Sony has officially unveiled the Xperia Z4: Snapdragon 810, 5.2-inch 1080p display and 20.7MP camera

We’ve been wondering how long it would take for Sony to officially unwrap their flagship for 2015, but the company did so this morning as they announced the Sony Xperia Z4 in their home territory of Japan. So what’s on tap?

Nothing out of the ordinary, really. This is Sony as we’ve come to know and love them, with a familiar design that has graced many-a phone in the Xperia lineup over the past couple of years.

It isn’t identical to any previous designs, mind you, but the subtle tweaks to things like the outside corners of the chassis and speaker placement are sure to be under-appreciated by all but the most hardcore Sony fans. The Sony Xperia Z4 features a metal frame and doesn’t do anything to compromise its ability to be dust and water resistant, something that has become an important point of emphasis for Sony in recent times.

Under the hood is a different story: this phone is an absolute beast, and no Sony phone has yet to boast such an impressive set of specs. Take a look at what will have its motors running:

• 5.2-inch 1920 × 1080 display


• Snapdragon 810 chipset (64-bit)


• 20.7MP Exmor RS camera with 4K video recording


• 5.1-megapixel wide-angle selfie cam


• 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage w/ microSD slot


• 2930mAh battery


• 146 x 72 x 6.9mm, 144g


• Android 5.0 Lollipop

So when can you get it? That question is a bit more tricky to answer. Sony has only given a Summer release expectation as it pertains to Japan’s launch, and didn’t even mention plans to launch in other countries.

We’re sure they will bring it to other markets eventually — their previous flagships have launched for international markets — but there’s no official word or any further details right now. Let us know if you’ll be looking to grab Xperia Z4 should the opportunity to purchase one eventually arrive.

 

HTC has officially unveiled the HTC One M9

Talk about the HTC One M9 at AndroidForums.com!

It’s finally happened, folks — HTC has officially unveiled the HTC One M9. What you see here is what you’re going to get this year, which is a refined design based on the HTC One M7 and HTC One M8.

HTC One M9 Specs

The HTC One M9’s specs are as we’ve always known:

• 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset


• 5-inch Super LCD3 1080p display


• 3GB of RAM


• 32GB of internal storage with microSD


• 20 megapixel rear camera, 4 megapixel (UltraPixel) front camera


• GPS, WiFi AC, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, 4G LTE


• 5.68 x 2.73 x 0.38 inches, 4.96 ounces


• Android 5.0 Lollipop with HTC Sense

Nothing crazy, nothing huge, but solid all around. The most significant jumps are in areas of camera, RAM and chipset — those were bumped from 4 megapixels (UltraPixel) to 20 megapixels, 2GB to 3GB, and a Snapdragon 801 Quad-Core to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 octa-core, respectively.

HTC One M9 features

BoomSound speakers on the HTC One M9 enjoy the same design, but a new partnership with Bose will bring “5.1 channel” surround sound. It likely isn’t true “surround” sound, but its stereo speakers should do well enough to emulate that unidirectional audio experience.

HTC didn’t have much to show on the software side of things, but they did reveal a new contextual home-screen experience that can attempt to predict which apps you need depending on location and time of day, and even suggest new ones that you haven’t downloaded.

HTC One M9 Dot View case

Making a return this year is the HTC Dot View case for the HTC One M9, and boy is it looking good. Alongside basic functionality of showing info about weather, time and incoming calls and notifications, you can customize Dot View with your own pictures and text, play games and do more great things that weren’t previously possible.

Many of these ideas were already made possible on the HTC One M8 thanks to the development community so it’s great to see HTC embrace that and bring a new level of customization for those who crave it.

HTC One M9 Pricing and Availability

The HTC One M9 will be available from mid-March in the EMEA, Asia Pacific, EU and North America, and will be available in Gun Metal Gray, Silver + Gold, and Pink. Expect it to cost 0 off contract here in the United States, with standard contract pricing likely to be in the 0 ballpark.

Oppo R7 and Oppo R7 Plus officially unveiled with full metal unibody design

Oppo sat a bunch of us tech journos down in a nice Beijing hall earlier today and revealed what you see above — it’s the Oppo R7 and Oppo R7 Plus. These are perhaps the most compelling smartphones we’ve seen from Oppo yet as they’ve gone great lengths to ensure the devices’ premium status.

One of the ways they did that was by making them full metal unibody designs, which isn’t a feat unique to them but certainly an important distinction if they want major attention in 2015. Oppo is also using 2.5D curved glass to make for a natural curve at the edges of the device.

So, what about the specs themselves? Here’s what you can expect from the base Oppo R7:

• 5-inch AMOLED 1080p display


• 1.5GHz 8-core Qualcomm chipset (MSM8939)


• 2,320mAh battery with VOOC fast charging (non-removable)


• 3GB of RAM


• 16GB of internal storage


• 13 megapixel rear camera, 8 megapixel front camera

The Plus variant shares much of the same specs, though the display size is bumped to 6 inches and there’s a bigger 4,100mAh battery inside. You’ll also get a bump in base storage to 32GB by opting for the bigger model.

We should also note that while the cameras enjoy the same megapixel count, the R7 uses a 3M2 sensor while the R7 Plus uses Sony’s IMX278 and has the added benefit of getting laser-assisted autofocus. We’re not sure if that’ll make a huge difference in terms of picture quality but we’ll certainly be looking to find out.

One other final difference worth noting is that the R7 launches with KitKat while the R7 Plus will come with Lollipop from the go. There shouldn’t be much reason to worry, though, as Oppo promises a full upgrade to Lollipop for the base R7 model down the line.

Unfortunately Oppo didn’t have much in the way of pricing and availability at the ready, but if they’re hoping to get this thing into the public’s eye before the summer smartphone wars heat up then we’re sure it won’t be long. Stay tuned for our continued coverage of the launch of the Oppo R7 live from Beijing, including hands-on and first impressions!

Stand-alone Google Photos readies for launch, could be unveiled at Google I/O 2015 [RUMOR]

There are few things that we’re looking forward to more than the break up of Google+ and Photos in an all new standalone backup/editing solution for Android. Known as Google Photos, it’s been heavily rumored for what feels like ever now, only recently confirmed by Google execs during various talks.

Today, Bloomberg is reporting that Google Photos is just about ready to go live, with an official debut happening during this year’s Google I/O developer conference. Aside from just backing up photos and giving users access to near professional grade editing tools, Google Photos will allow users to publish their images directly to social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Google, of course, wouldn’t comment on these latest rumors, but it only makes sense. Google typically reveals new features not only coming to Android, but their web services like Google+. With former Google+ head Vic Gundotra gracefully bowing out, it’s entirely possible we’ll see less Google+ and arguably funner stuff than just social networking.

Official: Meizu MX5 unveiled with MediaTek’s Helio X10 Turbo chipset

Meizu has officially announced their latest handset. It’s the Meizu MX5, and it’s got a lot of reasons to make us take notice. The biggest will be its use of MediaTek’s latest Helio X10 chipset.

Specifically, it uses the X10 Turbo, which pairs 8 Cortex-A53 cores at 2.2GHz with a PowerVR G6200 GPU. That’s a whole lot of horsepower, and it’s said that it can stand toe-to-toe with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 and Samsung’s Exynos 7420. It also has 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM.

Other specs include a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a 20 megapixel rear camera with dual-tone flash and laser autofocus, 5 megapixel front camera, mTouch 2.0 fingerprint scanner (which boasts improved speed, accuracy and security), Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, dual-band WiFi AC and more.

As for its build, you can expect a nice 100% metal unibody design that’s just 7.6mm thin. All of it will be used to run Flyme 4.5, which is Meizu’s custom user experience sitting on top of Android Lollipop.

So when and where can you get it? Unfortunately that information is still under lock and key, though we aren’t expecting a full worldwide launch like some of the options from Samsung and HTC (nor are we expecting it to cost as much as those guys’ wares).

[via Meizu]