?has been seen as low as 619.99 USD. This of course depends on the carrier or provider, and you can get it on a deal as well. It is available worldwide so the price will differ depending on your country.

US UK

In 2013, Sony first presented its trademarked Omnibalance design on the Xperia Z, which has been the design standard for?all Xperia smartphones since. Sony has continued the?tradition for the Xperia Z3,?incorporating premium materials, like aluminium and glass, into the device body. Since its first phone in this series, Sony has smoothed out any inconsistencies and proudly presented us with the Xperia Z3.

The front and back sides made of glass have hardly changed since the first?Xperia Z, but other changes?have been made to the frame. Sony clearly?listened to user feedback and the handset is far more pleasant to hold than the last generations, with?the edges being?rounded for comfort. (Though the effect isn’t quite like the HTC One (M8)’s smooth unibody).

The Xperia Z3 is Sony's latest smartphone, but is it one of the best? ?/ c ANDROIDPIT

Speaking of borders, Sony also incorporated rubberized bumpers for the four outer corners to ensure that there is less pressure on the display if it is dropped, reducing?the chances of a cracked screen. These stand out from the aluminium frame, but don’t tarnish the pristine look of the unibody design, all the while protecting your device. That being said, we don’t recommend dropping your Xperia Z3.

Sony added new bumpers for the four corners of the Z3 to protect the display in cases of trauma. / c ANDROIDPIT

Despite the arms race in which many other manufacturers are now participating in to incorporate the highest resolutions into their devices, the latest of which is a 2K display on the likes of the Note 4 and the LG G3, Sony stuck with Full HD resolution (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) for its 5.2 inch display.

Thanks to the TRILUMINOS and ‘’X-Reality for mobile’’ technologies, the display looks fantastically?bright and has good visibility in direct sunlight. The viewing angles are also?excellent:?photos and videos are natural, restrained and certainly not?oversaturated. Compared to the Xperia Z2, the Z3's has a more "radiant" appearance, and is definitely the superior.

The colors are sharp and natural on the Xperia Z3. ?/ c ANDROIDPIT

Regarding the Sony Xperia Z3 features, it's water and dustproof with certification IP65 and IP68. This means that when the protective flaps are covered, the Z3 is completely protected from dust and pressurized jets of water from all directions. It can also be dunked under water to 1.5 meters for a maximum of 30 minutes, but only in freshwater (in other words, don't jump into the ocean with it).?It’s also worth mentioning that the dual?front-facing speakers sound is far superior to that of?the Z2.

A Sony staple are the protective flaps for its slots which renders the phone waterproof. / c ANDROIDPIT

Sony has yet again incorporated a well-rounded software package into the Z3, making its latest flagship a real multimedia champ. In the music area, it's?included a DSEE HX (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) and Hi-Res Audio which improves the sound quality of MP3s with lower bitrates.

The sound is improved on whole, but the DSEE HX feature is only found in the Walkman app; other apps from the Play Store don’t come with this feature. Some other sound effects include an EQ?and virtual surround sound.

The Z3 comes with some new sound effect features. / c ANDROIDPIT

For gamers, the Xperia Z3 has a new PS4 function called Remote Play which allows you to play PlayStation 4 games on the Z3 by docking it on the PS4 controller. This way you can start a game on your TV; and continue it in a different room with the phone. It's an interesting feature, but doesn't provide a huge reason to invest in a Z3.?

The Sony Xperia Z3, and the Z3 Tablet Compact (above), can be placed a remote control and used to play PlayStation 4 games. / c ANDROIDPIT

Yet another new feature that Sony has added is an Ultra Power Saving Mode. When activated, the Z3 turns into a "basic" phone with no internet connection, a reduced home screen, and access only to the contacts, SMS/MMS, camera, album, calendar, alarm clock, clock, calculator, UKW radio, and settings apps.

When using this mode, the Xperia Z3 will last for 3 to 5 days without having to be plugged in to charge. This mode is especially useful if you are going on long backpacking tours or anywhere where you don’t have electricity, or?no need for internet.

The Sony Xperia Z2 didn’t disappoint in this area, and though the Xperia Z3 specs are?almost the same, the overall performance of the latter is significantly better.?To compare, we’ve done an AnTuTu Benchmark test to show the Z3 with an average of 43,000 points as opposed to the Z2 which just missed the 40,000 cut-off.

Sony Xperia Z3 in the ?AnTuTu-Benchmark. / c ANDROIDPIT

Additionally, the?Z3 is able to capture up to 10 minutes of 4K video without overheating, as opposed to the Z2 which only lasted about 5 minutes. But it’s still a pain: the Z3 camera simply shut down even though the phone was hardly warm. At least Sony slightly improved the issue, but this really shouldn’t happen for a smartphone of this caliber and price.

The rear camera shoots photos at?20.7 MP, with an Exmor RS sensor of ?.3 inches - the same as the Z2. This time around, though, Sony increased the max ISO?from 3,200 on the Z2, to 12,800 for the Z3. What this means is that?pictures taken in low light situations are far stronger on the Z3, but it's a minor camera improvement overall.

Colors are well-represented, aside from the real-life reds which tend towards a pinker hue in photos. / c ANDROIDPIT The 20.7 Megapixels of the Sony camera ensure highly detailed images. / c ANDROIDPIT An overcast sky. c ANDROIDPIT The Z3 camera always produces life-like images. / c ANDROIDPIT The Xperia Z3 failed to impress one of the AndroidPIT dogs. / c ANDROIDPIT

The battery capacity of the Z3 is just?100 mAh more than the Z2, and?in reality both?have?similarly excellent battery life. In our test, we had the automatic brightness on, while syncing 3 different accounts, we listened to about 1 hour of music, surfed the internet for 2 hours (internet, Twitter and Feedly), played games for 15 minutes, and took pictures. After 13 hours, it was still at 50%. Two day battery life with moderate use is no problem for the Xperia?Z3, it has one of the strongest batteries of any 2014 flagship.?

Model:D6603
D6653
D6633
D6616
D6643 Dimensions:146.5 x 72.4 x 7.3 mmScreen:1920 x 1080 pixels (424 ppi)Android version:4.4.4 - KitKatInternal storage:16 GB (D6603, D6653, D6633, D6643)
32 GB (D6616)Chipset:Qualcomm Snapdragon 801Connectivity:- (D6603)
HSPA, LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 (D6653, D6616, D6643)
HSPA, LTE, NFC, Dual-SIM , Bluetooth 4.0 (D6633)

The Sony Xperia Z3 is beautifully designed, with a fantastic hi-resolution camera?and great battery life; it's a really difficult device to find fault with. You might not be a fan of Sony's Xperia user-interface, or the fiddly SD-Card/charge port flaps, but the minor flaws pale?into comparison when looked at against the myriad of positives. For us, it's one of the best Android phones in the world.

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