Sony Xperia Z3 Review

Sony was shipping a new flagship every six months in 2014, and the Z3, the third in twelve months, was the one where the formula finally settled. It kept the glass front and back and the rounded aluminium frame, trimmed the body to 7.3 mm and 152 g, and kept the IP65 and IP68 rating that let you rinse it under a tap, as long as the port flaps were closed. The Snapdragon 801 at 2.5 GHz with 3 GB of RAM was the same chip as the Galaxy S5 and the HTC One M8, and Sony's light skin let it run cool and smooth.

What set the Z3 apart was endurance: a 3100 mAh battery behind a 5.2-inch 1080p screen, with Stamina mode, gave two days for most people and topped the endurance tables of the year. The 20.7 MP Exmor RS sensor behind a 25mm G Lens took very good daylight photos, though its Superior Auto mode quietly shot at 8 MP and its processing smeared fine detail at night. PS4 Remote Play arrived that October and made it the only phone that could stream your console to the sofa.

Android 4.4.4 KitKat was followed by Lollipop in spring 2015 and Marshmallow in 2016, a proper run for the time. In the US it was a T-Mobile phone at 630 dollars outright, with a Verizon variant called the Z3v. Sony later settled a US class action over how the water resistance had been advertised, which is worth knowing before you dunk one.