Sony Xperia Z to hit Indian Stores On 12 March 2013

Sony has announced the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL for India today. The Xperia Z will be available in stores from March 12 onwards and is priced at Rs 38,990. Both phones will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and are already up for pre-order on certain online stores. The two phones will be part of a staggered flagship strategy for the company in India, with the Xperia ZL arriving in stores later this month.

Both phones share many specifications, but we will start with a look at the Xperia Z. One of the biggest selling points for the Xperia Z is its water-proof and dust-proof body. The phone is IP57 certified, which means you can immerse it in up to 1 metre of water for 30 minutes. Despite this rugged heritage, the Xperia Z is incredibly slim at 7.9mm and also features a microSD card slot. Naturally, the back of the Xperia Z is non-removable.

The Z is powered by a Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC, which has four Krait cores ticking at 1.5GHz each. The phone has an Adreno 320 GPU for graphics and 2GB of RAM. All that coupled with Jelly Bean should ensure a very smooth performance. The display on the Xperia Z is said to be a stunner. The 5-inch LCD panel beams out 1920 x 1080 pixels natively, while Sony’s proprietary Mobile Bravia Engine 2 enhances image quality and colour reproduction.

Here's a promo for the Xperia Z, which shows the thinking and engineering that went into designing the phone.

The resolution and the screen size of the phone result in a pixel density of 441 pixels per inch. The display is protected by shatter-proof and scratch-resistant glass. Sony has also baked in niceties like an OptiContrast panel, which is normally reserved for their higher-end Bravia televisions. The technology improves image clarity and boosts the display's contrast ratio while minimising reflections.

The camera on the back is a 13-megapixel one with support for 1080p and HDR video recording. Of course, all of Sony’s camera bangs and whistles like image stabilisation, face detection and 3D Sweep Panorama are present.

Here’s a look at the key specs of the Xperia Z
5-inch TFT LCD with a 1920 x 1080p resolution, 441 PPI

LTE, Cat3, up to 100 Mbps DL, HSPA+, GPRS/EDGE

Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspotGPS with A-GPS support

Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP

GPS with A-GPS support and GLONASS

NFC

13-megapixel camera with HDR video recording, image stabilisation, Sony 3D Sweep Panorama; 2-megapixel front-facing camera with 1080p video recording

16 GB internal storage with microSD card slot

The Xperia Z has a non-removable 2330 mAh battery. Sony’s proprietary Stamina Mode technology should help in increasing battery life by throttling data-hogging apps when in standby mode.

Both the Xperia Z and the ZL will feature some exclusive Sony apps. The company has bundled in a subscription to the new Sony Jive music streaming service, as well as Sony LIV, a video streaming service featuring exclusive Indian content. The Jive service is free for the first six months and users can then opt to subscribe to it after the initial free period.

Here's a quick look at the phone

The Xperia ZL has the same display and processor as its big brother, but loses the water and dust-resilient body. Instead, Sony has managed to fit the 5-inch display in a body smaller than the Galaxy S3. The ZL has a small flap at the back, which houses the SIM and the microSD card slots. The back panel itself is non-removable and houses a 2370 mAh battery, slightly bigger than the Xperia Z.

Another unique design feature is the placement of the front-facing camera, which is housed below the display. The camera on the Xperia ZL is the same 13-megapixel unit as in the Xperia Z and has the same features, including the HDR video mode. The ZL also has an IR blaster and one-touch mirroring features, something that the Xperia Z gives a miss. One other neat inclusion is dual-band Wi-Fi support to play nicely with the 5GHz wireless band.

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List of Phones And Tablets in Queue For Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Upgrade

List of Phones And Tablets in Queue For Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Upgrade

New Delhi: If you own an Android phone or tablet, updating it's operating system is of utmost importance as it will bring many new features and functionalities.

All the companies selling Android devices have more or less announced their plans for the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update. This update will bring exciting features and improvements including speed enhancements, improved search features, and a small voice recognition engine that fits in the device itself, without the need for installing external support. This means for voice recognition and support, the Android device won't require an active internet connection.

Here is what these companies plan to do:

Samsung

The Korean giant is planning to upgrade its Galaxy S3, Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Note to Android Jelly Bean. However, Samsung has not specified how much time it will take to bring these phones to the latest version.

Samsung Nexus S and Nexus Prime, which are part of Google's Nexus lineup, are already getting the update, but then Nexus Prime is not available in India.

Other phones in the Samsung line up like the Galaxy R, Galaxy S Plus and S Advance have the desired specification to support Android 4.1. However, Samsung has not announced any plans to upgrade them. These devices have not even been updated to Android 4.0.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 is also likely to get Android 4.1, but there has been no announcement to that effect till now. Samsung has just announced that older Galaxy Tabs like the 750 will be getting Android 4.0 shortly.

HTC

HTC has announced that it has started working on the Jelly Bean update. One X, One XL and One S are likely to be the first HTC devices to get it.

Some of the older phones like the HTC Desire line might not get updates as most of them are stuck at Android 2.3.

Sony

Sony will update its Xperia 2012 lineup, which includes Xperia S, Xperia P and Xperia Neo etc. It has also backtracked on a statement that the 2011 line-up is not getting the update and has now informed that it is still evaluating which of the phones from 2011 will get the upgrade.

Xperia Arc S is likely to make the cut.

Motorola

Given that Motorola is now owned by Google, updates are expected to come faster. Motorola is already updating Xoom tablets to Android 4.1 and is soon expected to roll-out updates for its flagship Razr lineup and the Atrix 2.

LG

LG has been a laggard in terms of updating its devices. According to some reports, LG Optimus 4X HD will get updated to Android 4.1 but only in the first months of 2013.

Asus

Asus sells only two tablets in India. While it is confirmed that its Transformer Prime TF 201 will get Android 4.1 Jelly Bean shortly, Transformer TF101 is also likely to get the update.

Acer

Acer has also officially announced that it will update some of its Iconia tablets to Android 4.1. However, it has not specified which those tablets are. Given that in India only Iconia A500 and A501 are available and both have high end hardware, they are both likely to get the update.

Karbonn

Karbonn, with Smarttab 1, became the first one to bring a product based on Android 4.1 to India. The company also said that the Smarttab 1 already sold with Android 4.0 will be updated shortly, probably before other manufacturers do so.

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