Software: Killer For All The Wrong Reasons

One of the most disappointing aspects about the Sony Xperia Z Ultra is the software. The telephone runs a lightly skinned version of Android iv.2 out of the box, although information technology fails to bring all the necessary large screen optimizations to a device that desperately needs them.

With a 6.4-inch display in your hands, you lot want to be seeing more than information that what you would become with a v-inch, or 4.three-inch phone. The extra screen real estate allows more text, more images and more data to be seen at a glance, in a similar style to a ten-inch tablet is better for productivity than a seven-inch tablet. Equally the Z Ultra falls in between high-end phones and small tablets in terms of screen existent manor, ideally you'd be wanting data density somewhere in between those 2 types of devices.

In some aspects, Sony has provided these optimizations, for example, instead of your regular homescreen layout of a 4x4 grid, the Z Ultra features a 6x6 gird, as well as six icons in the dock. This basically removed the necessity for me to utilise any more than one homescreen. Combined with a few lockscreen widgets, such equally for emails and my agenda, I was able to run into more data than I would on a phone like the HTC I.

The browser is another example of an application that is suited well to the big display.

Sony decided to bundle Chrome with the Ultra, rather than perfecting their own software, and information technology works well. Through gestures you can chop-chop swipe between tabs, and by rotating the phone I was often able to switch from a responsive mobile layout, to a full 1080p-optimized desktop layout. Thanks to the higher data density, I actually used the browser more often than I would have on a smaller device.

Sony's Walkman music actor app is a slice of well-optimized software that should besides be highlighted. The home pane of this app features a section of squares that select unlike subsections of your music, such every bit songs and artists, at the height, while the bottom has the list of whatsoever you've chosen. This layout makes managing and selecting music very like shooting fish in a barrel, especially when you lot have a large collection. The app also contains a number of useful options, such as a quick push for finding artist info and music videos, which can come in handy.

So far so skilful, only other than those substantially every other app included with the Z Ultra is simply a scaled up version of the very same application I saw on the Xperia Z.

In most cases, Sony has made piddling to no endeavour at modifying these apps to make amend employ of the larger display, relying largely on UI scaling, rather than introducing elements that might be handy, but would otherwise not fit on the Xperia Z's 5-inch screen.

This leads to many apps being just a huge list, such as the contacts app. In this app, there are quick shortcuts to message or phone call contacts, or large contact pictures, or more data about the contact. Instead it's a long list of contact names, and clicking on any one of the contacts gives you another large list of information.

Y'all see this once more with the Calendar app: at the meridian is a standard grid calendar, but the data density is low. Sure y'all have an agenda below it, which you can resize, simply at a glance it'southward difficult to tell what you accept on each day in the month, despite having enough screen real estate to show this. The notification pane is a similar story of low-density information on a large display, and it's really disappointing to see.

Unlike nearly smartphones in the v-inch or less category, the Xperia Z Ultra basically requires you to set the font size to large (it is by default). Similar with get-go-party apps and a lack of large-screen optimizations, it's font bug and strange scaling that kills third-party apps. A number of my favorite apps, such as 1 for the Australian Football game League, characteristic fonts so large that information technology wouldn't trouble the elderly, while others are pocket-size windows on a massive brandish, or feature cleaved elements.

All the same, to be fair, a majority of third-party apps merely act like large smartphone apps or small-screen tablet apps, which is to exist expected. Well-nigh of the time this is exactly what yous want, like with the Twitter, Gmail and Feedly apps, and I wasn't really expecting whatever specific phablet modes in Play Shop apps.

Another aspect of the software that's disappointing is the lack of a skilful showtime-party note-taking app. S Note is a fantastic Samsung-made inclusion on the Galaxy Notation, and Sony's 'Notes' app is simply not up to scratch. Essentially, information technology's just a basic text input application, including some simple formatting options and the ability to take vocalism notes. Nothing special, and nothing that makes me want to employ information technology over a tertiary-political party culling such as Evernote.

Alongside the Notes app is a separate drawing application chosen 'Sketch', which once again is a basic cartoon app with unlike pen types, support for embedding images, and a few cool stamps. Why Sony didn't merge the Notes and Sketch apps together is beyond me, considering the ability to take notes with the keyboard and then annotate them with a stylus is critical to productive annotation-taking. The phone even comes with a specific characteristic allowing y'all to employ a pencil every bit a stylus for annotation, yet the note-taking app doesn't permit you to do this.

Like with a number of stylus-supporting smartphones, the Xperia Z Ultra has handwriting recognition. Information technology'southward non faster, and information technology's not more accurate than using the keyboard, so like every other telephone that has it, in that location is still no reason to use it. Enough said.

The final feature I'd like to mention is Sony's multi-tasking windows, which put a small version of some apps in a resizable window that you tin move effectually the brandish. Attainable from the Recent Apps menu, the windowed versions of apps such equally the browser, calculator and Notes can be handy, only I didn't find myself using them all that ofttimes. Frequently information technology was just easier, or it made more sense to switch betwixt full versions of apps using the task switcher, and the express selection of windowed apps didn't really fit with my general phone usage.

At the end of the day, Sony's implementation of software on the Xperia Z Ultra is poor. Apps and the interface aren't optimized for the six.4-inch display, and the lack of a strong note-taking app on a telephone built (in office) for notation-taking is extremely disappointing. Sony's skin may be visually highly-seasoned in some respects, but it's the lack of features that really lets the software down.