There are only a couple of weeks left until the Sony Honami will be unveiled, and the latest rumors from an XDA developer say that its official name (Honami has always been a “code name” for it) will actually be Sony Z1, and it’s going to be the first smartphone from the “One Sony” company.
What that means is that there will be a lot more “Sony” in this phone than “Sony Ericsson”, as different formerly fragmented Sony divisions start working better together to take advantage of all the expertise and know-how of Sony engineers to create great products.
With everything we know so far about the Sony Z1, it does seem like it will be a pretty feature-packed smartphone in a nice very Xperia Z-like package. Initially it was rumored that the Honami/Z1 would have a very different design, too, but perhaps they decided the Xperia Z design was already very liked and they should continue with that for now. A phone with a very flat back might also work better for those upcoming “lens-cameras”, that are supposed to be announced in the same day with the Sony Z1.
Sony Z1 could be Sony’s flagship that could really put it “on the map” in terms of how competitive it is against Samsung, LG, HTC, or Motorola’s flagships this year. The fact that it’s rumored to come with a Snapdragon 800 processor, a Triluminos quantum dots display that’s supposedly even better than the Super LCD3 that’s in the HTC One, and a much awaited 20 MP camera,with a 1/2.3″ sensor, Sony G lens, and a BIONZ image processor, that should be able to beat at the very least all Android smartphones out there in terms of camera performance (unless the new Nexus phone surprises us this fall).
There’s still one thing that could slow Sony’s growth down – and that is not being able to sell the device in US to all carriers, under one model and one name. I think it would still be very successful outside of US, but launching in US could give them maybe not twice the sales from the US market alone, but definitely twice the media coverage, if not more. Having your phone being used by writers on big tech news websites could help Sony’s image a lot, instead of having them discuss a phone that they’ve only used during the few days they’ve had it for review, and then forgot all about it.