For those who cannot read a spec sheet...(rant)

As you may or may not have heard, Sony have gone against the grain in the mobile phone industry and decided to release a flagship phone every 6 months rather than the usual 12 like some of its rivals. Its been quite a controversial issue as of late as it has got people talking about whether Sony are doing the right thing. 
Personally, I think its a great idea as for most of us who have 18-24 month phone contracts will now know when we upgrade that we will have the most up to date technology available, rather than settling for something 6-12 months old, without having to wait an extra few months for the next phone to come out. 

A lot of people on social media have criticized Sony for not changing enough in the new Xperia Z3 compared to its predecessor the Xperia Z2. A common reply I am hearing when people innocently ask what the difference is between the two phones are usually replied with a very stroppy and stubborn "nothing". 

Though people like myself were expecting a little more, ideally in the camera department, if you look in to the details of the specs of the new Z3 and its capabilities you will actually realise there has been a lot of fine tuning. 
The Xperia Z2 is easily the best phones I have ever owned, and now its been tweaked to near perfection.

Here are some of the changes Sony have added to an already near perfect phone...

The Size.

The Sony Xperia Z2 has a slim 146.8 x 73.3 x 8.2mm build and weighs 163g.
The Xperia Z3 comes in at 146 x 72 x 7.3mm and 152g, 

Conclusion: Its thinner and lighter. 

The Durability

The Xperia Z3 has a new IP certification with a handsome IP68 rating, now meaning that it is classed as "totally dust tight" compared to the Z2 which only has a rating of IP58 meaning it is "protected against dust that may harm equipment".

The Xperia Z3 now has the highest water and dust resistant rating on the market possible.

Conclusion: The Xperia Z3 is more durable and dust resistant. 



The Screen

Though the Xperia Z2 and Z3 seem to have the same spec screens, both with a 5.2 inch display equipped with X reality technology, Live Colour LED and Trilluminus display. One thing I have noticed is that the Xperia Z3 has a brighter screen capability, being able to go up to 600 nits compared to the 460 nits with the Z2.

This is something I have noticed while using my Z2. Its screen can be quite dim, even when turned up to max, so this is very welcome news indeed. 

Again, fine tuning.

Conclusion: The same decent but much needed brighter screen.

The Camera

Again, the two handset’s cameras seem pretty similar, as they both have a massive 20.7 megapixel Exmor RS sensor, a 2.2 megapixel front camera and the award winning G lens. Not to mention being able to shoot in 4K, Augmented Reality and Time Burst modes.

However the Sony Xperia Z3 uses a slightly larger 25mm wide-angle lens, so you can fit more in to your shots. It also has a higher ISO sensitivity which will make a big difference in low lighting situations, something Sony has been criticized with in the past.

I am also excited to hear that the Xperia Z3 will have a new mode called ‘Face in’ which uses both  front and back cameras at once so that you can capture video while recording your reaction while filming. This is something I cannot wait to try out as it has some great possibilities.

Conclusion: A wider lens, a higher ISO sensitivity for low light pictures and some new features. 

The Battery

Even though the new Xperia Z3 seems to have a slightly smaller 3100 mAh battery on paper compared to its Z2 brother (3200 mAh), it does boast a better battery life. As you may recall from my other blog posts such as the Z2 Festival Battery Test and Battery Test 1 on my Z2, the damn thing can last for days if need be, but the Xperia Z3, thanks to a more efficient processor and screen can now, apparently, last two days on normal usage. 

Conclusion: A longer lasting battery.

Other features

There are also things which the Xperia Z3 can do which the Z2 simply cant do at all, which go beyond simple tweeks. Of course I am referring to the Playstation 4 Remote play which lets you stream PS4 games on to your Xperia Z3's screen while around the house. Basically the same technology in the PS Vita hand held console, but on your phone. Every bit of technology around is slowly merging in to your phone, and now your games console too, well, if you own a Z3 that is. 

So, new Playstation 4 compatibility too.

The Cost

There is also one massive difference which most people who are still throwing a strop at Sony seem to forget, if these changes above aren't good enough for you, then consider this.

The Xperia Z3 has a current RRP of £550.

The Xperia Z2, £390. 

So if you still aren't bothered or impressed by the changes to the new Xperia Z3, its just devalued the Z2 for you so you can now save a ton of cash.

Suck it. 

The Xperia Z2 goes to Croatia!

I have just been touring Croatia this week so thought id show off some of the stuff ive managed to do with my Xperia Z2.

The first thing I want to share is this picture from the plane. As we all know, most pictures taken from a plane are terrible because of the double glazing windows which are often filthy, 5 inches apart and quite simply never let your camera do its thing. Somehow the Xperia Z2 seemed mostly unphased by this. 

Here is another nice one. 

I took a picture at Pula Collosium on Superior Auto mode.

Then run it through an app called Snapseed. 

Here is some other stuff Snapseed can do.

 Boom,

Again, Snapseed. Not too sure about this one.

Here is a very spooky church in Croatia.

 I found an old soviet factory which I managed to catch during the calm of a tropical storm with HDR.

Here is me showing off some of the water proof capabilities of the Xperia Z2

Almost as crystal clear as the Croatian sea.

 And naturally, I had some fun with Augmented Reality. 

Some more of what Augmented Reality can do.

I hope you enjoyed my snaps. 

Thanks for reading!

The Dour Festival Battery Test!

Well, there is no doubt that the Xperia Z2 has a whopping battery.
I mean, its equipped with a MASSIVE Li-Ion 3200 mAh battery which dwarfs most of its competitors. Not only that, but its equipped with some decent battery saving technology like Stamina Mode, which really does make a difference.

That being said. If a massive battery and some decent software is available, usually the first question which pops in to my head is "can it survive a festival?".

Well, several years ago I ended up doing a battery test for the Xperia Arc, before the days of battery management (on any major scale anyway), wasteful screens and smaller batteries. Sadly the phone barely lasted a day and a half.

Now, several years on and many generations later, I shall be taking my state-of-the-art Xperia Z2 to Dour Festival, Belgium.

Now, the first thing I want to mention before we start is that I decided to cut usage down as much as I can, I want to push the phone to the absolute limits, but not refuse to use it completely, otherwise, whats the point, right? So many people at Dour the festival I saw were resorting to the old Nokia 3310's just so they had a phone which could last the festival and take some punishment. If the waterproof Gorilla Glass equipped Xperia Z2 can last most of the festival then I consider the nostalgia of Nokia's being the king of phones well and truly over. The festival was 4 days long and during a massive heat wave, this is the ultimate test for the modern smart phone.

We left the house at around 97% battery, we had checked the news, Facebook, Twitter and the Dour Festival app over breakfast, the Dour app tells us useful details about the site, artists and facilities. 

I used the Xperia Z2's Stamina mode to extend the battery life as much as I could for the long journey. As you can see we have a battery with 22 hours life which now is estimated at nearly 5 days. This includes low battery mode too which will have to be turned off when using certain things such as the internet and making calls but is a great feature to have while not using my phone. 

We started in the fine City of Ely in the UK. The battery was pretty much full. I stuck on stamina mode and turned off any wasteful features such as bluetooth, wifi and turned down screen brightness. We had several trains to catch from Ely to Cambridge, from Cambridge to London then London to Brussels Midi, then another to Dour itself. Lets be realistic here, we were going to use our phones quite a bit for the long journey ahead. We ended up using our phones to check Facebook, the news and keep the time, even after a 1 hour journey to London and a near 3 hour journey from London to Brussels my Xperia Z2 was still above 90%. 

When we got to Brussels midi we hung out with some kids outside the station who were kind enough to keep us entertained with their incredible accordion skills while we waited for our train. I recorded a videos of them with my Xperia Z2, one being in glorious 4k. Even after recording a few videos and showing the kids some pictures on my phone, the battery was still barely above 90%. I really was surprised how well it handles such processing power. 

By the time we got on the train towards Dour Festival from Brussels we didn't get a chance to use our phones much in a practical sense thanks to 3 Mobile being absolutely useless and forgetting to turn on my passport mode, despite calling them twice to remind them about it the day before, so I decided to listen to some of my terrible music on my headphones and get in the mood for the festival. 

Before doing so however, I decided to run a great app called "Battery Doctor" which closes down a lot of apps running in the background to stop unnecessary usage of my battery. Its a simple one click solution and added several HOURS of life.

It was 13:00 and I had used 16% of my battery, its quite a lot of battery considering how long I was hoping to get this phone to last for the festival.
Would 3200 mAh be enough?
I was quite confident as I was expecting to use a lot of my battery on the train there and back for entertainment purposes. I was very impressed it was only 16% really as I had even recorded some 4K video, listened to music and using social media, which is all quite notorious for sucking up battery.

Once we had finally made it to Dour we missioned across the festival and finally set up camp. I checked the Dour festival app again to see what bands were on! Several caught my eye so I decided to take a screen shot on the times and locations of the performances so I didnt need to keep opening the app which might prove wasteful on the battery. This was especially needed as my battery was nearly a third down at around 75% now, so I decided to turn my phone off for a while. It has served its purpose very well and kept me entertained none stop on the train for hours. I'd taken some great photos, shot some brilliant 4K videos and kept myself informed on travel information, the festival app and using social media.

There was no big acts or anything happening on the Thursday so we didnt use the phone much and kept it off until tomorrow.

Friday

The first night was a big night for me. Two of my favourite DJ's and a band I had been quite curious to see live were up. I love Atari Teenage Riot so much that I probably wasnt going to take any pictures or use my phone at all because I was going to be completely fixed on them and experience the show properly...but Igorrr and Within Temptation were two bands which I liked, but didnt quite like as obsessively as ATR, so I was probably going to take some video and snaps of them.

I checked the news, messages and social media this morning but otherwise kept my phone to minimal use. I kept it mostly off until the evening when the fun started. The weather was so hot, unforgiving, and with little shade or water available. So we spent the entire day sleeping and resting from the heavy night before just trying to stay cool. Very uneventful.

I did check the weather app several times in the hope it might change, but naturally it didnt.
Who was I kidding?

Me getting ready for ATR.

At the end of the night and after seeing numerous live acts and taking a few half decent pictures, the phone didnt go down much at all, we were lingering around 60-65%. I kept my phone off most of the night except for the gigs so I wasnt  expecting much drainage. Battery doctor kept unwanted apps closed and Low Battery Mode kept screen brighness and everything else off.

Atari Teenage Riot blew me away! Skindred were amazing, Within Temptation, meh!

Saturday

We found these Proximus stands which are used for people who arent equipped with Xperia Z2's and have to queue up like idiots to charge their phone every day.

You are given a few options.
You have the option of charging your phone by plugging them in to these free USB chargers too, which is a very slow process as you have to stand by your phone while it charges or risk someone stealing it...quite unappealing.
I also found that a lot of these USB's were damage or ripped off half way through the festival through vandalism so they werent much good anyway.
Free, but you get what you pay for I suppose.

 Slow charging and usually damaged or vandalised.

The other option was these hand held batteries equipped with a multi port to plug in to any make of phone.  I thought I would give it a try as this is a blog about mobile phones and the festival experience after all. The batteries came to about 1800mAh, which is just over half the battery size of the Z2, so should, in theory, charge around 50-60%.
 I forget the prices now but it was quite reasonable. It was done in a token scheme, so you give them 5 tokens and you get 4 back once (or if) you return the battery pack. It worked out very cheap, no more than £2 to charge your phone up, I think we would all agree is probably worth it!

I went back to my tent and stuck it on charge. I had some problems with charging because the charging ports on the battery had been used a lot and probably misused too, so I had to jiggle it about and balance it just right for it to charge.
Its a decent idea and a cheap feature but the battery was not really charging very fast, it was too slow. In fact if you were using your phone while it was plugged in then it wasnt going up at all.

I left my phone off for a while and let it charge, it took a very long time until it ran out. My phone never got back up beyond 80% as I was using it while charging. but even though the battery was over half the size of the Z2, it still only added about 30% (including 10% for usage while it was charging).

Its a cheap and underwhelming feature but hey, beggers cant be choosers at a festival, right?

Later on.

We couldnt help ourselves with the Augmented Reality, what can I say, I am a sucker for it. Its such fun!

Sadly Augmented Reality kills the battery though, so after taking a few snaps our battery was down to about 70-75% again. Luckily I had used the battery pack earlier in the day so I was feeling a little wasteful. That being said, if I hadn't used the battery pack I would be hovering around 50% right now.

A few pictures of Saturday night.


Sunset in Belgium.

 The stairs of doom

The Samsung tent.



We noticed some Samsung precence there at the festival. They offered free phone charging (in a safe locker) for Samsung costumers only, a washing machine service and a place to chill out and take in all their adverts.

Where is Sony at?

By the end of Saturday we had seen a few more bands, but nothing I was overly keen on so didnt take many pictures or even feel the need to use my phone other than use a bit of social media. My battery ended up on about 40%.

Sunday

This was a big day. My favourite rave scene "Bangface" (which is usually set in London) was taking over one of the tents on the last night. I woke up, psyched myself up on social media, took lots of pictures for my ridiculous costume and used my phone to play some of the music to get me in the mood. It killed my battery but it was the last night, so what?

By the time it was the evening my battery had taken a massive beating, even though I had turned it off for several hours, used Battery Doctor and switch on Low Battery Mode. The music and social media had been used a lot so it really sucked the battery down. I was hovering around 20% now, which is probably 0% now if you consider that I used a battery to recharge it Saturday (That being said, I was being a little wasteful with Augmented Reality earlier because of it).


Bangface was an all nighter so that 20% really had to last as the night as it ended at 7am. We planned on going straight from the rave back to our tent, picking our bags up and sleeping on the train home (painful). So once the night was over, that was the end of the festival for us really.

The phone lasted most of the night thanks to keeping usage low but gave up and failed at around 3-4am.

Personally I think the Xperia Z2 did a fantastic job over this festival, no phone I have ever owned has had this type of durability and yet still managed to offer me the same kind of reliable and varied experiences. The photos were top notch, as youd expect from an Xperia phone, the phone survived numerous splashes while being used in the crowds or from beer being sprayed over the place and most of all its battery lasted most of the festival.

I really cannot believe how well this phone has lasted. The options available to you thanks to the selection of Androids battery saving apps and Sony's Stamina/Low Battery Mode with a quite simply massive 3200 mAh battery means that this phone, if economized in the right way can nearly survive 4 days.

Eat it Nokia 3310!

Thanks for reading!

Goodtimes at Bangface - Dour Festival.

Background Defocus.

Background Defocus, for me, is a new feature on the Xperia Z2. I think this may be available on previous Xperia phones such as the Xperia Z1, but being an old Xperia SP owner I had to settle for using my skill and hard work to get a decent picture out of my phone. The general idea of Background Defocus is pretty self explanatory, it focuses on one object and blurs the background. The idea from Sony is to simplify photography for everyone and make it less challenging to get a decent and professional picture out of a smartphone camera.

As you can see from these two pictures below, the touch capture was my best friend before the days of Background Defocus. Some decent results were always possible on the Xperia SP if you were willing to wait for the camera to understand what you were trying to do by moving the camera lens closer and further numerous times to get the image to focus right. Though even when it did work the image was often slightly, well, unfocused. 

 The closest penguin always annoyed me in this picture, everything else is perfect!

Poor George looking good, but a little unfocused. 

That was the Xperia SP, several generations old now, and is only a mid ranged phone. This new high end edition of the Xperia range, the Xperia Z2, has a new weapon in our way against poor pictures, so lets see what it can do.

The Xperia Z2, like with everything else in its cocktail of new features, makes things just so easy now. Simply point your camera in Background Defocus mode, touch capture the image you want to focus on, then keep the camera as still as possible. The camera will take two shots, one of the focused image you selected and one of an out of focused background. The phone will then process the image and decide where to blur and where to focus, often with decent results. 

It will then show you the finished result and give you a choice of being able to blur more or less of the background and even chose from a selection of types of blur. 

Pretty simple stuff, right? Almost takes the fun and sport out of photography, right? Wrong! 

Though not necessarily in a good way.
You need to be very careful with this application as it is incredible temperamental. Anything moving, like an animal, person, moving object or even a tree or plant which gets slightly blown in the wind will end up making Background Defocus fail and you will have to try again. Background Defocus seems to take a lot of processing power (Even for Bionz) so it will then take another 5-6 seconds for it to load up and try again. This may not sound like a lot of time but when you are trying to capture a moment, it really is!

It is not impossible mind, this cat was moving a little bit while this picture was taken and the picture turned out ok. Though I personally felt like I had gotten lucky.

My 3 year old, famous for never keeping still, yet it still worked after much trying. So do not lose faith, but I do expect you to lose patients! 

A light touch of BD.

 BD working well with HDR through Snapseed.

 A lovely shot of BD on a statue. If you have an inanimate object then this is a dream feature to use.

Perfect shot.

Ely cathedral. 

Don't get me wrong though, Background Defocus is a great feature to use with photography, though it can be slightly infuriating at times being so temperamental. I think it still have a long way to go before it can be considered a complete replacement in photography as the artificial intelligence does not always put the blurring on the correct places, and the blurring will sometimes creep on to the image you want focused like a hazy mist. 

Sadly this is the best example I have since I often end up deleting the images which do not turn out right. You can see how the AI struggles to tell where the front and background image is, so it adds  defocus over lapping the central image you want focused. 

Conclusion:

I think Background Defocus is a prime example of how useful technology is getting now days. With apps like Snapseed, a cocktail of award winning hardware in the Xperia Z2 and decent features from Sony like Augmented Reality, HDR and Background Defocus crammed in to their latest phones, a decent picture can be taken by absolutely anyone. Give Background Defocus a year or two and this will really be a hot feature! 

Heck, it already is really, as I use Background Defocus more than most of the other photography features on the Z2's camera. 

Give it a try, you cant argue with results! 

The Classic Car Shoot.`

When you think photo shoot, you don't normally think smart phone.
Granted, you will never be able to match a DSLR cameras, but who says you cant do a decent photo shoot without spending hundreds of pounds extra on a camera? 

Smart phone technology now days, especially in the new Xperia line, such as the Xperia Z2 and Xperia Z1 Compact, have greatly improved. Both phones have had the pleasure of three bits of award winning Sony technology crammed in to each layer of their camera. The Bionz image processor, the Exmor RS senor (1/2.3") and a whopping 20.7 megapixels to play with. Not to mention a range of features which are only recently available to the smart phone cameras such as High Dynamic Range (HDR), Augmented Reality and 4K video recording. 

I had the pleasure of being introduced to my good friend Ella's classic car and pet project, the Ford Prefect 107e (1960). Once owned by her aunt in 1989, it spent 4 years on the road until it had gear box trouble so it went in to storage. In 2010 Ella found it and immediately wanted it. With the combined effort of herself and her granddad, they both managed to restore it to its former glory...it passed its MOT in June the 15th, 2012. 

 A background defocus shot taken of the bonnet with a HDR (nature) feature added through Snapseed.

I couldn't help but keep taking photos of her beautiful car every time I saw it, so we both decided to do a bit of a photo shoot so I could get my fix. We drove down to the beautiful village of Over in Cambridgeshire near the river where we could get some space and a nice surrounding to shoot. The weather was absolutely perfect, so we would have been foolish not to have taken advantage of this rare opportunity.

 The car is incredibly photogenic, as is Ella. The car looks great with a HDR filter. 

We added a nice vintage filter to this picture to give it that true 1960's feel. 

After a few pictures of the car in its surroundings I decided to open it up and have a look at the interior. The car has been excellently maintained and even has a few new modern touches which doesn't ruin the look or feel of the retro vehicle. 

 Ella's tribute to Ace Cafe, London. 

The original Ford Prefect key.

Steering wheel.

 Sprawled in comfort and style on red leather seats.

The leather interior in the Ford Prefect really made me realise how cheap and classless the interior of my Seat Leon is. 

(Non HDR)

The original photo from above, but before the HDR filter was added through Snapseed. Please let me know which one you prefer and why.

We decided to look around the outside of the car in more detail and see what give it its character. The car has so many decent characteristics and I am sure you will agree.

 A few minor imperfections still left to fix up.

Wing mirror selfie.

 A smile never seen anywhere other than in her Ford Prefect!

Ella has recently come back from Ace Cafe in London and absolutely fell in love with the place. She wanted to show her respect by wearing the jacket with her car.

Ella poses in her Ace Cafe jacket. 

Background defocus used with HDR. 

The new Background Defocus technology still has a few kinks to work out, often struggling with being able to tell which part of the photo it needs to focus on, and which part to defocus on. Its quite temperamental too, this photo taking many many attempts to even get this right.

We used another filter. This time we used the "sunrise" filter rather than "vintage" one, which worked equally well. It made the picture look almost like it was taken "back in the day".

We had some good fun today, posing with classic cars, taking pictures in the sun and relaxing near the river. I really enjoyed seeing what the Xperia Z2 was capable of. Camera phones clearly do have some way to go to catch up with professional cameras but at the same time they have come a very long way from even last year.

 I really enjoyed using the High Dynamic Range through Snapseed, which worked very well in most instances (Click here to see what it can do with landscapes). The "Background Defocus" mode was temperamental and took many attempts to get right, so you have to me patient, it usually ended up coming good and being worth it. There were a few issues with the background defocus struggling to understand when the background and foreground start and finish, but usually worked out ok. I look forward to seeing this technology being updated in the future. 

The "sunset" and "vintage" filters used today were from the Cymera app. Again, one of the advantages mobile phone apps have over transitional cameras as they have access to thousands of apps which have cool little features and tricks.

Thanks for reading.