Sony Xperia Z4 passes certification in Japan

Sony Xperia Z4 is expected to show up at MWC 2015

Though Sony's mobile division keeps reporting losses, their next flagship could be announced in six weeks.

Andrey Konstantinov, Published 01/16/2015

The Japanese electronics giant Sony isn't doing too well recently. The last two weeks have been especially troubling, with rumors of Sony planning to sell its TV and mobile divisions to focus on its other products, the closure of all its 14 retail stores in Canada and no new smartphones or tablets introduced at CES. The last problem, however, will allegedly be rectified very soon: it seems that just like Samsung and HTC, Sony decided to delay the announcement of their new flagship devices until the Mobile World Congress (MWC) exhibition in Barcelona, Spain, which will take place between March 2nd and 5th. It is now known that the Xperia Z4 has been approved by the Japanese regulatory authorities for three major local telecommunications providers: KDDI (model number PM-0792-BV), NTT DoCoMo (PM-0793-BV) and SoftBank (PM-0794-BV). All three variants are VoLTE (Voice over LTE) compatible.

Not much is known about the smartphone's other specifications so far. Apparently, dust and water resistance will be improved and the Triluminos display will once again be used, but its resolution is so far debated. While some sources claim that a 2560x1440 panel will be used, others argue that it will remain at Full HD (1920x1080 pixels). The latter will definitely be less strenuous on the GPU and the battery while still providing a very sharp picture on the phone's 5.2-inch (or 5.4-inch, depending on the source) display, but with most other competitors promising to increase the resolution in their next wave of flagship smartphones and phablets, it could be perceived as a disadvantage by some potential buyers. As for computing power of the Xperia Z4, it's speculated that the phone will be based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805 or even S810 SoC paired with 4 GB of RAM and might ship with Android Lollipop pre-installed. There are also rumors of Sony planning to release the Xperia Z4 Ultra phablet, which, if confirmed, should make the Xperia Z Ultra fans who are eager for better hardware in this form-factor very happy.