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Sony Xperia Z1 shrunk to 4.3 inches in new Xperia Z1F

The Sony Xperia Z1 gets that shrinking feeling with a new, smaller version officially announced in Japan.

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
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Richard Trenholm

Another top-flight smart phone has been minimised. This time it's the Sony Xperia Z1 getting that shrinking feeling with a new, smaller version officially announced.

The Xperia Z1F is a sawn-off version of Sony's waterproof flagship Android smart phone, sporting a 4.3-inch 720p screen instead of the 5-inch display on the Z1.

Underneath the screen there's an impressive line-up of specs, including a quad-core 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB of RAM. It offers 16GB of storage, with NFC and Qi wireless charging to juice up the 2300mAh battery without the aid of wires. The phone runs Android 4.2.

The Z1F has been announced in Japan, but there's no word if it'll come here.

Mini versions of popular smart phones are all the rage these days: Samsung kicked things off with the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini and Galaxy S4 Mini, followed by the HTC One Mini. Sadly, many of these mini phones are minimised in specs too, reducing the performance as well as the size in what you could argue is a scam that uses the good name of a flagship phone to make people think they're buying a better phone than they are. It's good to see Sony avoiding that particular wheeze with the Z1F.

Should the Z1F come here? Is Sony on a roll? Tell me you thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.