Sony Xperia Z4 to Ship With the New Exmor RS IMX230 Camera Sensor that is Capable of Capturing Videos Like Normal Photos

The Sony Xperia Z4, Sony's next flagship smartphone, is expected to be officially announced at the upcoming Mobile World Conference 2015 (MWC 2015) in Barcelona on March 2-5, and to hit the stores by April or May 2015, assuming the company keeps up with its current "two flagships a year" track record.

According to GSM Arena, the Xperia Z4 has already been certified by the Japanese Communication Ministry for the country's KDDI, NTT DoCoMo and SoftBank mobile operators. The Xperia Z4 will be seen having two variants - the Xperia Z4 Ultra and the Xperia Z4 Compact, both of which support LTE, including VoLTE, the new generation in voice call technology which is now beginning to gain support from carriers. The phones also support Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac. As gathered by the tech site, the new flagship may be expected to retain the defining features of the Xperia Z3, particularly the 5.2" Triluminos display, water resistance and the traditional Xperia design language. Most likely, said the site, the new flagship will be powered by a Snapdragon 810 chipset, which will bring Cat. 9 LTE connectivity, that's 450Mbps. Both the Xperia Z4 Ultra model and Z4 Compact variation will use the same chipset, but will have screen sizes that are polar opposites - 6.44" and 4.7". The Xperia Z4 Compact will have the usual 20.7MP camera, a 5MP selfie camera, and a 3,000mAh battery. The bigger Xperia Z4 Ultra will have a 16MP camera, 3,500mAh or a 4,000mAh battery.

Perhaps the most anticipated feature of the Xperia Z4 is that it will now come with Sony's new Exmor RS CMOS camera sensor. According to the company's November press release, "this is the industry's first CMOS image sensor for smartphones to be equipped with an onboard image plane phase detection AF signal processing function to achieve excellent focus tracking of fast-moving subjects. The High Dynamic Range (HDR) function, which captures both backgrounds and subjects clearly and vividly even in high-contrast scenes such as backlit locations, now supports high-resolution still images and 4K video recording. This new CMOS image sensor will ship in April 2015."