Having finally scored a homerun, and a desperately needed one at that, Sony is keen to bring another hitter off the bench. And they sure hope it's the Cadillac-driving kind. The Japanese mean business - and the Xperia Z did its best to get that point across. The Xperia ZL now has plenty of momentum to build on but a certain weight of expectations too.
The double-backup is something Samsung has been doing for a couple of years now with a Galaxy S flagship in the spring followed by a Note phablet at the end of summer. Sony's going for what looks more like a one-two punch with the glass-clad, water-proof Xperia Z and the more compact, less extravagant, but just as premium Xperia ZL. The timeframe for their arrival to market has been shortened too - pretty much a must, considering that chipset is only getting older.
At A Glance
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support; 3G with HSPA; LTE
- 5" 16M-color 1080p capacitive touchscreen of 441ppi, Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2
- Android OS v4.1.1 Jelly Bean with custom UI
- Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU, 2 GB of RAM, Adreno 320 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset
- 13 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging, HDR
- 1080p video recording @ 30fps with HDR mode, continuous autofocus and stereo sound
- 2 MP front camera, 1080p video recording
- Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA; Wireless TV out
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
- 16GB of built-in storage; microSD card slot
- MHL-enabled microUSB port
- Bluetooth v4.0
- NFC
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- Shorter footprint than most 5” smartphones