Sony Xperia Z1S review

When it comes to music and videos on the Sony Xperia Z1S, you'll have a number of choices. The big or main apps on the phone, like other Android phones, is Google Play Music and Play Movies & TV YouTube for videos.

The great thing about Play Music is that it allows you to upload up to 20,000 of your own songs. Of course, it's not free if you take advantage of all the available features, but at $9.99 a month it might be worth it to you.

For the most part, the UI and functions of the app and service are intuitive since the design is similar to the Play Store. Your library, playlists and more are available via a menu on the left.

Like many other music streaming apps and services, you'll also have a level of control over music quality, how music is downloaded and your method of choice for streaming, too.

For example, you can choose to download songs via Wi-Fi only so you don't incur additional data charges from your carrier, and you can also select song quality when streaming over your carrier's network.

If Play Music isn't your thing, you can also upload songs straight to the device via software like Android File Transfer. If you have music on your computer or on a hard drive somewhere and want to load it onto your device, you can do so via a USB connection to your computer.

Your own music would play through the Play Music app, but the nice thing about that is your music is easier to access, or at least streamlined with the overall Google Play experience.

One app unique to the Xperia Z1S, along with other Sony devices that you wouldn't find on just any Android device, is the Walkman app. If you decide to use Sony's music streaming service, you'll be able to listen to songs via the Walkman app and have control over music playback with the Walkman widget.

With so many music apps and services to choose from, it can get a little tricky. You really can't go wrong with Play Music, or even Spotify or Rdio, and we don't have enough experience with Sony's Walkman app and service to say how it will perform in the long run.

Videos

For watching videos, movies and TV, there is Play Movies & TV. It works much like Play Music does in the sense that you can buy and rent content from Google.

There is a wide selection of TV shows and movies to choose from, again made easy by the UI that you'll become accustomed to as you familiarize yourself with Google Play.

If you purchase any movies or TV shows, they're yours forever, barring any future laws or rules that work against that. That means any content you purchased before will be available for viewing on the Z1S, and likewise anything you purchase on the Z1S will be available on future Android devices - smartphones or tablets.

Outside of Play Movies & TV, there is the YouTube app. I'm going to assume you're already familiar with YouTube here, so you know the drill. You can log in via your Google account and on the Xperia Z1S and get access to your own videos, your subscriptions and anything else you might have tailored to you on the desktop browser version.

You can consume all the content you want from the YouTube app, and you'll have the ability to upload videos from your device, too.

If you're looking for more video content, you may want to try services like Netflix, who also have apps available on Android for streaming. There are plenty of choices out there, but we listed a few to get you started.