Episode 33: Sony Xperia Z gets a whole new kind of dunk test

-Oh, sorry Sony. Not a nice thing to do to a phone. This week on Always On: We unbox the fabulous new phablet LG's Optimus G Pro. -And we go Willy Wonka on Sony's Xperia Z phone. -Plus, we give the MacBook Pro to a professional photographer to try it out. That's chocolate phone art. Always On is on. Very hard. It's very chocolatey. It's really hard to [unk] on this. Welcome to Always On. I am Molly Wood. -And I am Jeff Cannata. -And this is the show where we take a look at the tech as part of your life. -And your future. -It is official, people. Big phones are the next big thing. -That's right. And one of those big, big phone is LG's Optimus G Pro. -That's right. And we have one in the studio to unbox, so let's get right to it. So, last week, we had the HTC One. It was awesome, so cool. -You wanted a bigger phone. -I wanted a bigger phone and-- -Guess what? -LG has delivered. -We got a big phone. -Looks like a pill box versus like a-- -Yeah, now, this is serious business. -Looks like a PC box even. -Yeah. -The LG Optimus G Pro is inside here. That's a fancy box. -Yes. -All right- -Let's do it. -Let's unbox this fancy box. -I know. Do we need a knife or can we peel? -I need a knife. -I think so. -Can we do it? Yes, we did. -It's like a jewelry. -Oh, yeah. Now, that is a bigger phone. It's awesome. -Wow! That's enormous. -That's pretty big actually. -Look at this guy. -That's pretty large. Pretty large-- -Oh, my goodness. -pretty large phone. -Well, clearly the better, isn't it? 'Cause it weighs nothing. -Oh, wow. The bat-- Well, the battery is huge, which we'll tell you about in a minute. -Huh. -Oh, look, we have our cute like-- -It's like a tile backsplash. -We have our cute Korean manual. Oh, look, we have cartoons. You did not. -I did. -You did. Oh, oh, my gosh. Is that-- -Oh, my God, that's rad! -Yeah, like ask and you shall receive. There is in fact, a little Gangnam-style picture in the-- -Do you see the cool like tile backsplash? -Huh! Ooh. -Or backings? -It's like the Matrix, but in snowy white. -We got 500-- -Oh, that's pretty. -points of something. -500 points of something in Korean. -QuadBeat earphones. -Awesome. -Because dual beat is just too, too few. -If we were doing a show right now, I'd totally high 5 you. All right, we got our mini-USB cable. -Here's the battery. -The battery is-- Ooh, it comes with two. -Those batteries-- -That's a nice touch. -That's a nice touch. -All right, let's throw all those batteries in here. Turn this thing on. -Oh, can you- -All right, that's a-- -can you charge the battery by itself? -Wooh. That used to be like a $50 accessory for various phones. -That's very cool. Huh. -Nice. -Look, just stick it right in. -And you always have a spare, ready to go. I love that. -Amazing. -Let's turn it on. -It's ginormous! -It's not that big. -It is. It's ginormous. It's officially ginormous. -It's not that big. It's no big deal. Come on! Oh, oh, there we go. -There you go. -The bottom button flashes two different colors. Look. -Oh. -It's flashing. See, you're looking at the green and the blue now. Now, you know. -You're ready to go to the raves. -SK Telecom's full HD technology. That's a little raver. -This is-- -Soon to be-- -very Korean phone. -Well, yeah. -I mean it's-- That's way- -Funny you should mention. All right, we're going to attempt to go through a Korean language setup which should be fun for everybody, but you, meanwhile, will get the specs. The LG Optimus G Pro has a 5.5-inch full HD IPS screen. That screen has a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution at 400 pixels per inch. It is, in some, a very nice screen. -It has a Snapdragon 1.7 gigahertz quad-core processor and runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It's a big phone, 5.87 inches tall and 3 inches wide. -It has micro-USB, micro-SIM, and microSD card slots and 2 gigs of RAM to power the processor. -The front-facing camera is 2 megapixels and the rear-facing camera is an impressive 13 megapixels with flash. -The Optimus G Pro supports NFC and it's also capable of wireless charging. -The battery in this phone is large too, 3140 milliamps per hour. -LG says the handset will last seven hours with video playback and that you'll get 22 hours of talk time. We'll obviously test that, but those are pretty impressive claims. It's also, as if you needed more, 4G LTE capable. You can't-- He can't stop looking on it. -Do you-- Is it just in my head that Dreamweaver is playing? 'Cause I'm falling for the phone. -Because it's the perfect phone. I have the Note II here to compare. -Is the brightness down on that phone 'cause this seems brighter in-- -Because the screen on there is just-- -It's gorgeous. -amazing. And you can tell because of the size of the screen. I'm telling you. I am starting to think of this is the perfect phone. Samsung may announce the Note III shortly after, and then, we'll see, but this phone is rocking my world. -It's-- It's- -[unk] I know. We have a phablet convert on our hands. -I want it. -Uh-huh. All right. Unfortunately eventually we're probably gonna have to break this, but before we do, we're starting with the Sony Xperia Z. Now, the big selling point of that phone is that it's supposed to be waterproof, so I thought, huh, we can submerse it in water. What are kinds of things- -Water? You could [unk] on it. -Yeah! Yes. Okay, so, we're here at Dandelion Chocolates. You are kind enough, Greg, to let us submerse the Sony Xperia Z, which I have here in my handy-dandy apron pocket and multiple kinds of chocolate. -Indeed, we're going to use both chocolate directly out of melanger. The melanger is what we used to grind the cacao and the sugar down to make the chocolate itself and then we're also gonna take chocolate from the tempering machine and that's the final chocolate that we make bars out of. -The Sony Xperia Z as you probably know, the selling point for this phone is that it's supposed to be waterproof, so we obviously thought while waterproof must also mean chocolate proof? How likely do you think it is working here in this factory everyday that one of these phones could end up in one of those big vats of chocolate. -At some point, phones have certainly ended up in vats of chocolate not here, but somewhere. -You have to really careful. -We're very careful. -So, we should get right to it and before we start, I just wanna say that I really like the Sony Xperia Z and so I hope it's okay I'm gonna give like a little mwah, like a blessing. Okay, first up, we've got a little chocolate container and we're just gonna pour some chocolate there. -All right. -Oh my goodness. Watch your shoes everybody. Oh my God. Oh, sorry Sony. Remind me again what temperature this chocolate is at? -This is probably right around 125 or 130 degrees right now. -Okay. -Yes and there's a phone buried somewhere in there. -There is a phone in there. Should we get a spoon and get it out? Come on. Again, it's [unk] first. There it is. Oh my God. This looks so cool. [unk] Come on out Sony. It stuck to the bottom a little bit. The back is totally on chocolate so that's good. I mean [unk] this phone is like the funniest thing I've ever done. See? This is where once again the awesomeness of the raised power button comes in to effect as if it comes on. Oh, totally. I can scroll through the menus. It doesn't seem particularly works for wear. Now, this chocolate is so thick that there's really kind of no way for it to get into ports. But certainly, the water proofness should prevent that. I'm gonna try to take a picture. Camera is working fine, okay. So, I think test 1 a resounding and delicious success. Pretty much any day in which I get to [unk] a phone is a good day. -Chocolate off a phone. [unk] is even better. -It's holding up pretty well. -Yeah. I'm surprised. -We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we hand off the MacBook Pro to a pro photographer for a road test. -And it's part 2 of the world's most delicious torture test. This time, we go cold chocolates. -It's so cold. Welcome back. Now, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with retina display, pretty small laptop, but it's aimed at professional photographers. -Right. -So, we decided to go find one and see if he could actually make it work on the job. -I'm so curious as to what he has to say. -Okay. So Frederick, you're a pro photographer. You are in theory the perfect market for the MacBook Pro 13-inch with retina display. So what I want you to do is take this and use it as your-- ideally your primary machine a few weeks. -Uh-hmm. -Use this little go pro right here to record your thoughts. -Uh-hmm. -And then we're actually even going to accompany you on a photo shoot to see what you think. -Yes. I'm excited. Can I tell you I'm excited about the computer? But I'm really excited about this too. -Now that is the photographer talking. I love it. -I'm like, oh, computer game. Go pro! -All right. Well, good luck with your 2 toys. -Thank you. -All right. Cool. I'm excited to play with this new 13-inch MacBook pro that I have here. Thank you CNET, and especially excited to play with it to compare it with this my exciting or my own computer which is this 15-inch MacBook Pro, so the retina display model. So first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take this thing out of the box. Here's the box, brand new box here. There it is, one hand. I don't think I miss one up. So there's the 15-inch and its baby brother the 13-inch. Just feels so much lighter. I know it's only a couple of [unk] larger, but it just feels so much lighter. I don't know. I know it's the same size keyboard, but I didn't feel like I can type faster on this one. I don't know. There's something about this small screen that it just makes it feel like it's a little bit more intimate than the large screen. Like it feels like work versus not so much work. -My first impressions of it were-- first of all, I loved it. It's just light. I love the weight of it. The initial disappointment and surprises I guess were that this one-- it had less hard disk space for my apps and media and then also the RAM. So the RAM on this thing max out at 8 where I can go to 16 on the 15. -You know, I'm gonna download Lightroom because that's the software we're gonna be using when I photograph the model. Turn to your right just a little bit. Here you go, right there. Hold it. Beautiful. Okay, turn to the left just a little bit and look up into the distance. Good. Just like that. Hold it. Beautiful. She is very photogenic. The big thing that I love about the device is, you know, aside from just opening it up in that new toy feel was just being able to get my work done on it. Being able to use Lightroom in a usable manner with this device and being able to do it anywhere. You know, words can't really describe how cool it is to be able to do your photography work and then pack up your computer and slip it in your camera bag and go. You know, coming from an 11-inch MacBook Air initially and then having a 15-inch-- the 13-inch fits right in the middle. It's the goldilocks' computer for photographers and I say that because it gives you some of the powers of the 15-inch and some of the weight savings of the 11-inch. It's right in the middle. It's great. It's all gonna make a recommendation to photographers, I'd say get it if you care all about weight. -Now, I did not think that this laptop was gonna work out for Frederick or any professional photographer, but he told us afterward that he went and bought his own. -Yeah. He liked it enough that he wanted to buy it. -Yeah, we actually sold one. -Is that the point of the road test to actually sell products for Apple? We evidently are doing that now. -We'll see if we sell products for Sony next because it's part 2 of our chocolatey torture test. -I think we're gonna sell chocolate bars. -Oh yeah. Okay, so we have tried our kind of raw, viscous chocolate. Now, we're gonna for tempered chocolate. The temperature is a little cooler, more about like 110 degrees, but it's a lot less viscous. It's meant to be made into a bar so I think it could be a little slippery, but also get in the cracks a little more. We're gonna put it in our container here then I'm gonna cover it with tempered chocolate and then it's gonna go into the freezer to set up into a nice yummy chocolate bar. Here we go. Oh wow, that's a lot-- Oh gees. Oh-- Oh, that's so much chocolate, not a nice thing to do to a phone, right? Come with me over here. I wanna make sure my phone is well and truly coated and we're gonna make it into a chocolate bar by putting it in the freezer. Oh, beautiful! Here we go. See you in 15 minutes. Let's see if our Xperia Z chocolate bar is nicely setup. Oh, yeah. That is looking delicious. It's so healthfully right in the shape of a chocolate bar. Oh yeah, look at that. Nice! That's chocolate phone art and it looks super tasty. Very hard. It's very chocolatey. It's really hard [unk] on this. It's not actually mouthful. Okay, I like 'em. I think there is really only one way to break this chocolate up and get it out of here. It's starting to crack a little, but I'm assuming we're just gonna have to do like a mini drop test. Give me one more. Okay, one, two, three. It's kind of like ice. We can give it as [unk] to its origin. Okay, really the key is just to uncover our power button, which I think I have done. It's like a little stuck, a little frozen/encrusted. It doesn't really wanna push. -Oh. -I got it. It thawed. How's it doin? Oh! It's okay. It's fine. It's on. That's great. But you know, there's still really a lot of chocolate on here so I think it's gonna need like a little bit of a box. Let's go wash it off. Let's do waterproof just like the least of the things that could happen to it today. And then hot water, really peel this chocolate back here. Oh yeah, we're getting some meltage. I see our screen is going a little crazy. Yeah, chocolate is messy stuff as you might imagine considering it's supposed to be a waterproof phone, it's not having too much trouble at the water here. It's mainly just the chocolate in its joints. Okay, let's see. I will say this is pretty-- It is pretty remarkable to give a phone like a complete sink back and have it just not have a problem. It could use some detailing, but all in all, I think our Sony Xperia Z has passed the chocolate test with flying colors. -Wow. I would never have guessed that phone would stand up to that kind of treatment. -Yeah. -Hot, cold gooey chocolate. That's really impressive. -I know. Smashing, banging in the hot water. The people in the chocolate factory, I think, [unk] -I just love that you can wash it. -Very cool. All right people, it's time to read some of your mail. -We got a lot of feedback about the Chromebook Pixel and a surprising number of people don't seem to have a problem with the 32 gigs of storage. -I know you all live in the cloud. -For example, this e-mail. I heard in episode 30 how you said the Chromebook only has 32 gigabytes of space. While this may be true, Google has a brand and it's trying to push Google Drives 100 gigabytes for $20 a month or a year. I'm not sure which one. Personally-- -That's a pretty big difference, but okay. -You know what? Either way, I'm paying it, he says. No. Personally, I have fallen in love with Google Drive because everything simply happens in the cloud and syncs. This was the reason I went Chromebook. Plus, if you added the fact that it is less likely to get a virus or crash or get malware and the fact that you don't have to worry about losing your files, it is well worth it. -He means like 'cause you won't get hacked so you don't have to worry about losing your files out into the world. -Yeah. -You get tight-- Plus, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that 100 + 32 = 132. And the last time I checked, 132 is more than 138 and then the all caps shouting begins. And who could forget about flash drive space!! Just saying. So, in his defense, he is just saying. I love the show even way back to the buzzer point days. Your loyal fan, Jack. -Can you do that nerd boys because wow [unk]. I mean-- -That it's-- He makes-- -True. -solid points, but what if I don't have-- I have a portable computer because I wanna take it places and the places I take it aren't always gonna have internet connections. -Yeah. I mean, he has well articulated the entire value proposition that is the Chromebook or Chromebook Pixel. -Yes. -It's just that for some people it doesn't always work. Plus [unk] it was a pain in the butt to say. -Word. -I'm just saying back. -All caps. -I'm also just saying all caps. -Moving on, anonymous writes in and says, hey Molly and that other guy. -That's me! I'm the other guy. -You're the other-- You've made it. -I've arrived. -I was wondering. I saw the SGS IV launch and I do think it's cool, but then I also like the HTC One, so I was wondering what one is better to get???? There's a lot of question mark there. The HTC One or the Samsung Galaxy S4. Love you Molly and that other guy. Hope you can do this. Thanks. Heart ya. -Oh, this is my favorite e-mail so far. -Oh, he's your biggest fan, other guy. -I am. -Totally. -I can't wait 'til I have name recognition. -Was there a question there? -Oh yeah. Galaxy S4 versus HTC One. -Well, what would you say? -I mean, the HTC One is the only one I've had hands on up to this point. The S4 I haven't actually seen. -Right. -So, I'm gonna have to say you gotta try them both up because it's sort of a personal preference thing. They're super similar, which is exactly the problem that I think HTC is having 'cause [unk] recognition. -Exactly. I would say HTC is the other guy of phones and therefore I recommend it. -Me too 'cause we-- we're all about the other guy here. Keep the feedback coming everyone. His name is Jeff Cannata. E-mail us molly or jeff-- -Or both. -Or both @alwayson@cnet.com. You could also find us on Twitter, Facebook, or Google Plus. -That's it for this week. Next week, we take the MacBook Pro out to some pretty rough terrain and we are not nice to it. -Not really. Also, the LG Optimus G Pro gets a road test. All that and more coming next week. Thanks for watching Always On. -See you. -It is official people. Big phones are the next big thing. -That's right. And one of those big, big phone is LG's Optimus G Pro. -Damn it. -Why are there so many Gs and Pros in there, LGs, and Pro Gs. -It felt like coming through like the freak hour. You're [unk] -Optimus G. -Optimus G Pro. -LG's Optimus G. -Okay. -Oh Gs. -I know. -Oh Gs. -Oh Gs.