Sony quietly brought to light the Xperia Z4 in a posting on its Japanese site. As expected, the Z4 is just but a minor update to the Z3 and brings on board enough features for it to be considered an upgrade over the Z3. Other than that, as the photos of the device will show you, its pretty much traditional Sony at work.
Sony did not go screaming from the rooftops that they’ll be announcing a new phone. There were just extensive leaks of the device posing for the camera and nothing more. Compare that with the endless teasing we’ve been treated to in the last two months as Samsung, Huawei, HTC and now LG prepared to announce their flagship smartphones. There are a few speculations why Sony never really hyped the Z4’s release: that it is busy working on a redesigned Xperia Z line up to be showcased later in the year by the Z5 and probably a larger Galaxy Note competitor/Xperia Z Ultra replacement. Whichever is the case we’ll have to wait and see but for now the Z4 is all we have.
There’s still no QHD panel, probably that is being reserved for the Z5 (but still you can never go wrong with a full HD display unless you’ve been spoilt by Samsung’s vibrant panels on the Note 4 and now the S6).
Samsung dropped water-proofing with its latest device, the S6, Sony on the other hand is still holding onto the one feature that has set apart the Xperia Z lineup since day 1: IP certification.
Here are specs of the device:
- Measurement and weight: 146mm × 72mm and about 6.9 mm thick, weighs in at 144g (by comparison, the Z3 came in at about 7.3mm thick and weighed about 152g)
- Display: 5.2 inch 1080p LCD
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor (octa-core, 64-bit) clocked at 2 GHz
- Memory: 3 GB RAM / 32 GB internal storage; expandable upto 128 GB
- OS: Android 5.0 Lollipop
- Camera: 20.7 MP main/ 5 MP front
- Battery: 2930mAh
- Network: 802.11a / b / g / n (2.4GHz / 5GHz) / ac compliant, MIMO support
- Others: Bluetooth 4.1
Since the device has been announced just for the Japanese market, there’s no word on if it will make it to the international (likely anyway) and when. We also don’t know how much it will cost. There’s also no word on whether it will have a “Compact” version as was the case with the Z3.
Sony is bundling a few accessories with the device including an “S-View-like” cover.
The device will be available in white, black, copper and “aqua green”.
