Khmer Font on Sony Xperia Z

If you are a Cambodian person using an Android device, I highly recommend Khmer Standard Keyboard (or try Khmer Standard Keyboard Small Screen for mobile). Once you install one of these apps, go to Settings >Language & input > Default and enter Khmer Standard Keyboard as the default keyboard. The Khmer keyboard should show up whenever you type. The keyboard has a button on the bottom-left that allows you to toggle from an English keyboard to a Khmer keyboard.

If you go to a Khmer website like rfa.org/khmer, you can see Khmer text rendered on the website and, if you are Cambodian, you can read in Khmer on this site. This works for my Firefox browser on my desktop, the Nexus 5, and the Samsung Galaxy S4, as well as many other devices.

However, when you go to rfa.org/khmer using a Sony Xperia Z, the Khmer text does not show up!

This was extremely frustrating. I spent many hours trying to get Khmer font to show up but nothing worked. All the websites kept telling me to root the phone, but rooting the phone can void your warrantly, so it's best not to do that.

I finally got around the problem by installing Firefox for Android and then searching for add-ons and then installing Khmer Fonts Package. This seemed to fix everything up. Khmer text still does not appear on Chrome browser and other apps but it does show up in the Firefox browser, which means you can do a Google search in Khmer and read Khmer websites.

There are a few other apps that seem to show Khmer text on the Xperia Z, e.g. Khmer SMS, Kohsantepheap Daily, and even Google Translate.

Sony Xperia Z2 vs Nexus 5

My Sony Xperia Z is currently in for repairs due to a faulty camera. My main gripe with the Xperia Z is the camera, which is far too slow, and the emergence of dust particles in the lenses doesn't help either. In the meantime I have been using my backup phone, the $150 Kogan Dual Core, which although it is cheap is quite poor compared to the Xperia. It is significantly slower and the display is simply bad. If you really need to buy a cheap smartphone, I recommend paying a little bit more to get the Kogan Agora HD (Quad Core) or the Motorola Moto G. I do not recommend the Kogan Agora Dual Core smartphone. The slowness of the device alone has frustrated me.

I am really tempted to simply buy a Nexus 5 right now but I have heard rumours that the Sony Xperia Z2 will come out soon. The Xperia Z2 is rumoured to have the following specifications:

• 5.2-inch Full HD display with a resolution of 2560x1440
• quad-core 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor 
• 3GB of RAM
• 20.7-megapixel main camera
• 3,700mAh battery.

A 2560x1440 resolution would make this a 2.5K phone, which is quite incredible. The screen size, at 5.2 inches, it starting to get quite large. The Z and Z1 were already large phones, but the Z2 is looking even larger. That being said, if largeness were a problem, there is always the 4.3 inch Xperia Z1 Compact, but there is something about returning to a small screen that doesn't appeal to me. If you pay a lot of money for a phone, you want to get your money's worth, so getting less screen real estate, fewer pixels, smaller battery, and so forth just doesn't sit well with me.

Sony Xperia Z1 Compact

I am very excited about the upcoming Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, which is has the same flagship features of the Sony Xperia Z but in a smaller body with a 4.3 inch display rather than the normal Z1's 5 inch display. Sony's phone will be crafted from aluminium and glass (compared to plastic used in Samsung phones and a combination of plastic and aluminium in the iPhone 5 and HTC One). The Sony phones are also waterproof and dustproof.

Sony Xperia Z - 10 Months After

I've had the Sony Xperia Z for about ten months now, so it's time I give an update on this phone.

First I'll start with the good points. I still think the Xperia Z is a beautiful phone with a unique design. It is a phone that I feel good carrying around because of its beauty. It is slim and lightweight, meaning that it fits in the pocket and doesn't bulge out. Even though viewing angles are not as great compared to other phones, the full HD display coupled with Sony's proprietary Mobile Bravia Engine produces excellent, vivid pictures, especially on colourful images of landscapes. Often I would take a picture of amazing scenery, send it to my friends, and they'd be amazed at how much better the same image looked on the Xperia Z.

Another good point about the Xperia Z is its speed. Even though, when it came out, it used the slightly older Snapdragon S4 Pro chip rather than the Snapdragon 600 found in the Galaxy S4, the phone seems to not be bogged down too much and feels smooth and snappy. It's not really the speed of the CPU that I am concerned about. Rather, I prefer consistency. The Xperia Z is consistently good whereas, for example, the Nexus 7 (2012 edition), which uses the Tegra 3 chip, has moments when it is fast, moments when it is slow, and moments when it is frozen.

Onto the bad points, and there are a few now that I've had time to play around with phone for ten months.

Camera

The main issue I have with this phone is the camera. It is a 13MP camera that takes decent phones. It suffers in low light, but all smartphone camera suffer in low light, so that's not a major issue. My main issue is that the Sony camera app takes too long to load. When I talk around, see something I want to take a phone of, I take out the Xperia Z and swipe left from the lockscreen to go to the camera. The phone takes on average about five seconds to fully activate the camera. Phones that have fast cameras include the Nexus 5 and the iPhone 5S. Fast access to the camera is a necessity.

Another issue I have with the camera relates to dust particles. After using the Xperia Z for a while, I have noticed dust particles on the lens. The dust is inside the lens, so I cannot wipe the lens with a cloth to fix it. A Google search reveals that the Xperia Z dust particle issue is not a one-off, but a systematic issue with the phone itself.

Battery

The battery life on the Xperia Z is too short. They have definitely fixed this on the Xperia Z1 by providing 3000 mAh, but the 2300 mAh on the Xperia Z is not enough. Even with power saving features, this phone often runs out of energy in the afternoon. I tend to use phones more than the average person, so perhaps the 2300 mAh is not good enough for me. For the person who using the phone occasionally, the battery capacity is fine.

My Experience with the Sony Xperia Z

For years, Sony Ericsson has made bland and boring phones while Apple and Samsung dominated the smartphone market to create an effective duopoly.

Sony has cut ties with Ericsson and wanted to make a phone that signalled to the world that Sony was serious about smartphones. The Sony Xperia Z was born.

I've had the Sony Xperia Z for a few days now and overall I can say that I am very happy with the phone. I purchased it online via Kogan and had to wait about two weeks before it was sent to my house. I love buying goods online because of cheapness, but it is terribly difficult waiting for a phone that I really desired. Nearly every day while waiting for the phone, I went on YouTube and searched for the latest videos on the phone. This kept me interested as I waited. I absolutely loved Sony's advertising for this phone.

Battery

My old phone was the HTC Desire HD. I've had this for about two years and it has served me well. The main problem with the Desire HD is the battery life. The phone's battery capacity is around 1230 mAh (compared to 2330 on the Xperia Z). I would charge the phone overnight, use it on the train when commuting to work, and use it intermittently for email, messaging, and calling throughout the day. By around two in the afternoon, the phone would be dead! The battery was that bad. I was able to partially fix this problem by getting a $2 USB to micro-USB connector from eBay and charging the phone at work from my computer. This was also useful because it allowed me to easily transfer files from work to home if I wanted to. I didn't need to carry around a USB flash drive. I could live with the Desire HD's poor battery life, but I preferred a phone that lasted for a whole day, at least.

The Xperia Z's battery life, I have found, is phenomenal. I charged it overnight and, when using it normally I have found that the battery is around 60 to 70 per cent full by the time I get out of work. It easily lasts the whole day with normal use and will probably last two days as well. The Xperia Z's 2330 mAh is nothing revolutionary, especially compared to the Samsung Galaxy S4's 2600 mAh battery and the Samsung Galaxy Note 2's massive 3100 mAh battery. However, the Xperia Z comes with a built-in power management software called Stamina Mode that automatically turns off power-intensive features like mobile data. Stamina Mode is customizable, so you can specify which programs are not affected by it. For example, if you use Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger to keep in contact with family and friends, you can customise Stamina Mode to ignore these apps.

Design

The killer feature of the Xperia Z is its aesthetics. It is a beautiful phone, a work of art. While the Samsung Galaxy S4, I am sure, is technologically superior, its design is similar to the S3 and is getting boring. The new Blackberry Z10 looks like an iPhone 5 with a plastic back. The LG Optimus G Pro is starting to look like there Galaxy phones as well. The Xperia Z, on the other hand, does away with curved designs and opts for a minimalistic thin and sleek black slab with sharp edges, symmetry, and shiny, reflective glass. Whenever I take this phone out of my pocket at work or lay it down on a table, just about everyone says, "wow!" "whoah!" or something similar, and typically want to touch it and play with it. The phone comes in black, white, and purple. Black is best.

The Xperia Z is not as thin as the iPhone 5, but the two are very similar, and to the naked eye the Xperia Z looks slimmer and better proportioned because it is wider. The width and tallness of the Xperia accentuate its thinness. The iPhone 5 is simply a taller and thinner version of the 4S. In their attempt to maintain better one-handed operation, the iPhone 5 looks too tall and anorexic. It is a feminine and emasculating phone compared to the manly Xperia Z. The iPhone 5 has a really small 1440 mAh battery, which is pathetic, but the iPhone has a blurrier display compared to the Xperia Z, so its power consumption should be lower.

I am using my Nexus 7 tablet to write this blog, so the pictures of the Xperia Z I have posted here use the Nexus 7's low-resolution front-facing camera. Unfortunately the Nexus 7 has no rear camera.

Another issue with the phone is that it attracts fingerprints and dust like a magnet attracting metal. Be prepared to wipe it all the time.

Waterproofing

The Xperia Z is waterproof up to one metre. This means you cannot go swimming or scuba diving but you can use it in the shower or bath tub. The waterproofing is excellent because you never know when someone will push you into a swimming pool or lake. You may also drop your phone into the toilet. I take my phone into the shower with me and place it in the shampoo rack. When people call me while I am in the shower, I can tall to them, and theoretically I could Skype people while in the shower as well, but I am hesitant to try this.

Taking the phone into the shower also allows me to clean the glass panels of the phone to remove fingerprints.

That being said, the downside of waterproofing is that all ports, such as the micro-USB port and micro-SD port, have plastic flaps covering them, and you have to constantly detach and reattach these flaps if you want to charge or even put headphones into the phone. I will be getting a charging dock for the phone, so charging is not an issue. If you are into music, you will probably need to invest in expensive NFC-enabled wireless headphones. That being said, I am willing to tolerate this I'm order to get waterproofing.

Comfort
 
Although the Xperia Z is a beautiful phone, it is not comfortable to hold. My old HTC Desire HD had a rounded aluminium back that fitted well into the hand. Likewise, my Nexus 7 has a curved rubber back that feels really nice. The Xperia Z, on the other hand, has sharp jagged edges and flat glass surfaces, which feels uncomfortable compared to the Nexus and HTC. Once again, I'm willing to tolerate this, but others may not.

Conclusion

Much was said about this phone's poor colour contrast and viewing angles. I can attest that the viewing angles on this phone are far from perfect, but who looks at a phone screen on an angle? My experience is that the display is fine. The fact that it is Full HD, 1080p is a plus. It makes images and text crisp and clean. I read a lot on my phone, so high pixel density and big screens are non-negotiable.