Sony Xperia Z3 — Sony’s new Z3 and Z3 compact focus on battery life and PlayStation gaming to set them apart from the pack. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Sony bets on battery life and PlayStation for Xperia Z3 smartphones

This article is more than 9 years old

More efficient screen technology and PS4 Remote Play are Sony’s weapons against Samsung and Apple

Sony is pinning its hopes on the promise of two-day battery life and new PlayStation 4 Remote Play for its forthcoming Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact Android smartphones in its retail war with Apple, Samsung and HTC.

The new Z3, the followup to the six-month old Z2, and the Z3 Compact, which replaces the Z1 Compact released 12 months ago, both feature powerful quad-core processors and waterproof housings. But Sony’s focus for its latest smartphones has been battery life – which is consumers’ biggest problem with this class of device.

“The single thing that frustrates consumers the most is that their phone does not last all day,” Calum MacDougall, head of mobile marketing at Sony, told the Guardian. “We’ve really applied ourselves to try and solve that and we don’t believe the tradeoff of having a 2K screen against battery life is the right one.”

A “2K” screen has very high pixel density but can drain the battery – with no clear benefit, says MacDougall. “It’s very difficult to discern the difference between a 2K screen and a full HD screen, even up to 8in,” he said in reference to the new LG G3 and OnePlus One, which both have 5.5in screens with quad HD resolution, higher than the full HD 1080p screens used on flagship Sony, Samsung and HTC smartphones.

MacDougall says Sony concentrated on energy efficiency for its 5.2in screen, sticking with full HD resolution and reducing its power usage while boosting its brightness to 600 candela, making the Z3 the brightest smartphone available.

Xperia Z3 Compact — The Z3 Compact shrinks to a more manageable size, with a 4.6in screen but full specifications from the Z3 condensed into a smaller frame. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

The Z3 and Z3 Compact both sport 20.7-megapixel cameras with digital image stabilisation, hi-res audio support, digital noise cancellation and a waterproof exterior that can survive immersion in up to 1.5m of fresh water for 30 minutes.

Both also have a digital music engine called DSEE HX, which boosts the quality of compressed music.

“It’s an uprating engine that takes lower quality audio files, particularly in the high frequencies, and turns it into near hi-res audio,” said MacDougall explaining that DSEE HX analyses low quality music and boosts certain frequencies, adding back information that was lost during low-quality sampling and compression. The process works much like video upscaling from standard definition to high definition, which many DVD players perform for high definition TVs.

Sony Xperia Z3 Compact — The Z3 Compact ditches metal for plastic edges, but is similarly waterproof. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Sony has also built in PS4 Remote Play support – the same as the PS Vita – which allows gamers to connect a DualShock 4 controller to the phone and play games running on the PS4 across either a home Wi-Fi network or an internet connection outside the home.

Sony's Remote Play adapter — The smartphone or tablet connects to the PS4 via Wi-Fi and the controller via Bluetooth, but Sony has an optional accessory to mount the Z3 on the DualShock joypad with a suction cup. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Sony also introduced the Z3 Tablet Compact, an 8in tablet, to compete with the Samsung Tab S 8.4, Google Nexus 7 and Apple’s iPad mini. It has a full HD screen, eight-megapixel rear camera, is 6.4mm thick, weighs 269g and like the Z3 smartphones and Z2 tablet is waterproof.