Just changed my M8 for a Z2

[Kibbster]

I've posted this on the M8 forum but in case people on the Z2 forum don't venture out I thought I'd cross post here as well.
This week I traded in my M8 for a Z2, I always wanted a Z2 but they weren't on the shelves back in March and the M8 was.
I couldn't control myself and bought an M8
This week a Z2 came up at the right price so I jumped at the purchase.

I thought I'd give my quick impressions of the Z2 after a few hours of use this afternoon.

The Z2 feels better in my hand, it strangely "feels" lighter than the M8 even if it isn't.
It's certainly easier for me to hold being thinner with an edge that your palm can grip.

The screen isn't quite as bright as the M8 but extremely vibrant and doesn't suffer from 1080 on a 5.2 inch screen.
I can't see the lower pixel count with my eyes.

I hugely, much prefer the Sony UI to Sense, I never liked Blinkfeed and although the M8 UI was smooth and fairly uniform it was a little too utilitarian at times for me.
The Sony UI is smooth, nicely animated and has come great touches (Homescreen and app draw management for one.) it's feels more dainty and delicate than Sense and isn't much of a slouch either.

The Sony gallery is an app to fall in love with, using pinch to smoothly zoom in from tiny thumbnails of all your pictures down to the individual picture with all the images rearranging themselves on the fly in one smooth move is a joy to watch and use.
I want to kiss the engineers and designers that made the Sony gallery app!

The bad thing about the UI is the bloatware that pimps Sony's services, yes you can ignore it or hide the apps so you never have to afflict them on yourself but placing the Whats new app on the google now upswipe next to google now is dumb, annoying and someone at Sony should be beaten for it.
Other than that, I love the UI!

Sound, good but not a patch on Boomsound through the speakers!
The Z2 speakers are just about as loud as the M8 but lack the bass and punch of the Boomsound speakers.
In the Z2's defence though the speakers are not only waterproof but so small they are almost invisible and the top one manages to fit in the very top couple of mm of bezel and share the miniscule space with an awesome LED notification light that pulses across the top of the screen.
The sony speakers are a marvel of design considering the space they were given.

Yes the Sony LED is awesome compared to the M8 LED... well it wouldn't be hard to beat the M8 two colour pin ***** tbh!

The camera.
last but no means least, the big one.

Is 4mp on the M8 enough compared to the Z2 using 8MP superior auto?
Erm.. no, nowhere near.

Don't get me wrong I loved the M8 camera, I had to work it but being so unruly it taught me a lot about mobile photography and made me a better photographer.
The Z2 in Superior auto does the opposite.
It removes all manual control and says "You are a puny human with a puny human brain, i have a computer for a brain...shhh... let me deal with the photography"
And damn it, it's generally right!

No manual focus (EDIT: I've found it does have manual focus, it's just not as noticeable as the M8), no manual macro and no manual adjustments at all; just software algorithms making lots of calculations and getting it (mostly) right.
The 8MP images are full of detail even at 1:1 zoom, great colour reproduction (although reds are a bit over saturated but not unpleasantly so) and have pin sharp focus (usually, can't apply focus manually )
It's fast too, very fast... almost on a par with the M8 but still I think a tiny smidgen slower than the M8.
It does have a dedicated camera button... Yay!
I don't think I could ever use a phone without one now!

A couple of photo examples I took today.
View attachment 132968
Great colour reproduction, great detail IMHO.

View attachment 132969
HDR (auto)

View attachment 132973
Action shot, good shutter speed and focus.

View attachment 132970

View attachment 132971
Macro in daylight

View attachment 132972
Macro with flash in low light.

I loved the M8 but I don't regret changing one bit.
The Z2 is the perfect phone for me (as I suspected it would be) I just hope it proves as reliable as the M8.

 

[UJ95x]

Congrats on the new device (again)
Not sure why your pictures aren't displaying directly in the thread. Anyway...they look good

 

[Jer bear2011]

Sounds like a sweet phone I kinda want one

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[Kibbster]

Congrats on the new device (again)
Not sure why your pictures aren't displaying directly in the thread. Anyway...they look good

I copied and pasted most of the post from the other thread so must be something to do with that.

 

[UJ95x]

I copied and pasted most of the post from the other thread so must be something to do with that.

Hmm, OK. That would make sense lol

 

[anon(21022)]

I liked your comments about the cameras. This has been mt exact experience with the M7, just like you said it improved my skills and I took some quite nice shots. Then moved on to the ZL2 and just have to worry less about it, though the skills still help.

Not that I'm a master expert or anything.

That shutter is pretty useful too, used to have on on a Sharp phone years ago and I missed it.

 

[Kibbster]

I liked your comments about the cameras. This has been mt exact experience with the M7, just like you said it improved my skills and I took some quite nice shots. Then moved on to the ZL2 and just have to worry less about it, though the skills still help.

Not that I'm a master expert or anything.

That shutter is pretty useful too, used to have on on a Sharp phone years ago and I missed it.

The hardware camera button is brilliant and actually works 100% of the time unlike the M8 motion gesture to launch the camera.

Although, twice in two days I've launched the camera when the screen is off and locked and I had a phone screen with massive corruption, bright pink and blue lines.
Turning the screen off then on again fixed this on both occasions.

 

[Kibbster]

I've now stopped using the camera button to take pictures and use it just to launch the camera app.
I found that a lot of my pictures were often out of focus pressing the hardware button and I get sharper pictures using the on-screen button.

 

[PAC757]

Thank you for the nice write up, I sold my HTC M8 and have been debating over buying the Z2 for a while now, the only thing holding me back is, now that the Z2 has been out for a while, I keep seeing threads on here and other forums about the magnetic charging port breaking, and the flaps for the USB charging port breaking. Kind of worries me a little because after those 2, there is no other option to charge it.

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[robsawalker]

Thanks for the write up! Interesting, I got a Z2 after my HTC One M7 and think sense is an infinitely better UI than Sony's. I got rid of Sony's pretty quickly, and of the two I would say that Sony's UI is by far the more utilitarian. Still, it's just an opinion, there's no right or wrong.

Regarding the camera, there is no doubting the Sony can take some superb shots, but I have found the HTC s to be superior in a number of circumstances. I do a lot of walking in the countryside and woodlands, and I am also interested in ornithology and have used both phones for taking countryside photos. In low light or macro the Sony sometimes drives me mad, I just can't get a good photo with it. The HTC could bang out crisp pic after crisp pic.
In good light and careful planning the Sony is untouchable, particularly for landscapes. Of course, both are hopeless for bird photos generally, but until they invent a phone with a 400mm telephoto...!
The Z2 is a superb phone, great battery life, great sound with the headphones, water proof, great camera... the special camera button is a lovely touch too, as is the magnetic charger (incidentally, you can a cradle Amazon which works perfectly under a tenner).

I hope you enjoy it!

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[Kibbster]

Thanks for the write up! Interesting, I got a Z2 after my HTC One M7 and think sense is an infinitely better UI than Sony's. I got rid of Sony's pretty quickly, and of the two I would say that Sony's UI is by far the more utilitarian. Still, it's just an opinion, there's no right or wrong.

Regarding the camera, there is no doubting the Sony can take some superb shots, but I have found the HTC s to be superior in a number of circumstances. I do a lot of walking in the countryside and woodlands, and I am also interested in ornithology and have used both phones for taking countryside photos. In low light or macro the Sony sometimes drives me mad, I just can't get a good photo with it. The HTC could bang out crisp pic after crisp pic.
In good light and careful planning the Sony is untouchable, particularly for landscapes. Of course, both are hopeless for bird photos generally, but until they invent a phone with a 400mm telephoto...!
The Z2 is a superb phone, great battery life, great sound with the headphones, water proof, great camera... the special camera button is a lovely touch too, as is the magnetic charger (incidentally, you can a cradle Amazon which works perfectly under a tenner).

I hope you enjoy it!

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I've got to agree about the camera after spending time with it.
Some say that in low light the Z2 is excellent but I'm struggling with low light and focus.
The M8 would bang out pin sharp photo after photo, instantly one in quick succession.
The main problem I had with the M8 was exposure, I could compensate for it to a degree with spot metering but there's no doubt exposure is the M8's Achilles heel.
The M8 did take lovely pictures when the winds were in the right direction and the planets aligned, I took some pictures I'm very proud of with the M8 and after a few months I had a fairly symbiotic relationship with the camera - I knew what it would and wouldn't do.

The Z2 is more of a traditional smartphone camera in that it needs light and the more the better, better focus, better colours.
Too much light was the enemy of the M8 camera along with distance detail (M8 macro is exceptional though!)

I'm learning all over again and can see my pictures improving even over the past few days.

I do miss the speed and snappiness of the M8 and it's camera, the Sony is noticeably slower even if IMHO the end results are better - the improved exposure and detail makes it worth it for me.

I still have occasional problems with focus on the Sony, which was rare on the M8 - it's not as obvious on the phone when it's in focus as the M8.

Having said all that, the results often speak for themselves.

I think the M8 would have struggled on detail with this shot and would have over exposed the sky.


Even with the bright sky in this shot the detail and colour saturation as well as contrast was fantastic IMHO.

The M8 was superb for Portraits and Macro but anything that required detail beyond a certain distance there just aren't enough MP.
Also I had so many problems with the exposure on the M8, it wasn't even funny.

But both cameras when they get it right, they get it very right as long as you play to the strengths of each.

 

[Kibbster]

A new bonus I've just found.

Real Racing 3 runs better on the Z2 than the M8.

For some reason the M8 would have an occasional stutter when approaching the odd corner in every race, it was enough to throw me off and mess up my rhythm.
But the Z2 has so far been silky smooth on every race.
I can only guess it's the extra GB of RAM in the Z2 coming into play here.

Also the M8 often wouldn't register tapping on the corners of the screen to navigate through the game menus, that seems to be fine on the Z2.

All good

 

[storvay]

I've got to agree about the camera after spending time with it.
Some say that in low light the Z2 is excellent but I'm struggling with low light and focus.
The M8 would bang out pin sharp photo after photo, instantly one in quick succession.
The main problem I had with the M8 was exposure, I could compensate for it to a degree with spot metering but there's no doubt exposure is the M8's Achilles heel.
The M8 did take lovely pictures when the winds were in the right direction and the planets aligned, I took some pictures I'm very proud of with the M8 and after a few months I had a fairly symbiotic relationship with the camera - I knew what it would and wouldn't do.

The Z2 is more of a traditional smartphone camera in that it needs light and the more the better, better focus, better colours.
Too much light was the enemy of the M8 camera along with distance detail (M8 macro is exceptional though!)

I'm learning all over again and can see my pictures improving even over the past few days.

I do miss the speed and snappiness of the M8 and it's camera, the Sony is noticeably slower even if IMHO the end results are better - the improved exposure and detail makes it worth it for me.

I still have occasional problems with focus on the Sony, which was rare on the M8 - it's not as obvious on the phone when it's in focus as the M8.

Having said all that, the results often speak for themselves.
View attachment 133591
I think the M8 would have struggled on detail with this shot and would have over exposed the sky.

View attachment 133592
Even with the bright sky in this shot the detail and colour saturation as well as contrast was fantastic IMHO.

The M8 was superb for Portraits and Macro but anything that required detail beyond a certain distance there just aren't enough MP.
Also I had so many problems with the exposure on the M8, it wasn't even funny.

But both cameras when they get it right, they get it very right as long as you play to the strengths of each.

Great posts, thank you.

I too am finding the z2 camera a bit pernickety and struggle to get consistently good shots with it. I've already found, as you have, that the hardware camera button isn't as reliable for some reason. Do you have any basic hints on how you are working around the limitations?

Sent from my Xperia Z2 using Tapatalk

 

[Kibbster]

Generally, like with the previous generations of smartphone cameras I've found the more light the better.
I find problems with noise and focus in lower light but in bright sunlight the camera takes excellent pictures, but then I guess most smartphone cameras do.

I've found the lower light performance can't match the M8, maybe my hands are too shaky and need the faster focus time of the M8
I have started to try using manual again because it seems to do a better job in low light but it's a shame that it doesn't remember your last setting when you close and reopen the camera and it always defaults to SA.

The camera can take superb pics, whether I get them or not is another thing. I need to keep practising

 

[Kibbster]

Cropped Macro shot.
I'm going to name him Dave

 

[Kris Simundson]

Man this just makes me want the Z2 even more now, I'm on the m8 as well. Although I wouldn't mind waiting for the Z3 just for remote play support. Love playing Destiny from my Vita, so from a phone would be even better.

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