Get over that case of the Mondays with a dogfight battle!  Aaron throws the Google Nexus 4 and Sony Xperia Z into the ring to see which one offers the best blend of features, performance, and all around awesomeness.  The Nexus 4 is one of the few stock Android smartphones on the market and it offers a 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU, 2 GB of RAM, a 4.7-inch HD display, 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD recording, 2,100 mAh battery, and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.  The best part of the Nexus 4 may be the price - it's available for as low as $299 without a contract.

The Sony Xperia Z was announced at CES 2013 and offers a 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro (Krait) CPU with a 5-inch 1080p HD display, 2 GB of RAM, 13.1-megapixel camera with 1080p HD recording, 2,330 mAh battery, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with Sony's UI.  It's available for around $780 shipped through online retailers like Negri Electronics.

They're different in a lot of ways, but the build quality is astonishingly similar in many respects.  Which one offers the best blend of everything needed in a smartphone?  Part 1 of 2.