Sony Xperia Z3 purportedly pops up with new body
Surfacing in the run-up to the annual IFA trade show, it appears Sony may push its next-gen flagship out the door a few months early.
Sony's next flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z3, appears to have made an early appearance in leaked photos posted by Xperia Blog, which snagged them from China's Twitter-like Weibo.com.
Sony has attempted to breach the high end of the smartphone market with its top-tier Xperia Z line, but hasn't yet hit the strata of an iPhone or Galaxy S. Part of the problem has been the lack of support from carrier partners; its current flagship Xperia Z2 smartphone has yet to find a taker in the US.
That hasn't slowed Sony's pace for the advancement of its smartphones. Based on these first few images it appears Sony may opt for a softer design language for the Xperia Z3, also known as the L55t. The phone's edges and corners are more rounded than its predecessors. Generally speaking, the ports, buttons, and adapters all appear to be in the exact same locations.
The backside of the device reveals the familiar 20.7-megapixel Exmor RS sensor with G Lens is also present. Internally, however, the Xperia Z3 figures to offer users a quad-core 2.5GHz Snapdragon 805 processor, which represents a minor improvement over the Xperia Z2 . It should also boast an Adreno 330 GPU.
In terms of display size, pictures obtained by Xperia Blog indicate the Z3 may stay in the vicinity of 5.2-inches, the same as the Z2. As of today, the device looks to run Android 4.4.4 KitKat, or the latest official version of Android.
It doesn't appear that the Z3 (L55t) is all remarkably different from the current model. But given it has only been a few months since the Z2 (L50t) made its way into various markets, we might expect evolutionary and not revolutionary changes.
Perhaps we'll find out more about Sony's plans in the near future. The annual IFA trade show, roughly six weeks away, has been home to previous Xperia announcements.
CNET has contacted Sony for comment and will update the article with any new information.