Samsung Galaxy S4 vs Sony Xperia Z

Introduction

There are a lot of Sony fans out there, and all of them are ready to swear by the awesomeness of the Xperia Z. However, are those numerous fans supporting Sony because they believe in the Xperia Z, or simply because the Sony brand strikes a chord with them? We guess it's both, but here's what – we here at PhoneArena respect Sony, just as much as we respect Samsung. We'll put both of their latest flagship smartphones, the Xperia Z and Galaxy S4 , to test and see which one's going to finish with a higher score!

Design

Between the two, the Sony Xperia Z is the more striking smartphone in terms of visuals. Its rectangular shape gives it a strict and stylish appearance that comes to show that this phone isn't joking. At the same time, though, the rectangular shape actually makes the phone rather bulky and difficult to hold. In addition, the sharp edges framing the front and back sides of the body also contribute to the unpleasant feeling when holding the phone. That said, we do appreciate the glass exterior of the Xperia Z, which is much more ambitious than the plastic casing of the Samsung Galaxy S4.


Plastic or not, though, the Galaxy S4 is a champion among similarly sized phones, when it comes to comfort when using the phone. Being equipped with a similarly large display, the Galaxy S4 feels much smaller and lighter than the Xperia Z, which is a great achievement on Samsung's part. Of course, it'd be up to every customer to decide for themselves, but we prefer the compact and comfortable design of the Samsung Galaxy S4, regardless of its plastic exterior. It's just that the Xperia Z is cool, but not cool enough to make us willing to make a compromise with its bulkiness.


Display

Nowadays, it's just not cool if you're a smartphone and you don't have a 5” display with full HD resolution. And while both of these phones have this feature, we tend to prefer the screen of the Galaxy S4 over the one of the Xperia Z. In our opinion, the Super AMOLED panel of the GS4 is superior thanks to its higher contrast, more vibrant colors and much better viewing angles. The LCD screen of the Xperia Z just isn't lively enough to make us want to keep staring at it.

Resolution-wise, everything is top-notch, even with the Galaxy S4's PenTile matrix. With such high pixel densities, both displays look extremely sharp and detailed.











Interface and Functionality

Coming straight with Android 4.2.2, the Galaxy S4 has an advantage over the 4.1-powered Xperia Z. Not that Sony will not update its handset past this version, but we can't be sure when this would happen. Meanwhile, Samsung has been doing a pretty decent job with the software updates even for its older phones, so we guess the Galaxy S4 will be very well supported.



There's an even greater difference when we compare the GS4's and Xperia Z's custom user interfaces. We generally like both, but if we have to choose only one of them, it would be Samsung's TouchWiz Nature UX, as it's very responsive and features a ton of custom goodies. Not that Sony's UI is bad – it actually has some pretty cool touches, but seems to be a bit more shallow compared to the feature-packed Samsung UI.

Processor and Memory

In this category, the Samsung Galaxy S4 has the benefit of sporting a newer processor – the Snapdragon 600. The Xperia Z is left running the last-gen Snapdragon S4 Pro, which doesn't mean that it's underpowered. The S4 Pro is still a very capable chipset that will deliver superb performance in games and other applications. If you notice some lag in the menus of the Xperia Z, it's due to the lack of optimization and not the hardware.

Both smartphones are armed to the teeth with 2GB of RAM, but it's a different story when it comes to internal storage. The Galaxy S4 is much more versatile in this respect, as it comes in 16, 32 and 64GB versions, each sporting a microSD card slot. The Sony Xperia Z is also equipped with a microSD card slot, but is only available with 16GB of built-in memory.



Camera

As you might expect, both the Galaxy S4 and the Xperia Z are quite capable in the camera department. It's once again the GS4, though, that takes the cake as the more versatile handset, thanks to the multitude of shooting modes and other features that wait to be experimented with.



What's of bigger importance, however, is the quality of the photos and video that the phones can record. As a whole, we find the Galaxy S4's 13MP camera to be slightly better than the Xperia Z's 13MP camera. The images coming from the GS4 are sharper, without having more noise at the same time. Aside from that, exposure and color reproduction tend to be quite similar on both.

Moving indoors, the Galaxy S4 increases its lead even further by delivering more natural colors, with better clarity and smaller amount of noise. The Xperia Z's shots aren't too bad as well, but colors get strangely altered and overall pretty much every aspect of its photos is inferior to what's coming out of the GS4.


1080p recording is another area where the Galaxy S4 shows its superiority. While both phones deliver some pretty impressive footage, the one from the Xperia Z is a bit smoother lacks some of the finer details visible in the SGS4's clips.







Multimedia

As we said earlier, both devices have 5” displays, which is great, but the Super AMOLED of the Galaxy S4 is better suited for video playback, as it has a higher contrast and more saturated colors. In addition, viewing angles are also better on Samsung's flagship.



Call quality

Neither the Galaxy S4, nor the Xperia Z are exceptionally good as far as call quality goes. The Z's earpiece tends to sound a tad better than the one of the S4, but not drastically. Conversely, the microphone of the Xperia Z is even worse than the one of the Galaxy S4. As Elton John once sang, “it's a sad, sad situation”... to see these powerhouses fail miserably in the call quality test. Actually, the Galaxy S4 works OK, it shouldn't give you much trouble, but it's just downright unimpressive.



Conclusion

There's no doubt that the Sony Xperia Z is one very capable smartphone. It has a pretty cool appearance and can easily execute whatever task you want. Still, the Samsung Galaxy S4 seems to be the more appealing handset overall. Its design may not be anything to write home about, but it's compact and comfortable to hold, despite the presence of an equally large 5” screen. When it comes to features, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is once again the better-equipped handset thanks to the multitude of user experience enhancements delivered by the latest TouchWiz Nature interface.

Sony has definitely created one powerful device with the Xperia Z, but they'll have to do even better than that if they want to be a real challenge for the best in the industry. Improving their designs from practical standpoint and enhancing their user experiences would be great places to start from.

Samsung Galaxy S4 vs Sony Xperia Z: