Hey there, Xperia ZL C6502 user here.
I bought it at the official Sony Store here in Argentina on August last year. It's been "assembled" here (that is they send the manufactured parts from China ready to be put on the phone and the gov't plays it as if it was actually made here). It's contract-free, black, with an unlocked bootloader. I am now running the latest Omni nightly, though I've been trying to build ParanoidAndroid for the past week (been visiting XDA since 2011, but it's my first time actually building something!). Of course, it's rooted. Both mine and a friend's C6506 sport no hardware issues whatsoever.
I love the device's look and feel except from the annoying anti-shatter film, which gathers fingerprints and scratches as if it was made from cheap plastic. The plastic back does feel nice and grippy and I prefer the black model's textured back to the white version's soft-touch one, but a friend imported an Xperia Z from another part of the world and its glass back does feel nicer. Apart from the front-facing camera (which is not that of a big deal anyway), everything's in the right place.
I bought it because I wanted a good 1080p all-rounder that could also run AOSP-based ROMs smoothly, so it had to have a Qualcomm CPU. Coming from the Galaxy S3's crap Exynos chipset it was the main thing I was looking for. At that time, the only good phones available with a Qualcomm CPU here were this one or the LG Optimus G. I chose the ZL 'cause of the display, MicroSD slot, the software buttons and the fact that I really like the stock Sony UI. I now regret the display part, since the Optimus G's has better contrast and viewing angles and the resolution bump is not that big of a deal.
Since I bought the ZL, both the LG G2 and the Xperia Z1 came to Argentina (though the latter came with an ISDB-T TV tuner, so I suspect they had to put a smaller battery on it) so now I'd probably buy an LG G2. I'm not tied to any brand but I do like to run AOSP, which is a piece of cake on the G2.
For me, if there's ever a ZL successor it should have the Z1's internals (but the smaller bezels of the ZL), plus a (substantially) better display without any anti-shatter film (but neither bigger nor more than 1080p). That's about it, really. Also, functions-wise it should never become as bloated as Samsung or LG. Keeping it simple, close to stock and useful is what I like the most from Sony
I bought it at the official Sony Store here in Argentina on August last year. It's been "assembled" here (that is they send the manufactured parts from China ready to be put on the phone and the gov't plays it as if it was actually made here). It's contract-free, black, with an unlocked bootloader. I am now running the latest Omni nightly, though I've been trying to build ParanoidAndroid for the past week (been visiting XDA since 2011, but it's my first time actually building something!). Of course, it's rooted. Both mine and a friend's C6506 sport no hardware issues whatsoever.
I love the device's look and feel except from the annoying anti-shatter film, which gathers fingerprints and scratches as if it was made from cheap plastic. The plastic back does feel nice and grippy and I prefer the black model's textured back to the white version's soft-touch one, but a friend imported an Xperia Z from another part of the world and its glass back does feel nicer. Apart from the front-facing camera (which is not that of a big deal anyway), everything's in the right place.
I bought it because I wanted a good 1080p all-rounder that could also run AOSP-based ROMs smoothly, so it had to have a Qualcomm CPU. Coming from the Galaxy S3's crap Exynos chipset it was the main thing I was looking for. At that time, the only good phones available with a Qualcomm CPU here were this one or the LG Optimus G. I chose the ZL 'cause of the display, MicroSD slot, the software buttons and the fact that I really like the stock Sony UI. I now regret the display part, since the Optimus G's has better contrast and viewing angles and the resolution bump is not that big of a deal.
Since I bought the ZL, both the LG G2 and the Xperia Z1 came to Argentina (though the latter came with an ISDB-T TV tuner, so I suspect they had to put a smaller battery on it) so now I'd probably buy an LG G2. I'm not tied to any brand but I do like to run AOSP, which is a piece of cake on the G2.
For me, if there's ever a ZL successor it should have the Z1's internals (but the smaller bezels of the ZL), plus a (substantially) better display without any anti-shatter film (but neither bigger nor more than 1080p). That's about it, really. Also, functions-wise it should never become as bloated as Samsung or LG. Keeping it simple, close to stock and useful is what I like the most from Sony