Sony Xperia Z review

We have absolutely no complaints about the phone’s performance. It may have scored a relatively slow 1,890ms in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, compared to under 1,000ms for the fastest phones, but its 1.5GHz quad-core processor runs Android smoothly without any jerkiness or hiccups. We ran the test again using the Dolphin browser rather than the Xperia Z’s default Chrome, and the score improved to a much more respectable 1,357ms – the current mobile version of Chrome does seem to struggle with the Sunspider benchmark.

Sony’s customisations to the operating system are tasteful; a large chunk of the homescreen is dedicated to a huge Sony Entertainment Network link/advert, but this is easy to remove if you don’t like the look of it.

Depending on how you like to use Android, you may prefer Sony’s light-touch customisations to the rip-it-up-and-start-again of the latest version of HTC Sense, which turns your entire homescreen into a giant news feed from your social networks and various content providers.

Apart from the (removable) advert for the Sony Entertainment Network, Sony’s Android customisations are fairly unobtrusive

We were impressed with the Xperia Z’s keyboard; the screen is large enough that it’s easy to type accurately and quickly. At first, having to switch to the second-screen of buttons to access the full stop and comma keys annoyed us, but it’s easy to customise the keyboard layout with the keyboard settings wizard, which gives you the choice of turning on comma and full stop keys, and adding punctuation as a long-press to each key.

Sony has made sure you can get the keyboard layout you like