What is the Sony Xperia Z2?
The Sony Xperia Z2 is Sony's top Android phone for 2014. It is the company's alternative to phones like the Galaxy S5, the HTC One M8 and the iPhone 5S.
It has a lot to prove, especially as its predecessor the Xperia Z1 was only released six months earlier. This new model is not a huge upgrade, and we have some issues with the design and hardware. However, a strong screen, good camera and great battery life make it a solid choice for those on top-end contracts, or with deep pockets.
Watch our Sony Xperia Z2 video:
Sony Xperia Z2 – Design
The Sony Xperia Z2 looks a lot like last year's Xperia Z1. Its front and back are flat layers of glass, the core of the phone is aluminium and the three parts are joined with thin buffers of black plastic.
It's a pretty strong, assured look, and one Sony's top end-phones have used since the original Xperia Z arrived back in 2012. We think the phone looks better – more stylish – than the Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5, but it is not quite as great a visual design as the HTC One M8.
What holds the Xperia Z2 back is that its body is laden with seams, flaps and an obvious dock connector that detract from an otherwise simple style.
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However, the phone needs most of these interruptions because the phone is water resistant and sealed-up. With no removable back, there is nowhere obvious for the Xperia Z2 to hide things like the microSIM and microSD card slots. This phone has both, and they sit under chunky, pretty obvious plastic flaps on the phone's sides.
As well as interrupting the look a bit, the construction of the phone does the Xperia Z2's ergonomics no favours. The tiny plastic trim around the rear glass plate sticks out a fraction of a millimetre (likely a way to protect the rear glass layer), and it only adds to what is a pretty boxy-feeling mobile.
You can really feel those seams, and a little curvaceousness can help handling with a phone this size – this is not a curvy phone. We prefer the smoother style of both the Galaxy S5 and the HTC One M8 in-hand, much as we criticsed the S5 for looking/feeling a bit cheap.
The effects of a handset with a pretty severe design become all the more obvious as a phone gets bigger. The iPhone 5S has a pretty angular little body, but it is such an easy-to-handle phone that it is a non-issue. Here we'd be tempted to buy a silicone case just to give the phone a friendlier feel.
The fairly boxy design doesn't make the super-slim-ness of the 8.2mm thick body obvious either, and the slightly larger screen and generous bezels above and below the screen make this phone larger than either of its key rivals from HTC and Samsung.
However, the size is nothing like as much of an issue as it is in something like the Xperia Z Ultra. This is a phone, not a phablet. You'll just need to get two hands involved at times.
Other parts of the hardware make intelligent concessions for the phone's size, too. The power button of the Xperia Z2 is extremely well-placed (for right-handers), sitting perfectly under most thumbs. If we had nothing else good to say about the phone, it could at least claim to have the handiest power button of this generation. Thankfully, there are other good bits.
Sony Xperia Z2: Water Resistance
The Xperia Z2 also offers the best water resistance of all the new top Android phones. A coated headphone jack and the two rubber-sealed ports help the phone earn its IP55 and IP58 certification. This means you can submerge the phone in water and it can take being pummeled with water jets.
While we don't imagine many of you will take out the high pressure hose to test this, it does mean you can put the phone under the tap and let rip if you get a bit of grime, pocket lint or chocolate stuck in the phone's various indents. Especially the somewhat-unnecessary dock connector and lanyard loop.
Water resistance is handy, but it means you have to remove and reseal a flap every time you charge the Xperia Z2. This gets annoying, and may result in the seal failing further down the line – it's only a little bit of rubber, after all.
The insides: not pretty
Sony Xperia Z2: Speakers
Another neat feature you may not initially notice is the set of stereo-front speakers. They output from tiny little near-invisible grilles on the very top and bottom of the Xperia Z2, the top one sharing its home with the multi-colour notification LED. As with the phone design, speaker performance sits somewhere between the HTC One M8 and Galaxy S5.
Having decent stereo separation is great for playing games and watching movies, but the Xperia Z2 doesn't have quite as beefy-sounding output as the HTC One M8. The Sony phone probably has significantly smaller speaker enclosures, if you're looking for a reason why beyond using different drivers.
The sound dispersal isn't great, either. For a comfortable stereo image, you want the output of the speakers to cross over before it reaches your ears. Here, there's a bit of a dead-zone in-between, making it sound as if each speaker is directed right at each ear. This is not how stereo is meant to work. Still, it's better than using a single rear speaker as on the S5.
