Sony Xperia Z’s water resistance tested; lives up to IP57 certification
The Sony Xperia Z ships with the ability to withstand the assault of water and dust, courtesy the IP55 and IP57 ratings. Obviously, when a flagship device makes such tall claims, we can't help but put them to the test.
So the Xperia Z boasts a whole boat load of features, pegging it as the flagship from Sony. In its amazing feature-set, what really stands out for us is the Xperia Z’s ability to withstand water and dust. How we’ve longed for this feature to be a standard on all cell phones, having lost a few handsets to water damage and what not. But how do we know that the Xperia Z is actually good for fighting off liquids and dust?
What is IP55 and IP57
Well, for starters, it carries the IP55 and IP57 certification. IP stands for Ingress Protection and is an index for measuring the resistance of a device to a certain foreign particle. IP55 rating means it is resistant to dust, and can withstand water projected by a nozzle against enclosure from any direction shall have no harmful effects. The IP57 rating means the same amount of dust protection, but also that the device can withstand being immersed in 1m of freshwater for up to 30 minutes. All this protection on the Xperia Z is only effective provided that every single port is protected properly with the flaps secured. Each of the flaps has a small rubber gasket built into them which essentially stop the foreign particles from creeping in.
How We Tested
So, for our test, we took the Xperia Z and subjected it to a lot of water. Of course, the first thing we did was ensure that every port was properly sealed, followed by “accidentally” dropping it into a bowl of water, because that’s just something we have lying around. We left the phone submerged for a good 5 minutes, followed by re-immersing the phone after setting it to a playback movie. While the movie played just fine, the audio was hardly audible, but that is not the phone’s fault. If you were underwater and screamed as loud as humanly possible, chances are nobody would hear you either. We concluded the test by washing our Xperia Z with a bottle of water, because we feared the water in the bowl may have gotten it dirty.
Some After Thoughts
Throughout this process, we observed that the screen becomes unusable when the phone is immersed. It’s not that the screen become erratic to touch, it just plain stops working, which isn’t surprising. The screen did become erratic as it made contact with the water, leaving us with the impression that the screen has a certain level of sensitivity to the water itself. Interestingly, our phone rang while it was under water, so the phone works, but there really is no way to answer the call as the touchscreen wouldn’t work. Same for the camera, as there is no hardware shutter button.
At the end of the day, the Xperia Z’s “toughness” is only to prevent the phone from dying on you in the event of accidental spills, brief journeys in the rain and what not. We also feel that the need to have every single flap closed for the ports is somewhat defeating the purpose. Consider this scenario: you’re by the pool, listening to music on the Xperia Z and it accidentally slips out of your hand and falls into the pool, but not before having the unhooked headphone cable exposing the headphone port. So we wonder how effective all this IP55 and IP57 rating really is.
Other rugged phones, such as the Motorola Defy and Casio G’zOne, have had ports that were internally sealed, and therefore, still quite resistant to ingress whilst the flaps were still open.
To sum it up, provided that all the ports are sealed, you can shower with the Xperia Z, but you may want to think a couple of times before you decide to go for a long swim. Also remember, hot showers could damage the phone. If your phone suffers accidental spills of the liquid delights, you will no longer have to freak out like you just dropped a new-born baby on its head. As for the dust issues, well, as long as you’re not living in the desert or trekking through sand-dunes, we feel that you should be just fine.