Sony’s New Xperia Z3+ Is An Iterative Upgrade Of Its 2014 Flagship Smartphone

Sony announced its new Xperia Z4 in its native Japan last month, and today it has a new smartphone for the rest of us… it’s called the Xperia Z3+, not the Z4, however.

As the name implies, the Z3+ is an upgrade on its older sibling device, which was announced last September. Sony has kept the same 5.2-inch 1080p IPS screen and, though thinner (at 6.9mm) and lighter (144g), the new device is aesthetically very similar to its predecessor.

The Z3+’s rear camera retains the same 20.7-megapixels, while the front-facing camera has been bumped to five megapixels from 2.2-megapixels to help make your selfies clearer and better. With the Z3+, both cameras — not just the rear camera — now pack mobile image sensors which help take higher quality images in low-light conditions.

As you’d expect, there’s also a new processor under the hood. The Z3+ runs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 octa-core 64 bit processor, which Sony claims “gives anything up to 50% more speed than previous processors whilst conserving battery power.” For now, we understand that is “up to two days battery life” — that’s despite Sony’s shrinking the device’s battery down to 2,900mAh (from 3,100Ah) due to accommodate the smaller size.

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The Xperia Z3+ is due to go on sale this summer. Sony isn’t saying how much it will sell for, at this point, but you can imagine it will get a pricetag similar to the Z3 when it launched.

Apple went big with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ last year, and Samsung also threw away some of its core principles for the Galaxy S6 and curvy Galaxy S6 Edge, but Sony has kept to its formula for this year’s flagship device. While the Xperia Z3 was well received, it didn’t set the world alight in terms of sales, and it’s hard to see how an iterative new version — while good on paper — will change things for Sony, which reportedly entertained the idea of exiting the smartphone business.

Ultimately, Sony jettisoned other parts of its business to focus on its entertainment and component units, but it could yet reevaluate its smartphone business if things continue as they’ve been going.