Awesome Phone with Some Drawbacks. Review on Sony Xperia ZR

Decision:

Looking at alternative phones and after a lot of research and comparison, I finally decided to get an Xperia ZR for myself.

Earlier I was owning Xperia Play.

Purchase:

I made an order on Flipkart for phone as well as a screen guard. Flipkart took almost a week to deliver the device.

Review:

Now its been more than a month since I've been using Xperia ZR, and its time to share my review with others, hoping it helps them make a decision.

Overview:

Xperia ZR has been an awesome device. here I'm reviewing the features which I more frequently use.

1) Performance:

I'm an avid gamer and playing processor intensive games is seamless on this device. I played Asphalt 8 and the graphics are very good and smooth. Touch response and screen resolution are very good, with vibrant colours.

2) Multi-tasking:

Switching between tasks is seamless. While playing Asphalt 8, I could instantly jump to "home" screen, send a quick message and jump back to the game, without any delay/lag. This is especially useful when for eg, I need to keep reading from an email and keep typing details in a browser.

3) GPS/GLONASS

Navigation/positioning system is very impressive. With my older phone(Xperia Play), it used to take anywhere between 2 to 10 minutes, to lock onto GPS and provide accurate positioning, and in some cases, it would fail as well. With Xperia ZR, not even once have I faced this problem. Even in remote areas where GPS in my friends phones stopped working, my phone GPS would continue to guide accurately. Particularly useful for people who dont want to get lost:)

4) Camera:

The camera is good, however not the best. Not in all but in many cases, after capturing a photo, I have to use another app(like Aviary) to brighten up the picture. Final picture however, comes out to be very good.

5) Waterproof:

This was the deciding feature to buy this phone. I could wash my phone under running water/tap, sink it in water and nothing happens:)

Cons:

Now starts the not-so-good part of the phone.

1) Battery:

I'm not a heavy user of phone. Battery performance of Xperia ZR is very poor, even though I've enabled Stamina/power-saving mode, location based wifi (to save power), low battery mode etc, I still have to charge the phone at least once a day, to keep the battery above 50%. It is disappointing to have such a good phone with such poor battery performance.

2) Heating Problems:

Moderate gaming or running wifi and the phone gets heated up quickly. The best part is, when the phone gets heated up, I dip it in water :)

3) Front camera and loudspeaker:

For phone at such a price, front camera should have been better. Images of front camera are grainy. During calls, switching to loudspeaker doesn't provide enough sound. You still have to keep the phone close to you, even on loud speaker(though I've enabled all volumes to max and enabled XLoud).

4) WARNING.WARNING:

This device comes with 4.5 GB of internal usable memory and you cannot install apps in external memory card.! You have to install all your apps in internal memory only(unless you root the device and do some hacks :)

So beware of this limitation.

All in all, a good device.

Buy it if you are a multi-tasking on phone, navigating in remote areas:) or even snorkelling, and have a USB charger handy. And if you like my review, buy me a coffee :)