For whatever reason, Sony’s product cycle ended up a little bit wonky this year, and as a result we may be looking at two flagship handsets within six months from the Japanese manufacturer.
We’ve know this for a little while now, as the rumours of the existence of the Sony Xperia Z3 started cropping up almost immediately after the EU launch of the Z2. Unfortunately, most of those rumours leaned pretty heavily on the notion that the Z3 would be similar to the Z2 in terms of specification.
These rumours now have some real concrete foundation, and it would seem that the Z3 certainly is similar to the Z2. Very similar.
The upcoming device, under the product code name ‘L55t’ has appeared on the TENAA’s website. Anyone who’s followed our spec leaks before will know that the TENAA is China’s communications commission, who have to register and sanction the release of every smartphone to be made or sold in the country. So it’s pretty safe to say that the following information is accurate.
Let’s run through what’s actually changed first of all. The processor is still a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, but the clock speed is up from 2.3GHz to 2.5GHz – not bad, but the inclusion of the Snapdragon 805 would have been better. The device also measures in at 146.5 x 72.4 x 7.35mm, which is marginally smaller than the Z2’s 146.8 x 73.3 x 8.2mm. It also weighs almost 5g less, at 158.4g. The Z2 weighed 163g.
The rest is as-you-were, though. There’s the same excellent 20.7MP rear-facing camera (coupled with a 2MP front-facing lens), there’s still a plentiful 3GB of RAM, and on-board storage is limited to 16GB with an SD card slot for expansion.
The official reveal should come at IFA early this September, but frankly it doesn’t seem like there’s too much to reveal. That the Z2 had too much in common with the Z1 was one of our main gripes with the device when reviewing it. It seems like Sony hasn’t learned.
It will surely still be an excellent device, but if you’ve only recently purchased the Z2 you’re hardly going to be tempted to part with your handset (or money).
