Sony Xperia Z1 - The Waterproof Flagship With 20MP Exmor RS Sensor And BIONZ Processing Engine

At a time when brands are trying to dethrone each other in the performance benchmark tests, imaging has also become an important criterion in deciding which phone is better than the other. While Nokia and Samsung have been coming out with models like Lumia 1020 and Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom, Sony has decided to go in to the war of megapixels with all guns blazing with the unveiling of Xperia Z1 at the IFA 2013 conference in Berlin yesterday. Now a 20.7 MP sensor might seem a far cry from Lumia 1020 in terms of megapixels but Sony has tried to cram in all of its expertise in the point-and-shoot camera sector. The phone has custom 27mm wide angle ‘G-Lens’ with CMOS image sensor, F2.0 aperture and crams in the mobile versions of Sony’s Exmor RS and BIONZ mobile image processing engine.

The phone might seem to you like a top of the range point-and-shoot camera but Sony gives purpose to this camera with a range of Xperia Camera Applications. The applications include Info-eye that is a Google Goggles alternative, followed by Timeshift burst that is similar to Samsung’s Best Shot feature but takes over 30 frames for you to choose the photo you like. The AR effect seems to ape Lumia’s Cinemagraph app as it too provides animations to your images but tries to do it better with SmartARaugmented reality technology. Finally a feature that has not been seen elsewhere the ‘Social live’ app with now helps you broadcast your video live to your Facebook feed. Before we finish the imaging part we would like you to know that the camera has a pulsed LED flash and can record Full HD videos. The front 2MP camera is good enough for your Skype chats. And if you crave to get more out of your smartphone do not worry the #-Link-Snipped-#, Sony mentions the launch of camera accessories like the previously rumoured QX10/QX100 lenses, stands and tripods.


The spec list is also impressive as well with a 2.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon Qualcomm MSM8974 Quad Core processor and 2GB of RAM. While the internal memory is an average 16 GB, a microSD card slot can help you expand your storage to up to 64 GB. The full HD (1980 x 1020) 5-inch LCD touch screen display comes loaded with Sony technologies with X-Reality for mobile picture engine, Sony Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2 and TRILUMINOS. This 4G LTE capable phone comes with a 3000 mAh battery that promises up to 550 hours of standby but we would like to see how it can handle a full day of photography. This dust and water resistant (IP55 & IP58) phone runs Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) out of the box. The regular connectivity features like NFC, Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi with hotspot support, A-GPS, Native USB tethering, USB High speed 2.0 and Micro USB support, 3.5 mm audio jack have been included.

So as the smartphone camera war has a new competitor, we would like to know which phone shall get your vote. Let us know in the comment section below.