[Xperia Z1 General] ascariss:
I've asked about manual control as well in a thread or 2 on here and again answers are various.

2 scenarios why manual control is stated in this document

http://blogs.sonymobile.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Xperia_Z1_review_guide.pdf

First, the document was not made by Sony but more likely a marketing firm which just received information from Sony regarding the camera, ie manual control etc etc and thought "hey manual control? must be like dslr probably can change aperture and shutter of course, duh". Sony has known to outsource for marketing and such firms can get things wrong.

Second scenario, Sony made the document, but full manual control settings didn't make the development cut and were not included in the final model but the text remained, this is probably less likely but who knows.

Next, aperture control on a smart phone with a FIXED f/2 aperture? Even Sony knows that this is not possible not matter how you bend the physics, fixed aperture is fixed aperture and if you don't have aperture blades (diaphragm) on the lens, then you are stuck at f/2. I don't think a small lens like the one on the Z1/Z2 can fit small enough aperture blades, don't think miniaturization has made it possible yet. Therefore I feel again, marketing firm messed this up by adding aperture control.

Next is shutter speed, hit and miss here, can we control it? kind of, if you set it to sports mode in 8MP mode, you will get a much faster shutter speed in order to capture the sporty action or fasting moving options. If you set it to one of the SCN modes, don't recall which one, perhaps night scene, you can slow down the shutter to 0.77s. In other modes you have 1/8 or 1/4s of a shutter speed, which is manual shutter control but not directly, the phone sets it, but if you choose the right SCN mode, you can "choose" shutter speed. I know this is not the same as actually selecting a shutter speed but it's the best we have so far. :p

I believe (I may be wrong, probably am) by adjusting the EV you can force the different shutter speed. Doing a quick test, at ISO200 and EV+2 and -2, there shutter speed was the same in both, 1/8. Bumping up iso to 800, +2, speed was 1/8, at -2 speed was 1/16. So there is a slight difference. So higher iso will give faster shutter speed it seems as not to overexpose the image. This is what is probably driving the shutter speed on the camera.

At higher iso, 8MP, +2 and iso3200, 1/8 still, at iso5000 (was set at 3200), -2, it was 1/125, so the phone is doing some shutter control clearly, and it is somewhere in the software to control it, but no real manual control. Which brings up the final point mentioned to me by a user on here whom I can't recall the name of (apologies), there is no apk or code in android currently to control exposure time, but clearly something is happening here on the Sony camera, so either Sony wrote the software or apk or black magic is happening.

For those wondering about the camera's from samsung running android and have shutter control, from what was mentioned on this forum, samsung added the necessary software controls for such tricks.

Manual focus would be hard, not sure how it would be done even, probably on screen, best to just leave it to the autofocus.

There is mention of a new sensor for the Z3, 1/2.4 size, same megapixel count, probably to make the device smaller, but what would be better is to have hybrid autofocus on the sensor, like the new A6000 has, contrast detection and phase detection to speed things up. Having seen various videos of the new A6000 auto focusing, I will admit, this should be the next step for Sony and the sensor for the Z3.

Samsung has phase detection on the S5, not sure if it is hybrid, but if anyone can pull it off, it is Sony, but who knows.

tl;dr, version, manual control exists to some degree but not directly, probably a marketing firm made the pdf with the information and screwed up. :P

I feel this is the issue, and perhaps in a future phone, probably not z3, maybe z4/z5, a dedicated bionz chip will be used and it will be more like a real point and shoot.