The Sony Xperia ZL, the close brother to the Xperia Z. Both of which were announced at CES last month. We know it’s heading to Europe in April, and now Canada in April, but what about the US? But April isn’t in Q1, which initially is when the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL were supposed to become available. As far as carriers go for Canada, it’ll be available on Bell, Mobilicity, MTS, Rogers, Videotron, and Wind. Hopefully that’s a sign of things to come for the US. Since that’s just about every major carrier in Canada.
So what about the specs? Yeah it’s been a little bit since the Xperia ZL was announced, so let’s go ahead and refresh your memory with some specs of this device:
- 5-inch 1080p display; “shatter-proof sheet on scratch-resistant glass”
- 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor
- 2GB of RAM
- 13MP rear-facing camera; 2MP front-facing camera
- 16GB internal storage; Expandable via MicroSD card slot, up to 64GB
- 2370mAh battery
- Android 4.1.2; Upgradeable to Android 4.2
Not bad specs at all for a Sony device in 2013. It’s also great to see Android 4.1.2 coming pre-installed and an update to Android 4.2 coming soon. Although how soon is that? Hopefully they won’t take to long getting the update out to Xperia ZL owners once the device launches in April. Now we’ve already seen the Xperia Z go up for pre-order in other parts of the world for nearly $700. Now that’s a bit much for those specs. That’s the price of 2 Nexus 4’s, which you could probably get before the Xperia ZL is in your hands. There is no word on pricing yet, but we’d still expect the full retail to be $700 and a contract price of around $150-200. Remember, Canada still does 3-year contracts, so their subsidies are even lower than in the US.
All of this leaves us wondering, when is either the Xperia Z or ZL going to get announced for the US? You’d expect it to at least release on AT&T, since just about every other Sony phone has been an AT&T exclusive in the US so far. If we hear anything we’ll be sure to let you know. Are you any of our Canadian friends looking to grab the Xperia ZL when it becomes available in April?