Sony Xperia Z - Most promising smartphone?

[Mayareira]

New features and overall design/performance seems very promising. Probably one of the most exciting smartphone announcement of recent months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWysHOjl95E

[xopher]

I've had nothing but bad experiences with Sony Ericsson phones. The only thing that looks interesting here is the washing it off with water thing, and I don't think Sony's build quality will live up to that unfortunately.

[kuronosan]

I have not liked a single Sony phone I have owned.

[Mayareira]

I agree with the overall quality issues with old Sony phones but they've gotten a lot better recently after they dumped Ericsson. They've invested a lot in this phone after their restructuring and its expected to be their "bambino".

Overall, I'm very optimistic about this one. If anything, I believe we will have a serious competitor for Samsung among Android phones.

[Haborym]

The real question is less about the quality of the actual phone itself, but rather the quality of apps it offers. This phone, in my opinion, is dead unless it has a connection to the current app market. Look at the statistics of any other smart phone on the market. If it isn't connected to Google Play or the App Store, it simply doesn't get used. There are very small use cases where this isn't true — see Blackberry, but even Blackberrys market share has fallen to 1.6% recently.

The only device I can think of that has successfully implemented a new market place is the Kindle, which is just an adaptation of the Google Play and Amazon marketplace.

[Jojimbo]

The real question is less about the quality of the actual phone itself, but rather the quality of apps it offers. This phone, in my opinion, is dead unless it has a connection to the current app market. Look at the statistics of any other smart phone on the market. If it isn't connected to Google Play or the App Store, it simply doesn't get used. There are very small use cases where this isn't true — see Blackberry, but even Blackberrys market share has fallen to 1.6% recently.

The only device I can think of that has successfully implemented a new market place is the Kindle, which is just an adaptation of the Google Play and Amazon marketplace.

It's an android phone, I though pretty much every modern sony smart phone was using android?

[Haborym]

Yeah it is, I took another look. I thought I saw another market palce, but I derped.

[DAKPluto]

More recent Sony phones are actually built like tanks. They take massive beatings. I like the Z, I think it has potential. The stock Sony skin sucks total ass, but who wouldn't flash an AOSP rom on that bitch anyways?

Honestly, I think Sony's work as of late has been very promising, and I'm hoping they get the nod to do the KLP Nexus phone.

[Kaisha]

Yeah it is, I took another look. I thought I saw another market palce, but I derped.

That would be the PS Mobile market, which Sony runs on Android for compatible devices.

[Pabst]

@ 7:15 they start talking about the phone

[Serra]

Engadget had a write up about this and the ZL the other day from CES:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/s...s-on-ces-2013/

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/s...a-zl-hands-on/

I'm pretty excited for this phone too (well, more for the ZL). One thing that's irked me as of late with Androids is that so many phones are doing away with expandable storage. Nice to see there's an exciting phone coming out that still has that feature.