Not to be left behind, Sony this morning announced its latest flagship iteration, the Xperia Z4. First spotted on the company’s Japanese website, a number of details are now available regarding the device, which is supposed to bring back some much needed attention to Sony, who has long fallen from being one of the better smartphone manufacturers in the world.
A quick glance and you’ll quickly notice that the Xperia Z4 has a lot of similarities with the Xperia Z3, its predecessor. But that’s not to say that nothing has changed or improved over the course of the year. For one, the Xperia Z4 is the thinnest and lightest Xperia yet, measuring only 6.9mm in thickness, 0.4mm thinner than the previous generation. It is also very light, tipping the scale at a paltry 144 grams.
The Xperia Z4 also sports a metal frame, a trend that has been long growing with a number of Android manufacturers the past few months. Certainly, this design looks very good, and likewise feels great in the hand. The Xperia Z4 packs a 5.2inch, Full HD screen, and under the hood, it is powered by a 64bit, eight-core Snapdragon 810 CPU and 3GB of RAM. Quite expected, as most Android handsets come with the almost same configuration.
Android 5.0 Lollipop comes standard out of the box, as well support for Sony’s LDAC bluetooth protocol. A 2,930mAh battery runs everything on the device, with a promise of 17 hours of talk time over 3G. This should be more than enough for day-long light to moderate usage, although it wouldn’t hurt if Sony opted for a beefier battery for its latest baby.
In terms of imaging capabilities, the Xperia Z4 packs the same unit as the previous generation, which is a 20.7MP Exymor RS sensor capable of ISO levels up to 12800 and video capture up to 4K. This is not generally a bad thing, especially since Sony has been always great at image quality. However, considering that the Xperia Z4 is playing in flagship smartphone territory, we quite expected at least a spec bump from Sony. But hey, why fix something if it ain’t broke, right?
Just like its older sibling, the Xperia Z4 is dustproof and waterproof, thanks to its IP6X and IPX5/IPX8 certified hardware, respectively. Color options range from white, black, copper and aqua green. Initially, just 32GB of internal memory is available, although users can easily an a microSD card of up to 128GB of capacity.
No word on global device availability and pricing yet, although there is word that the Xperia Z4 will be on display at Sony’s showroom in Ginza, Tokyo from April 22 onwards.
Will this be finally the flagship that will save Sony from total damnation? What do you guys think?
