Today, I received the Xperia ZL from Sony which makes it the next phone on my list to review. So before I just jump right into the review phase, I figured I’d share my first impressions and quick unboxing of the device. As most of you know the Xperia ZL is the close sibling of the Xperia Z, which Tom reviewed just a few weeks ago. The main differences being that the Xperia Z is water proof and dust proof. The Xperia ZL just has a larger battery and is not water proof or dust proof. Other than that these devices are almost identical.
Out of the box, the Sony Xperia ZL looks beautiful. I know it’s not all about the design on the outside, but Sony can really make some great hardware, even if it is a bit outdated when it launches. The Xperia ZL has a 5-inch 1080p display, a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB of storage with a 13MP camera on the back. It’s also running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with Sony’s own custom UI overlay. The battery sits at 2370mAh, which isn’t a huge battery but it should still last you a full day. Surprisingly, the Xperia ZL doesn’t have a whole lot of apps pre-installed. Besides the Google apps, there are only a handful of Sony apps. This is the unlocked version, but it was still pretty surprising to me.
This is my first time using a Sony device, and so far I’ve been nicely surprised. Although the one thing that’s a bit puzzling to me is the fact that the front-facing camera is at the bottom of the display. To me, that seems to be a bit of an awkward place to put a camera. First impressions of the device are good, very good. I’m definitely going to enjoy this device. As far as their custom overlay goes. It’s quite different from Touchwiz, Sense, Motorola and LG’s. I actually like the darker UI that Sony is using in their overlay. It looks really nice. The display is adequate, I’ve seen better 1080p displays out there, but it’s definitely not the worst display around.
With all that being said, if you have any questions about the Xperia ZL, be sure to leave a comment below and I’ll try to answer your question(s) in the full review coming soon.