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Sony Xperia Z4 release date, news, specs and rumors [updated: Z4 gets certified in Japan: 3 versions coming]

Friday, 16 January 2015

The Xperia Z3 currently ranks as one of our best Android phones in the world. We love it, and the prospect of the Xperia Z4 looming on the horizon has us giddy. Recent speculation has suggested that Sony is ditching its two flagships per-year approach (sadly it hasn't appeared to do its smartphones sales much good) but it looks like the Xperia Z4 might just pack enough punch to carry us through to 2016. Update: The Xperia Z4 is coming. According to reports, it has just been certified by a Japanese wireless authority – and it wasn't alone. Head to the update section to find out more.  
Sony Xperia Z4
This ''fourth generation'' Xperia looks like an evolved Xperia Z3. © TNN
Update: We've just received news that the Xperia Z4 is indeed on its way, and that it will be accompanied by two other devices, which we presume are the Xperia Z4 Compact and Xperia Z4 Ultra. gsmarena broke the news citing a Japanese blog, which claims that all three devices support Wi-Fi, LTE and VoLTE (no big surprise).
The Z4 Ultra is said to come with a 6.44-inch screen, while at the other end, the Z4 Compact is likely to have a 4.7-inch display. This is the first time we've had any close-to-concrete information about the Xperia Z4 Compact, Z4 Ultra, and indeed the standard Xperia Z4. With MWC less than two months away, you can bet your bottom dollar that these new Sony devices will be presented then. And we can't wait.  

Sony Xperia Z4 design

Amongst all the fun of the hackfest that is Sony Pictures' email servers right now lie a few very interesting images of the new Xperia Z4 (and maybe the Xperia Z4 Compact). Sony Mobile was pitching the next-gen device for inclusion in the new James Bond flick and felt the need to include some pics to help sway 007 (or perhaps the new Q).
The images are very different, with one looking quite Xperia Z3-ish (seen above), one showing a weird back that looks like padded leather and a detail of a very angular corner setup (below).
Sony Xperia Z4 back
The new Xperia Z4 looks to have a new clock, adaptive screen color and interesting back panel. © Sony
Sony Xperia Z4 bezels
This bezel detail seems to show a super angular glass-backed Xperia Z4. © Sony

Sony Xperia Z4 release date

The original Sony Xperia Z was released in February of 2013, with the Xperia Z2 following a year later in March 2014. Sony had previously stated that it wanted to beat the yearly release cycle that most manufacturers have set for their flagship handsets and instead release them on a bi-annual basis, which is why the Xperia Z3 landed in the Autumn. This idea appears to have been abandoned now, and we think that the Xperia Z4 will be the only flagship released by Sony next year, so here's hoping it produces more than a just a modest upgrade over the Xperia Z3. 
What all of this means for the Xperia Z4 release date is that it may materialize around April next year, but maybe even as soon as March to coincide with the 2015 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which takes place between the 2nd and 5th of that month. Having said all of this, the recent Sony Pictures email leak specifically states a planned date of May/November for the Xperia Z4. It seems likely this refers to the full-sized Xperia Z4 launch in May and the Z4 Compact in November, 2015. 

Sony Xperia Z4 price

Let’s be real. The Sony Xperia Z range is known for premium materials and hardware. The Z3 features a glass and aluminium housing, 20 MP camera, quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor, 5.2-inch full-HD display and 3 GB RAM. Oh, and it’s waterproof. The Z4 will be at least as powerful, so you can expect to pay top-dollar when it does come around.
The Xperia Z3 is available in the UK for 479 GBP off-contract on Amazon.co.uk, and around 600 USD on Amazon.com. We expect the launch price of the Z4 will be a bit higher than this (the Z3 has been around for a little while now), and if the rumored QHD version actually is in production, this will cost considerably more. 
IMGL1142
The Xperia Z3 (left) alongside the Z3 Compact - Sony's Omnibalance design ethic is here to stay for the time being.  / © ANDROIDPIT

Sony Xperia Z4 display

While Sony has previously claimed that it doesn't believe in QHD technology due to the battery life trade-off, a recent leak has speculated that the Z4 will come in two versions: one with a QHD display and one with a full-HD display.
The news comes from Taiwanese site ePrice.com which claims that the QHD version will be released in US only. It's an interesting notion, and one that seems credible. Sony needs to do something to improve its poor smartphone sales, and with "screen resolution" being arguably the largest aspect of smartphone/tablet marketing in the West, it might be foolish for Sony to stick with full-HD only for its new flagship.
Also of note from ePrice, apparently the Z4's front camera will be a significant improvement from that of the past Xperia Z devices (if only Sony could fix the main camera's red-hue representation). 
androidpit sony xperia z3 xperia z2 1
Will the Z4 come in QHD and full-HD versions? / © ANDROIDPIT
A supposed leaked internal document from Sony hit the internet late last year via phonearena who claimed the same source (tech site toranji.ir) accurately revealed iPhone 6 schematics previously. The leaked images not only suggest a 5.2-inch QHD display, but also 3 GB of RAM, a Snapdragon 805 processor and Android 5.0 Lollipop. Take a look at what we're talking about below. 
androidpit sony xperia z4 presentation two
This is one of the leaked presentation slides which is believed to depict the Xperia Z4. / © toranji.ir
androidpit sony xperia z4 presentation one
A close look at the image reveals the what may be the Xperia Z4's internal specs. / © toranji.ir
This rumor is more than a little fishy to us. Firstly, we aren't sure why the overlaid text says Android 5.1 Lollipop. In the picture, it is clearly "5.0". The text is in English despite tornaji.ir writing in Persian - we don't know who it was added by. Secondly, it strikes us as a weird slide for an internal presentation anyway: what is its function? The text at the top left is barely visible. Lastly, with the Snapdragon 810 arriving on schedule (it can be found in the soon-to-be-released LG G Flex 2), this is probably going to be the processor that ends up on the Z4 launch. 
Another recent rumor came from a blog going by the name of futuresupplier.com which leaked what it claims is the Xperia Z4 LCD digitizer. What a "digitizer" is, for those who aren't aware, is the glass sheet that covers a smartphones display and translates your swipes and presses into digital information (i.e. it tells your phone when and how you have touched the screen). From this we can get an impression of how the front of the device will look.
As you can see from the pictures, the Z4 looks to have a similar screen-size to that of the 5.2-inch Z3. The top speaker has been moved from the top-centre to the top-right of the handset, while the camera flash and proximity sensor have swapped sides. The speaker at the bottom of the screen is also not apparent on the Z4 digitizer, so we presume this will be making its way to the underside of the device, if the rumor pans out. Check out the image below.
androidpit xperia z4 lcd touch digitizer
The Xperia Z4 display seems to have adopted a very similar design aesthetic to the Xperia Z3. / © Future Supplier
We honestly know nothing about FutureSupplier, it seems to have gotten its hands on a Note Edge digitizer in the past (after it was released), but this in-and-of-itself doesn't say much about its credibility. If Sony is running with the design above, however, it seems likely that it will implement a QHD display, given that there doesn't appear to be a real change in the display dimensions (even though 5.2-inches seems small for a QHD screen).

Sony Xperia Z4 specs

Android Origin has previously speculated that a 5.5-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) display will appear the Xperia Z4. The rest of the specs revealed include a 64-bit compatible quad-core Snapdragon 810, 4 GB of RAM, and 32 GB as the base model for internal storage. 
Category 6 LTE (up to 300 Mbps download speeds) and Bluetooth 4.1 are a given, but one of the most exciting tidbits is that the Xperia Z4 might be getting amplifiers for its speakers, creating an audio experience like HTC's BoomSound. We'll just wait and see how much of this pans out, but if all this works out as leaked, then the ''minor upgrade to fit the six-month update cycle'' problem may be a thing of the past, because the Z4 looks to be shaping up as seriously next-gen if it appears on schedule.
androidpit snapdragon 810 graph
These are just some of the features Qualcomm's new chipset will bring. / © Qualcomm Technologies

Sony Xperia Z4 camera

In a press release found on sony.net, Sony has announced its new smartphone camera sensor, the Exmor RS IMX230, claimed to be industries first "Stacked CMOS Image Sensor with an Image Plane Phase Detection Signal Processing Function for High-Speed AF". (In plain English, the high-speed autofocus means that any moving objects in your picture will be less blurry.) 
The new 21 MP sensor is said to bring better performance in HDR mode, and also a higher level of detail in HD videos. Capable of recording at 30 FPS with 4K resolution (4096 x 2160), the stacked CMOS image sensor will capture videos much like it would take a normal photo, check out the image below for an example. 
androidpit sony camera sensor xperia z4
The still on the right, taken from a video produced by the new 21 MP IMX230 sensor, shows the improvement offered when recording in HDR. / © Sony
The sensor supports 192 different autofocus points, reducing noise and increasing detail by a significant margin. Based on the flagship rumors we have so far, it looks like Sony is (maybe unsurprisingly) going to lead the pack in terms of camera technology in 2015.
Previously we had seen a leaked Sony document on sonyalpharumors.com which suggests that Sony is producing a different, but even more impressive image sensor. Said to be the the world's first active pixel color sampling sensor (APCS), the document claimed to reveal that Sony is producing a 1.5-inch sensor with 4.8 million pixels, which doesn't seem so impressive until you consider that each individual pixel is said to be capable of carrying full RGBG information thanks to Sony's new technology. (This basically means 1 pixel created by this camera sensor can perform the job of 4 regular pixels.) To the end-user, this would mean higher-dynamic range, faster processing, lower-noise, no need for anti-aliasing, an electronic global shutter, and 2K video recording at 16,000 FPS, and a mega-pixel count which stretches far beyond the current 21 MP smartphone cap. 
It's still entirely possible that this sensor is in development by Sony, but probably for a digital camera, rather than a smartphone. It is suspiciously advanced technology, even for a next-gen flagship, and we think it's far more likely that we will see the aforementioned IMX230 sensor on the Xperia Z4. 

Sony Xperia Z4 features

It's safe to assume that Android Lollipop will be running on any flagship device released this year, so you can bet the Z4 will come with the latest version out of the box.
That's basically what we think we know about the Xperia Z4. We'll update this page with more information as we get it, until then, you might want to check out how the Z3 compares to another modern flagship in our Xperia Z3 vs LG G3 comparison.
Are you excited about the Xperia Z4? Do you think the leaked specs can be done in time?

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