The IFA 2013 madness continues! Sony today held its IFA press conference in Berlin, and just as expected, the company officially took the wraps off of the Xperia Z1 smartphone. The Z1 is Sony's new flagship handset, sporting a 5-inch 1080p Triluminos display and the same dust and water resistant OmniBalance design that we've seen on other recent Xperia devices, such as the Xperia Z and Xperia Z Ultra.
The backside of the Xperia Z1 is where we find one of the phone's tentpole features. The Z1 sports a 20.7-megapixel camera with a 1/2.3-inch Exmor RS for mobile CMOS image sensor, G Lens with 27mm wide angle lens and f/2.0 aperture and BIONZ image processing tech. Yeah, that thing's packed to the brim.
The camera goodies don't stop at the hardware, though, as Sony is also including a handful of camera-centric software features. Those include Timeshift Burst, which allows the Z1 to capture 61 images in just 2 seconds, as well as a Social Live mode that lets users broadcast video to Facebook and view comments directly on their device.
While that 20.7-megapixel camera is a big focus of the Xperia Z1, Sony also made sure that its flagship was high-end in several other regards. The Z1 sports a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 3,000mAh embedded battery, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, microSD card slot and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Also included is support for HSPA+ 850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz and LTE bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 20.
So when can you get your hands on one? Thankfully, it won't be long before we're able to give the Xperia Z1 and its beefy camera a test drive, as Sony says that its new handset will begin rolling out globally in September 2013. The Z1 will be offered in black, white and purple color options.
In addition to the Xperia Z1, Sony today made its new "lens-style" camera attachments officially official. Basically cameras that can attach to a smartphone and use the handset's display as a viewfinder, the accessories can help mobile photographers to produce better photos while out and about without having to lug around a dedicated shooter in addition to their phone. The attachments can be paired with an Android or iOS smartphone over NFC and Wi-Fi, and they can also be used while paired but physically detached from the phone when space is tight.
Sony says that there will be two lens-style camera attachments on offer. The QX10 is the lower-end of the pair, sporting an 18-megapixel 1/2.3-inch Exmor R CMOS sensor, 10x optical zoom and $249 price tag. Meanwhile, the higher-end QX100 steps things up to a 20-megapixel 1-inch Exmor R CMOS sensor with 3.6x optical zoom and $499 price. Both models will be sold in black and white variants.
