Sony Honami has been rumored to have one of the best, if not the best, cameras in the Android market later this year, thanks to its 20MP resolution sensor, that’s also 1/2.3″ in size, and comes with a BIONZ image sensor and Sony G lens. Now we find out from a Chinese source that this phone will be great not just at photography, but also at video recording, as it will be capable of recording in 4k resolution. That would make it the first phone to be capable of that.
Unlike the “3D revolution” for TV’s, I believe the 4k one will actually stick, and people will be buying 4k TV’s as soon as they’re available for reasonable prices. The 4k (or rather UHD) resolution is basically “retina” for 1080p resolutions (4x more pixels), and we should start seeing it on PC’s before too long, too. Then, after more people get these kinds of displays, they’ll be craving for 4k content, of which there isn’t a lot right now. Youtube started supporting 4k video a while ago, so smartphones with 4k recording should help 4k videos take off soon.
If Sony promotes this feature well, customers could see it as a major advantage over other smartphones out there, especially when combined with their point-and-shoot-grade camera for photography. This is really what Sony should focus on with the Sony Honami smartphones, and I’m sure that’s exactly what they’ll do.
I am disappointed about some things about Honami, though. While the phone seems very thin, and it seems impressive they’ve managed to put a 1/2.3″ sensor under such a flat and thin surface (unlike the Lumia 1020, which does have a bigger sensor, but with a huge bump on the back), I’m not so impressed with the bezels on it. They seem very large for a 2013 smartphone, when phones like LG G2, Moto X and even Galaxy S4, are very efficient in terms of screen-to-body ratio. It’s all the more surprising that Sony, who’s been making such thin phones, are the ones to go wit huge bezels.
If the phone isn’t much larger than normal 5″ smartphones, then customers might be able to overlook that if the camera is indeed very good, and all of its other specs seem top-notch, too, such as the processor and the quantum dots Triluminos display.