The Google Play Edition (GPe) versions of the Sony Z Ultra and HTC One M8 have been waiting patiently for their Lollipop updates ever since the suite of Nexuses past got it a few weeks ago. We heard of some delays that had been put on the One M8 Lollipop update, but now users are beginning to report confirmation of the Sony Z Ultra OTA update rolling-out.
The Sony Z Ultra (lacking the ‘Xperia’ moniker because Sony has that part of the device’s name relate to the software features and experience that it builds in on top of pure Android) is the huge 6.44-inch water-resistant mega-flagship from mid-2013 by the Japanese camera gurus at Sony. The device has been sitting huge at Android 4.4 (KitKat), since two weeks after Halloween 2013 when it was first released on the Nexus 5. The phone, however discontinued it is from Google’s own Play Store, can still be found online and used as your phone-tablet every day.
The device, for those who might not know or remember, features a huge 6.44-inch display, with 1920 by 1080 pixels for resolution. It’s got a glass-paneled body, with Sony’s now-signature silver button for powering the screen on and off, with flaps to cover the various ports and slots the phone needs to function and be as great as its smaller sibling, the Sony Xperia Z. The Z Ultra has a Snapdragon 800 processor backed up with 2 gigabytes of RAM, so the exact same processor pairing as the Nexus 5, who gladly accepted Lollipop and is running it just fine as you read. It’s also got an 8 megapixel camera, with enough pixels to take a great picture then show it off like you would on a tablet or picture frame. The device also had 16 gigabytes of internal storage with expansion made possible thanks to Sony’s inclusion of a MicroSD card slot, since you’d get less storage than you might expect, especially given the subsequent post-launch software updates.
This device will be a nice contrast to the host of ‘normal sized’ smartphones getting Android Lollipop, especially since the Google Now experience will be scaled up for a phone, but not changed like it would be on a small tablet like the Nexus 7. The Z Ultra is still a perfectly capable device, and it’s great to see the latest in Android hitting the biggest handset of 2013. Do you have a Google Play Edition Z Ultra? Have you played with Lollipop, and what do you think will look the best on Sony’s hardware out of the new features and design changes? Let us know down below, especially if you’ve gotten the OTA.