Reference Auto

Sony had been left behind by miles in the smartphone race with Nokia rolling out the Lumia 920, Samsung the Galaxy S III, the Grand along with the Note II, BlackBerry the 10 series phones and Apple the iPhone 5 hence Sony hopes to do some catching up with its new Xperia Z but will this handset be enough to make Sony rake in in a big way and dent the share of the market leaders (Apple and Samsung)?

The Sony Xperia Z comes with a litany of hi-tech features like a 5-inch full HD display, is water and dust resistant (probably one of the first in the world of mobile phones) and sports a scratch-resistant glass body.

The device comes for Rs 38,990 in the country and would vie with a slew of handsets like HTC Butterfly, Nokia Lumia 920, BlackBerry Z10, Galaxy series handsets and LG Optimus G Pro.

The all-new Xperia Z offers a TFT display which supports 1920x1080p resolution and has a stunning 441ppi pixel density.

The Sony smartphone operates on the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS and is likely to be upgraded to Android 4.2 soon, according to the company.

Sony has implanted the quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait processor and 2 GB RAM in this high-end device. For memory, the handset comes with 16 GB storage along with 32 GB microSD card support.

Connectivity options available in the phone are 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and microUSB 2.0.

Sony Xperia Z has a unique Battery Stamina Mode, which helps spur the standby time by four times by automatically shutting down battery-draining apps when the screen is off. It starts them again once the screen comes back to the ON mode.

Sony also rolled out the Xperia ZL, another Android 4.1 smartphone, with almost the same hardware configuration.

However, the only difference is that the ZL model is thicker and heavier than the Xperia Z and is not water or dust resistant. It is also a tad cheaper at Rs 36,990.

Sony also unveiled its Xperia Tablet Z, a water-and dust-resistant tablet, which runs on the Android 4.1. This device will hit the country in about a couple of months.

Sony’s launching spree of the Xperia Z, the ZL and the Tab Z is an indication that the once leading Japanese electronics major desperately wants to get its top slot back after companies like Apple (with iPads, iPhones and iPods) and Samsung (with its handsets, TVs and other gizmos) literally wiped out the Japanese giant’s presence in less than a decade.

It is to be seen whether Sony can bounce back with these handsets, which have numerous unique features, or whether there is a need to roll out more such handsets to get back the favour of gizmo freaks who had abandoned products of the company, which once ruled the electronics market worldwide.