Xperia Z Ultra preview: a massive 6.44 inch phablet

By Alex Angove

Last updated 26 June 2013

Sony’s making waves in the tech news industry again with another announced addition to its water-resistant Zperia Z lines – the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. The Ultra falls well within the phablet category, with a massive 6.44 inch display that places it well towards the tablet end of the smartphone/tablet spectrum. It sports some pretty impressive specs, as well as what Sony is actually calling ‘water proofing’, rather than just water resistance.

Specs

Under the hood first; what’s the Xperia Z Ultra working with and can it contend with other high-end phablets on a spec sheet?

6.44 inch 1080p Triluminous display
Super-thin 6.5mm profile and weight of 212g
Quad-core 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 CPU and Adreno 330 GPU
2GB RAM
16GB on-board storage with MicroSD slot for up to 64GB expandable storage
4G LTE support
Waterproof and highly dust resistant; IP55 and IP58 certified
3000 mAh battery, backed up by Sony’s new Stamina Mode
8MP rear camera and 2MP front camera
Android 4.2.2
6.5mm profile
NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n; no /ac
Stylus support utilizing pencils
Optional SBH52 Bluetooth handset – more on this later

Pros

The Xperia Z Ultra is an extremely powerful Android device, sporting a class-leading Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU. It has great durability through its waterproofing and dust resistance, can utilize any pencil as a stylus (although without the Galaxy Note’s S-Pen features), includes a 1080p display and more than enough power and storage to satisfy even the most taxing smartphone tasks.

The pencil-as-stylus support is a pretty cool idea, too, and could offer some of the more useful options of the Galaxy Note, such as easy taking of screenshots for editing and messaging. Even though the S-Pen does offer far more functionality than a mere pencil ever could, we still feel this is a solid addition.

One of the more intriguing inclusions is the SBH52 Bluetooth handset. This is an NFC-enabled accessory that can take over the phone and music aspects of the device via Bluetooth. One of the biggest issues with phablets is how unwieldy they are as an actual phone or music player, and how ridiculous they look when held against the ear. The SBH52 is compact and sports a 3.5mm headphone jack, essentially meaning that the phablet itself can be kept in a bag while the calls and music are handled by the smaller extension.

Cons

The problem with this SBH52 reliance is that one must always have the phablet in near proximity. While a 6.44 inch device would fit easily in to most handbags, users who keep phones in their pockets are going to be in trouble. This is especially so in summer when large coat pockets aren’t an option. The SBH52 does lessen the problem of bulkiness, but is far from removing it.

Water and dust resistance comes at the price of every port being covered by a little plug or latch. This is one of those minor issues that can become a major annoyance with time. Having a little slat dangling off of your device every time you want to plug your headphones in can definitely be frustrating. These plugs are also infamous for breaking off. Once you lose one the entire device’s water resistance is compromized.

Another issue is with the display. The Xperia Z boasted a protective cover over its screen to help with water resistance and the Z Ultra is likely to be the same. The problem with this is that it caused the 1080p screen to appear blurry and severely limited viewing angles.

Verdict

The Sony Xperia Z Ultra actually looks like a pretty decent device, but we think Sony would have been better off releasing it with a smaller screen. The incredible quad-core 2.2GHz CPU won’t be enough to assuage users of their, quite just, fears of bulkiness.

We can’t help but feel that if Sony had included these specs and features in the original Xperia Z then sales figures would look quite different right now.

In its size range the Z Ultra should be very competitive, but only time will tell if this scale of handset will actually take off at all. Sony gambled unnecessarily here. The 5-5.7 inch phablet market is tried and tested, Sony may have been better off starting on popular ground before heading in to an emerging and unknown consumer market.