The Xperia Z1S is the first phone in years that Sony is releasing the U.S. in partnership with a U.S. carrier, T-Mobile. The 5-inch phone has good specs -- and it's even waterproof -- but it has a couple of nagging flaws, particularly the camera.
The Xperia Z1S is a superior waterproof phone than the previous Z1, since it has a dedicated camera shutter, allowing underwater photography. The spec is also upgraded to IP58, which allows for submersion in water up to five feet deep for up to 30 minutes.
The 5-inch screen on the Xperia Z1S is nice and bright, but contrast suffers when viewing off-angle.
The Xperia Z1S protects against water and dust with protective flaps on every port. If they're open when you wake up the phone, it'll warn you.
The power button is about halfway down the right side.
The mono speaker on the bottom of the device sounds tinny, but that's not uncommon in smartphones.
The top of the device has the headphone jack -- the only port that doesn't need a flap.
...Well, almost.
That's the best way to describe the new Sony Xperia Z1S smartphone, now available from T-Mobile for no money down and $22 a month for two years.
Even if the Z1S is a near miss, it's still big news — this is the first U.S. carrier-specific Sony-branded smartphone since the company bought out its former partner, Ericsson, two years ago. (In the phone's proper name, the "S" is a superscript, like in a degree symbol or numerical power indicator, and indicates the phone is the U.S. version of Sony's Z1 phone unveiled in Europe last fall).
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The waterproof Z1S is packed with an impressive array of technology: a 5-inch 1,920 x 1,080 screen with a pixel density of 441 pixels per inch (ppi), a 20.7-megapixel rear camera and a Qualcomm quad-core 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, all wrapped in an elegant piano-black package. Did we mention it's waterproof?
It's a beautiful, high-powered device, but a bit late to the 5-inch fray (which has become the "new normal" among Android flagships) and marred by a couple of functional "oops" that make it hard to recommend over similarly sized competitors, especially since the Samsung Galaxy S5 will be coming in a month or so.
The Z1S looks nothing like the iPhone 5S, the Samsung Galaxy S4, the HTC One or the LG G2. At 5.67 x 2.91 x 0.33 inches and 6 ounces, however, the Z1S is lightly larger and heftier than other 5-inch-screened super-phones (by comparison, the 5-inch waterproof Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is 5.5 x 2.81 x 0.36 inches and 5.04 ounces).
Aesthetically, the Z1S is stygian black on both sides, ringed by a silver-colored band. While its design is sleekly distinct, the two black, mirrored sides are nearly identical; when pulling it from your pocket, you may be momentarily confused as to which side is the front.
For a waterproof phone, the Z1S has lot of ports and jacks — microSD and SIM card slots and a microUSB jack — each covered by a flap. By comparison, the waterproof Samsung Galaxy S4 Active only has a cover on its microUSB port.

Image: Mashable, Stewart Wolpin

If any of the jack flaps are ajar when you awaken the phone, you get a friendly and helpful reminder to "[p]lease close the external connector covers to secure waterproofing."
Smartly, Sony has moved the round on/off button to the center of the right perimeter. You can now awaken the phone as you pick it up or, if you're already holding it, awaken it while keeping the Z1S evenly balanced in your hand.
Similarly, the volume toggle is located just below the on/off switch, where you'd naturally be holding the Z1S during a call.
On the left side are two mysterious prong terminals, which I assume are meant to pair with Sony's Smart Imaging Stand.
Equipped with a quad-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, the Z1S is snappy and responsive. Out of the box the Z1S runs Android 4.2 "Jelly Bean" and will, at some point, be upgradable to version 4.4 "KitKat." Storage is 16GB, expandable via the microSD card slot.
The full HD display of the Z1S is excellent at standing out in direct sunlight. But I found the contrast for text while web browsing a little light, especially when off-angle, compared to other large-screen phones.
As noted, the Z1S is equipped with a 20.7MP rear camera, the second-highest available in a smartphone from a major U.S. carrier (the Nokia Lumia 1020 features a 41MP imager), but its front imager is a more normal 2MP.
While outdoor photos are unsurprisingly crisp and colorful, indoor photos are infused with an annoyingly odd pea-green tint, especially notable on surfaces that are supposed to be white. Indoor photos also are infused with more grain than I expected from such a high-resolution camera, but no more so than any other smartphone camera. This grain may be the result of the phone's pedestrian LED flash, rather than a Xenon light. (You can check out some samples in the gallery below.)
To cut down on hand movement blur and jitter while shooting video, you get a digital version of Sony's SteadyShot stabilization. While videos are noticeably smoother, on closer examination you'll also notice a slight jitteriness — that's the digital stabilization at work. When I posted the sample video I shot (below), YouTube asked me if I wanted to smooth out the jitter (I didn't).

Within the footage, bright primary and pastel colors jump out, but flatter colors seem to blend together with the same greenish tint found in still photos.
Sony's IP58 waterproofing is slightly different from the Samsung GS4 Active's IP67 rating (here's what the IP ratings mean). The Z1S is waterproof only in fresh water, not salt, which eliminates it from ocean and most scuba diving photography.
Like all waterproof smartphones, the touchscreen becomes inoperative when immersed, which means no touch shutter release or pinch/zoom. Unlike the Samsung Active, the Z1S includes a dedicated physical camera shutter that also activates the shooter from the lock screen.
Oddly, after around 20 seconds, the camera automatically closes and the Z1S reverts to its last open app. If you're doing some underwater photography, having to constantly shift back to camera mode can be a bit annoying.
The Z1S has a mono speaker on the bottom perimeter. As a result, sound is tinny and thin for video and music, even when you cup the speaker with your palm, although adequate for speakerphone conversations, but with volume discernible only in a quiet environment.
Through the earpiece, conversation is crisp and clean with plenty of volume.
Here you can see hints of the green tint that the Xperia Z1S unfortunately introduces to indoor photos.
Like most cameras, the Xperia Z1S takes excellent shots in bright sunlight.
Colors pop in photos from the Z1S, although there's that pea-green tint again.
This shot of a bookshelf shows off the level of detail the Z1S is capable of capturing.
The Z1S has a capacious 3000-milliamp-hour (mAh) power cell is rated at 13 hours of talk time over 4G, but you get four power-saving modes to extend its life, any of which can be switched on and off:
Stamina, which disables background data downloading when the screen is off
Low Battery, which disables specified functions to preserve diminishing power levels
Wi-Fi-Assisted Location, which automatically activates Wi-Fi when in range of a hot spot for location purposes
Queue Background Data, which transmits background data at set intervals
More practically, I had minimal trouble getting through a busy 12-hour day of web surfing, email reading, photo taking, video viewing, texting and chatting.
Sony's waterproof Z1S looks different than any other 5-inch smartphone; it's equipped with a snappy Qualcomm quad-core chip and a rear camera with the second-highest resolution on the market. But its surprisingly poor indoor camera results, which would have been helped by a Xenon (or even a dual-LED) flash, its lower-than-average contrast screen for web surfing and its slightly larger dimensions and heft conspire to make the Z1S a near miss.
Bright 5-inch screen • High-resolution camera • Waterproof
Tall, heavy, slippery • Oddly tinted indoor photos
Sony's long-awaited smartphone return to a major U.S. carrier (T-Mobile) is technically and aesthetically impressive, but it's awkwardly tall and heavy with two many exterior ports, a poor flash and indoor photos that are tinged pea-green.