| Sony has a rough time selling phones in the US. While it has managed to become one of the few Android makers to turn a profit on the backs of its global sales, Sony’s presence in the US has been crippled by delayed launches and carrier exclusives. If you’ve wanted to purchase a flagship Sony smartphone, such as the Z1 or Z2, you were forced to either be a T-Mobile customer, or pay full retail price for an unlocked device six months after it was readily available in other markets. (And if you wanted a Z1 Compact, your choices were even worse.) |
| With the new Xperia Z3, Sony is addressing this problem, or at least starting to. The Z3 proper, already available in global markets, will be hitting T-Mobile shortly, while Verizon is getting a special variant called the Z3v. | | The $199.99 Xperia Z3v has the same display, same processor, and same camera as the Z3. But it’s notably different in a few important ways: it doesn’t have the Z3’s updated design or metal frame and looks more like the six-month-old Z2 than the current Z3. It also has some Verizon-specific requirements, like wireless charging and a ton of bloatware nobody ever asked for. | | For Verizon customers, the Z3v is the first Sony smartphone they’ve had access to since 2011’s ill-fated Xperia Play, a hardware curiosity that proved to be neither a great smartphone, nor a great gaming device. The Z3v represents the best of Sony’s phone division, at least on the inside. And it’s what inside that counts, right? | | After using the Xperia Z3v for the past week, I’m not so sure. |
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