About a year ago Shorty broke news to me that Sony was going to make her an ambassador for the Sony Xperia range of smartphones. She was excited about it but I brushed it off.
“You’re an iPhone fan… you’ll never get used to an Android. I give you two weeks max”.
Like all other challenges she said “Challenge accepted”. In the first week she kept coming to me and asking me how to do certain things on the Sony. I snickered to myself knowing that it would probably be another week before she gave up. I wondered what she would tell Sony then.
That giving up moment never came. In fact beyond the 2nd week the opposite happened. She had gotten used to the Android OS and she started loving her Sony Xperia so much that she actually won a free iPhone 5S in a lucky draw once and she gave it away to her mom. When I asked her why she just gave away what was regarded as one of the best smartphones in the world at the time, she said it wasn’t a Sony.
Not only that, I saw her proudly advocating it to her friends and even to my very own sister who ended up buying a Z2.
On my own side of things, I started having troubles with my iPhone and it didn’t help that iOS 8 wasn’t the most reliable of updates. My camera hanged every now and then, occasionally when I unlocked my iPhone with my finger print sensor it would restart the entire phone.
And worse.. iOS 8 has this annoying bug where I get a notification bar that pops up from the top when I get a message and I can’t seem to close it like I used to be able to.
It was about this time that Sony approached me to see if I was interested to work with them to review and advocate their phones if I liked it. I’ve been using the new Sony Xperia Z3 now for a few days now and I learned:
1) Android has progressed significantly in the past 3 years
My first Android experience was 3 years ago. For a few months I switched over to an Android only to switch back to my iPhone for work reasons (one of my companies develops mobile apps and I’m one of the testers for the iPhone version). Android then was very much like the Android we see today but a little bit choppier and slower.
On my Sony Xperia Z3 though it’s totally smooth. I’m not sure if this is because there were improvements in the Android OS or if because the hardware in my Sony Xperia Z3 is better than the phone I had 3 years ago (or both) but it was smooth. I had no bugs and no problems whatsoever.
2) Android is very intuitive
The new updates of iOS has taken a cue from Android in many things like when it comes to automatically updating apps when updates come out or to notification tabs that allow you to turn on or off wifi quickly and other settings.
But there’s more.
When I plugin my Sony Xperia every night before I sleep, it automatically sets my alarm for me for the next morning and silences my phone for me. The keyboard on my Sony Xperia Z3 too is a lot more intuitive and the autocorrect to me is personally more accurate than my iPhone.
When I want to call someone over Skype, I don’t have to open the Skype app and then look for his or her contact within the app. I just go to my contacts and click call and it’ll ask me if I wanted to call that person via Skype or a regular phone call. Same thing for messaging.
3) The Battery Life
Life as an iPhone user is one of constant insecurities when it comes to battery life. Everywhere I go I constantly look out for opportunities to charge my phone and top up my battery. I invest in having charging cables in my car, on my desktop in office and of course at home (Apple doesn’t exactly make these cables cheap). I also carry a power bank with me when I travel. On average I charge my iPhone 5S 2-3 times a day.
Guess how often I charge my Sony Xperia Z3 every day now?
Once.
I feel like the quality of my life has just increased just for having a battery that lasts ONE day. I don’t have to carry a power bank with me and drag along that messy USB cable. I don’t have to keep searching for a place to charge my phone and I don’t have to stock up on car chargers in every car I have.
4) The Camera
Tech blogs all over the world rave about how great the iPhone camera is and how it’s the best smartphone camera in the world because of a good combination of its hardware specs and oh software too.
I disagree with this. The iPhone camera is definitely one of the better smartphone cameras out there and does a really good job in a well-lit environment. But in a less well-lit environment, I’ve found the Sony to be much superior to the iPhone. I’m not going to go into the specs of how many megapixels a Sony has vs an iPhone (20.7 vs 8 if you’re really interested to know) because most of us don’t care about specs.
The day has passed where we cared about what processor a phone has and how much RAM. All we care about is the results it gives us. Does the Sony take a better picture? For that I have to say in my experience… yes.
Take for example just a couple of weeks ago. I was at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award cocktail and we wanted to take a picture.
Janice who was using an iPhone 5 (or 5S) at the time took a picture of us and this was what we got.
Then I asked Shorty to take a picture with her Sony Xperia Z2, and this is the picture we got.
Both taken by the same (amateur) photographer, in the same lighting and environment, just minutes away from each other.
To counter my occasionally out of focus iPhone photos in dark environments, I find myself having this habit of taking 2-3 photos of the same thing in case any of them come out a little blur. I now just take ONE picture. One GOOD picture.
5) Waterproof
I never thought I needed a waterproof phone. I mean why would I need one unless I was going to intentionally go underwater and take a picture there. Sounds cool and all but it’s not something I’m going to be doing every day.
Then one day while cycling I had my phone in my back pocket and it started raining and I realized then that I wished my phone was waterproof. To counter that I end up carrying this plastic bag and wrap my phone in it but I’ve got other things to carry too so that wrapping ends up taking up a lot of space on my back pocket.
Now I don’t have to care anymore. I just carry my Sony Xperia in my back pocket. If it rains, or pours or even if I get hit by Tsunami … well I’ll probably die then but my Sony would still be able to make calls and take pictures.
I also don’t care anymore if Fighter tips over a glass of water and spills it over my phone or if I drop my phone into the bath tub while giving him a bath.
In conclusion
Here’s the thing. It’s not that I think the iPhone sucks. Heck I’m still going to have to keep my old one around for testing mobile apps at least and I think it’s a good phone.
What I do think is that many of us long-time iPhone users have this mental block about changing OS and to me changing to an Android has been a rewarding experience. Of course I can’t speak for every Android phone out there are good Android phones and there are bad Android phones.
I’ve only been using the Sony Xperia Z3 and to me the Sony Xperia Z3 is a great phone!
If you’re thinking of upgrading your phone… I would highly recommend a Sony Xperia Z3. I love it! I love it so much that I’m probably not giving this review unit back to Sony like I’m supposed to. I’m gonna elope with it! GOODBYE!!!
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space