Sony Unveils Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Xperia Smartphone

Sony's new entrant in the smartphone category distinguishes itself by resisting water and dust, and also jumps on a few mobile-device trends as well. To gain traction, however, it needs a bigger U.S. carrier foothold. "When you have Apple and Samsung owning 90 percent of this market," said ABI Research analyst Michael Morgan, "it's tough."

Sony Mobile Communications announced the newest model in its Xperia line, the waterproof and dustproof Xperia Z.

Sony Xperia Z

The 4G LTE device has a 13-MP camera and a five-inch full HD 1080p Reality display powered by Sony's Bravia Engine 2. It is built around a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, and runs Android Jelly Bean 4.1.

The Xperia Z, which is Sony Mobile's new flagship device, comes preloaded with the company's Walkman, Album and Movies apps.

Owners can share music, photos and videos between the Xperia Z and NFC-enabled Sony devices, including speakers, headphones and the new Bravia TV.

"No other smartphone manufacturer can provide consumers with access to the complete ecosystem of entertainment, hardware and connectivity between devices which Sony can," Stephen Sneeden, Xperia product marketing manager at Sony Mobile, told TechNewsWorld. "With our media applications, we are bringing people a much richer and consistent  entertainment experience across a range of Sony devices."

The Xperia Z Experience

The Xperia Z has a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 1920 x 1080 p resolution that has an on-screen QWERTY keyboard. It has tempered glass and anti-shatter film on the front and back, and is dust- and water-resistant.

A couple of features -- the Bravia Engine tie-in to the screen and the Fast Capture feature in the smartphone's 13-MP rear camera -- were introduced in the Xperia Ion last year.

The rear camera has the back-illuminated Exmor RS sensor, HDR video and noise reduction. It also has face detection, auto focus, burst mode and offers 16x digital zoom.

There is a front-facing 2.2-MP 1080p camera with geotagging and the ability to record HD video.

The Xperia Z's processor runs at 1.5 GHz, and the device has a Battery Stamina mode that improves standby time at least 400 percent by turning off background data use when the screen is turned off -- if it's enabled. The camera also has a whitelist that lets select apps remain active.

The smartphone will run Android 4.1 at launch, and will be upgraded to Android 4.2 shortly after that.

Connectivity includes LTE, HSPA+, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC.

Pre-loaded applications include the Walkman app, which provides access to a user's downloaded music and a library of 18 million songs, and various Google applications, among which are Play, search, voice search and maps.

The Xperia Z has a microSD card slot that can take cards with up to 32-GB capacity.