Sony Xperia Z vs BlackBerry Z10: BlackBerry's Strong Offering Has Only a Few Hitches

With BlackBerry (formerly Research in Motion) announcing the BlackBerry 10 operating system and two new devices, the traditional-looking BlackBerry Q10 and the more modern BlackBerry Z10, everyone is interested to find out how the struggling former mobile giant will fare against the upcoming competition.

Here's a rundown of the BlackBerry Z10 versus the latest offering from another former gadget giant that is trying to come back out of the shadows, Sony's Xperia Z.

Display

The BlackBerry Z10 has a 4.2-inch touchscreen with 1280x768 resolution at 356 pixels per inch. This is small compared to the new 5-inch models of smartphones being offered by others. The Sony Xperia Z has one of those 5-inch touchscreens, with a higher resolution of 1920x1080 and 441 pixels per inch.

Size

With a larger display comes less portability, and the Sony Xperia Z is 5.47 x 2.80 x 0.31 inches, while the BlackBerry Z10 comes in a slightly more manageable 5.12 x 2.58 x 0.35 inches. However, the Z10 has a good amount of wasted screen buffer and surface area on the face of it, so it really could have either been smaller or sported a larger display for its dimensions. The BlackBerry Z10 is lighter, at 4.84 ounces versus the Xperia Z's 5.15 ounces.

Processor and Storage

The Xperia Z has a pretty speedy quad-core 1.5GHz processor with 2GB RAM, against the Z10's dual-core 1.5GHz CPU with 2GB RAM. The Xperia Z comes with 16GB of storage and a microSD slot that allows for 32GB more. The BlackBerry Z10 beats this with 16GB internal and up to 64GB more through the SD card.

Camera

The Xperia Z will come with an incredibly competitive 13.1-megapixel main camera, capable of a resolution of 4128x3096 pixels, along with a solid suite of hardware and software tweaks like light correction that make the camera look great compared to others. It also sports a 2.2-megapixel front-facing camera that will have 720p video chatting capability. BlackBerry users aren't really the Instagram set, and it shows in the Z10's camera offerings: an 8-megapixel main camera that is complemented by a 2-megapixel 720p camera on the front for video conferencing.

Other Considerations: Software and Perks

BlackBerry 10, the new operating system for BlackBerry, premeired yesterday with a few impressive features, including a nice video chatting app and remote scree- sharing capabilities built into BlackBerry messenger.  Also, there is a microHDMI port built right in to the Z10 (I'm assuming for business presentations).

Now, BlackBerry has taken a lot of guff for their meager slew of apps, but they already have more than 70,000 apps ready for when the phone launches. That's tiny compared to Android's 700,000, but you have to ask yourself, how many apps on Google's Play store actually look worth downloading?

However, the Sony Xperia Z has a few tricks up its sleeve, like being waterproof, which may make it a big competitor when it launches. Read my previous post for more information on the three features of the Xperia Z that may help Sony conquer Samsung and Apple, and now BlackBerry.