This past April, Sony unveiled their newest phone in its Xperia line the Xperia Z4 with an odd slight twist. The Xperia Z4 would only be available to customers in Sony’s home country of Japan. Not surprisingly this left the tech world with a lot of questions about the future of the Xperia line internationally. A month later Sony answered those questions by releasing an identical phone to the Xperia Z4 only this time calling it the Xperia Z3+ for consumers outside of Japan. What also made this news even stranger is that the Xperia Z4 and Xperia Z3+ are almost identical to 2014’s Xperia Z3 with only a few slight upgrades. One spec that did not get an upgrade and was carried over from the Xperia Z3 to the Xperia Z4 and Xperia Z3+ was the excellent 20.7- megapixel camera that won rave reviews in 2014.
DxOMark a French image software processing company that has been ranking smartphone cameras since 2012 have rated the Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4 the third best smartphone cameras on the market today. The Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4 trail only the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 in overall quality. DxOMark even has both Apple iPhone 6’s the standard and the larger Plus ranked directly behind the Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4, despite both iPhones being universally hailed for having excellent cameras. DxOMark ranks both photo and video capabilities on each phone it runs through a test. It gave the Xperia Z3+ and the Xperia Z4 a score of 84% for photo and a score of 79% for video with an overall score of 82%. DxOMark said the Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4 have good overall exposure and white balance in its photos. While also having fast and accurate autofocus in bright light conditions, but lacking with strong color shading visible in outdoor conditions. The video test proved the Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4 had good texture preservation, but they also said the autofocus was slow while filming.
As great as this Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4 cameras have graded out to be, U.S. audiences will only get to see the Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4 as a third variant the Verizon only Sony Xperia Z4v. The Xperia Z4v is the chubby little brother of the original Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4.While It keeps most of the same specs, it comes with a Quad HD display and a bigger battery all while tipping the scales with more than half an ounce more weight added to it. The Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4 have already been released overseas while the Xperia Z4v won’t hit Verizon till sometime later this summer.