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A new leak details the specifications of the Sony Xperia XZ4, the upcoming flagship smartphone offering of the Japanese tech firm Sony. According to the industry insider Ice Universe, the Xperia XZ4 will feature the Snapdragon 855 chipset from Qualcomm. The leak also indicates that the device will sport a 6.55-inch display from LG with a resolution of FHD+ and an aspect ratio of 21:9. The handset will reportedly include 6GB of RAM and it will be available in variants that contain either 64GB or 256GB of internal flash storage. However, there is no information available on whether the handset supports the expansion of the internal storage using a microSD card.
The Xperia XZ4 will also mark the return of two hardware features, which are the side-mounted fingerprint sensor and the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. Sony dropped the headphone jack and moved the fingerprint sensor from the side to the back when it debuted the Ambient Flow design language starting with the Xperia XZ2 and the Xperia XZ2 Compact. The device also features a super wide-angle front-facing camera, and it will reportedly sport three rear shooters. The imaging module of the smartphone’s main rear camera will have a sensor size of 1/2.3 inches and it will support optical image stabilization. The handset will reportedly have a thickness of 8.9-millimeters, and it will also contain a 3,900mAh battery.
Background: Several leaks already detailed the design of the Sony Xperia XZ4. A publication recently released the CAD-based images of the device several months before the launch of the device, while a case designed specifically for the upcoming device offering was also leaked recently. Both the CAD-based images and the leaked device case corroborates with at least some of the details provided by Ice Universe. For example, both leaks show that the device will have a side-mounted fingerprint sensor located on the right side of the smartphone along with the volume rocker, the power button, and the dedicated camera key. The leaked case also shows that the Xperia XZ4 will likely have a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack placed beside the USB Type-C port. The smartphone does not include a notch above the display, and it instead features a thicker bezel above the screen to accommodate the handset’s front-facing camera, earpiece, and sensors.
At this point, there is little information available on whether the Xperia XZ4 will use an LCD or an OLED display, although the Xperia XZ3 utilizes an HDR OLED display. Furthermore, the Snapdragon 855 chipset included with the Xperia XZ4 should offer better performance and improved power efficiency compared to the Snapdragon 845 SoC sported by its predecessors, the Xperia XZ2 and the Xperia XZ3. The device will reportedly ship with Android 9 Pie pre-installed, with Sony’s proprietary skin running on top of Google’s operating system.
Impact: Sony made an interesting decision to bring back both the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack and the side-mounted fingerprint sensor with the Xperia XZ4 since it is quite rare that the smartphone manufacturers bring back features that were removed in previous generations of their products. In addition, when Sony shipped its devices to the United States, it usually deactivates its side-mounted fingerprint scanners, and it would be interesting to see if the Japanese tech giant will have to do the same once the Xperia XZ4 launches within the next few months.
