[Xperia Z General] ZeDestructor:
Spot on analysis based on what I've been reading as well. Couple of points though:

I sold my HTC One X (Tegra 3 endeavoru intl version) to hopefully grab the Nexus 4... we all know how that worked. Absolutely fantastic feeling phone, but the partially-locked bootloader killed it for me: Having to do a two-step flash when working with experimental kernel/module combos gets old real quick.

Going by who's at the head of the Motorla X project, I think it may be very close to the Nexus devices, but only time will tell.

Spot on again.

I've seen the issues the SGS2 and have with ROMs (no deep sleep sound like fun?), the general feel in hand has taken a few steps back from the SGS2 and even SGS, mainly a consequence of using a very glossy back with a very large but very thin phone (it says something when I can safely say that the GNex feels better in hand that any of those). My Nexus S feels better in comparison to the SGS3, and my old One X was even better.... And then you have the miscellaneous baseband/CPU secret codes that allow wipe the phone accessible via the web browser... Doesn't inspire me any confidence in Samsung's software/API/ABI/BIOS engineers...

As for Sony, well, the issue with Sony was their lack of top-end performance. In hindsight, I would have been much happier with the Xperia S than with the One X. With the Xperia Z/ZL (I prefer the ZL myself), Sony has finally gone all out and will likely win a fair number of customers, and more importantly for us here on xda, devs, especially once you factor in the fact that the Xperia Z/ZL are running the same core hardware as the Nexus 4, meaning that we should see custom code up and running fairly quickly. Hell, I might join in the dev party myself and start porting over kernels and ROMs from the N4 section.

My Nexus S and the time I spent with the GNex were very positive. The only real Issue I have with Nexus phones is the lack of a MicroSD slot, the rest, I can easily live with or work around, so all I really want are improvements specs-wise, which is what each generation brings along. In fact, apart from the epic lack of RAM, slow CPU and (comparatively) low-resolution screen in my Nexus S, I cannot bring up any complaints against it.

Now, for some bashing:

Samsung: 3 generations going and build quality is STILL below the market average... Sony Ericsson put its money where its mouth was and challenged Nokia head on during the camerawar era. Nokia won, but damn did they make some awesome devices between them during that time.

HTC: half-arsed bootloader unlock. What? You mean I need to flash my ROM, THEN flash my kernel EVERY DAMN TIME?! Thanks, but no thanks. **** gets old reeeeal quick. Add to that the fact that the unlock procedure essentially gives them the ability to disavow themselves of all warranty responsiblity even though it may be a legitimate hardware problem and you can see why people (including devs) essentially ignor it nowadays, despite having much better in-hand feel than any phone on the market short of a Nokia Lumia/N9

Motorola/LG: fully locked bootlader. Need I say more?

Sony: Started out as one of the worst (locked everything, no updates, no sources), recently really cleaned up their act: alpha ROMs (even the Nexus doesn't do that! with a side of sources!), fairly timely updates (first to fully update one generation to ICS), official AOSP tree, an excellent developer blog, anonymous unlocking website (only uses first 14 characters of the IMEI)... Short of straight up first-party Nexus-class ROMs, what more could you want?

---------- Post added at 07:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:47 PM ----------

Its an IPS display. That much is known. This display to be exact: http://www.j-display.com/english/news/2012/20121004.html . The real magic comes in the shape of calibration: LUT tuning, backlight control, gamma curves. glue used during panel-glass fusion.

Most people who have seen it in person say that its similar to the Xperia S minus the bad view-angles, although I myself didn't see bad view angles on the Xperia S. Others say its not saturated enough (washed out) compared to OLED panels. In fact, its the opposite: OLED panels are known to be oversaturated and have way off colour calibrations.

I suspect that the exact same panel is being use in the Oppo Find 5, HTC Butterfly, HTC M7 and various other 5" 1080p phones. Welcome to tree-style manufacturing chains where one base item is used by many ODMs...

Relevant thread: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=37485374#post37485374