Sony has been making some really odd moves lately. The company has announced their Xperia Z4 handset quite recently, but they did not market it beforehand or anything of the sort. To make things even more interesting / weird, the company has decided to make this a Japan-only launch. It seems like the global launch will follow soon, but even if that happens, this seems like a really odd move by Sony, especially considering the company (Sony Mobile) isn’t doing all that well lately. Sony Mobile’s smartphone business is having a hard time turning a profit from quarter to quarter. Anyhow, we’re not here to talk about Sony’s new flagship, but a mid-range handset which was just announced in Japan, read on.
The Xperia A4 (SO-04G) is the company’s new mid-range offering, though this is an NTT DoCoMo exclusive it seems. This handset could easily become the Xperia Z4 Compact if Sony opts to launch it globally, the specifications fit the bill, more or less. Speaking of specs, this handset features a 4.6-inch 720p (1280 x 720) Triluminos Display with X-Reality engine along with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of in-built storage which you can expand up to 128GB via a microSD card. The Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor running at 2.5GHz is powering on this handset along with an Adreno 330 GPU for graphics. The 20.7-megapixel shooter (Exmor R sensor) is located on the back of this device, while a 2.2-megapixel camera is available on its front side. Android 5.0 Lollipop comes pre-installed on this device with Sony’s UI placed on top of Google’s operating system. The 2,600mAh battery with STAMINA mode will ship with this device and you also get a 4G LTE support here, of course. This handset has IPX5,8 and IP6X certification for water and dust resistance, it measures 128 x 66 x 9.1mm and weighs 129 grams.
The Sony Xperia A4 comes in Blue, White, Grey and Pink color options and will be available from NTT DoCoMo starting mid-June. Sony did not share any pricing details at the moment, unfortunately. The company has also introduced the Xperia Z4 smartphone and Xperia Z4 Tablet for NTT DoCoMo.
