[Sony Xperia Z Ultra] Road Trip:
An experiment, and to all the haters:

Why is everybody hating on Erica here? I think it’s great she has gone through all the trouble to do these measurements; we need people like her. Clearly you guys haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about. Indeed measurements don’t lie, and this device performs subpar compared to the competition. I can understand if somebody is just too stupid or plain ignorant to understand the science and technology behind these displays, but even if you personally don’t mind having a subpar screen for your €700 it is extremely short sighted and quite frankly naïve to not comprehend that others do care. Hating on these measurements is like ignoring someone with a 40C degree fever and calling bull**** on the thermometer, just because you like how their hair is looking. Therefore I would like to invite everybody who will call out these measurements as fake to leave this thread, or better yet leave this forum in its entirety.

Anyhow, it is a shame that the screen is still such a mess. A 8000k white point is just unacceptable; it is significantly worse than the Galaxy S4 (an AMOLED screen), and not even close to the HTC One X -- a two year old phone -- with a white point of 6461 kelvin. The contrast in the model Erica has tested also seems appalling. I mean, sure saturated colors are nice to look at for a second, but I love to watch movies on my phone -- sometimes in the dark, for which you really do need great black levels; compressing the whole color spectrum to make it pop in broad daylight is not a proper fix.

The phone is compromised on so many levels. The poor camera, lack of an LED flash in spite of tons of empty space inside of the phone, the pathetic speakers, the enormous bezels, the lack of an included magnetic charger, and finally the display and its shatterproof film and lack of oleophobic coating. It’s a shame when us Europeans have to shell out €700 for it. You would expect a quality product.

It being good enough for the average consumer is a mood point, because the average consumer isn’t going to buy a phone like this. Furthermore, if we would have stuck to this argument in the past we’d still be riding around on horses just cause we don’t need cars; something I am thankful for did not happen.

Getting back on topic however, it’d be great if we could figure out a way to start comparing screens trough this forum -- and I need your help for this Erica. I understand that few people here have the access to, or knowledge how, to start analyzing our screens with colorimeters.

Hypothetically we could just start a thread where we take pictures of the screen in a blacked out room right? Obviously this would have to be done properly, for example with a crop sensor DSLR, a 50mm focal length, manual exposure and white balance, contrast enhancements like Active D Lightning disabled, a natural color profile, and a JPEG so it can’t be messed with during development. I think this would be a great idea because any camera, Canon or Nikon, new or old, even digital or analog, will give approximately the same picture at, say: ISO 100, 1/250,F5.6, and 6500k white balance. Furthermore we could check whether the photos are taken correctly and therefore accurate and representative of that particular screen through the EXIF data. Perhaps we could analyze these results, and find a pattern to allow us to buy the devices with the best possible screens. I would happily be prepared to make such a thread, and check the EXIF data for each photo.

Do you, or anybody else, see any problems with this approach?

BTW, I hope that there aren’t many spelling mistakes in this post as to affect my credibility; English isn’t my native language, so I can explain :P.

---------- Post added at 01:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:30 AM ----------

For RAW photo editing, I would stay far far away from this device. The colors are woefully inaccurate. This screen is designed for media consumption, not media creation. For photo editing, or any color grading activity in general, it is extremely important to do this on a properly calibrated professional monitor. Otherwise it is just going to look completely different when you print it, or even view it on another monitor or phone.

Furthermore I am not aware of any professional photo editing software for Android, and I don’t believe in an efficient workflow on any mobile device.

If you were to do serious photo editing I would recommend a Eizo, Dreamcolour of SpectraView computer monitor with a desktop. The advantage of this desktop arrangement is that you also control the ambient lightning.

If you absolutely have to be mobile I would recommend a Dell Precision or HP Elitebook with the RGB LED IPS displays. I have the Dell Precision M6700, and it’s an amazing machine in every respect. I use it for on location thethering and previews, but never for adjusting the colors.