Sony - once a dominant force in the mobile space played as the arch nemesis to Nokia back in its heyday ,but once the Sony Ericsson venture collapsed , Sony had difficulty in keeping up with the Jones as their random smartphones were either late in the spec war , or overpriced . With competition getting stiff , Sony could no longer waste money on making Random smartphones with outdated specs , and therefore Sony decided to launch a new flagship series called the Xperia Z .
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| Xperia Z |
The Original Xperia Z was a first for Sony , it offered water resistance , a premium design with glass and metal and specs that rivaled other handset makers .Up to this point Sony phones were regarded as late for the party , but with the Xperia Z , the tables turned and Sony had a proper recipe in its hands .
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| Xperia Z2 |
After the release of the Xperia Z and its spin offs (ZL ,ZR and Tablet Z) , Sony released the Xperia Z1 , this phone was launched in a time where "mini" flagship phones were in demand , and therefore Sony announced the Xperia Z1 and the Z1 C (compact- a phone that had almost exact specs as the larger model) and the ZU - Xperia Ultra , which would become Sony's first and last Google Edition phablet . Later on Sony announced the Xperia Z2 and Z2 tablet - phones which addressed Sony's use of TFT displays by including a proper JDI made IPS panel and the Z3 and Z3 C which brought a few aesthetic upgrades over the Z2 and a update for the compact lineup.
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| Xperia Z3 C |
Stepping up to the 64bit era , Sony announced the Xperia Z4 (also known as Z3+ outside Japan) .The phone had a similar design language as the z3 and therefore the camera module - Sony's 20.7MP sensor remained as well . The phone's popularity was limited and many people forgot about it as Sony announced the Xperia Z5 in the Same year - This series brought three phones - a Premium model , a standard model and a compact model to the table . This was probably Sony's best update yet as the Premium model had a 4K display , a new 23mp sensor and heat pipes long before it became mainstream . The Z5 also had the same 23 mp sensor , but it followed the Xperia Z2's design elements and had a bezel aligned speaker set up ,but the most popular model out of the three is the Xperia Z5 Compact , this had all the specs of its bigger brothers - the Snapdragon 810 , the 23MP camera and water resistance , but had a smaller display and a small reduction in RAM .Although the series was a hit with Sony customers and buyers of compact Android devices , the whole series was generally eclipsed by Samsung and LG - who at this stage owned significant portions of the Android marketshare .
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| Xperia Z5 series |
By this time , Sony was generally taking a back seat in the whole Android game , with 2016 approaching , news of Sony's exit from the mobile industry sent some shockwaves in the Android community and many expected it as HTC was already in a similar situation with its flagship smartphones . Sony however was not prepared to give up on the smartphone game and they later issued a notice that the show will go on , hints about Sony's next gen smartphone's were leaked before its official MWC 2016 event and this showed us that Sony was preparing to unveil some new devices . Although we expected to see the Xperia Z6 and the Z6 tablet , they were not present at the event , but instead Sony launched the Xperia X series which brought forward more questions than answers . First off all , i predicted that the Xperia X lineup would sit somewhere between the Xperia Z and C lienups in terms of specs , but with the Xperia X packing a Snapdragn 820 and a 23mp camera , it was better spec'ed than the entire Xperia Z lineup unveiled last year , but at the same time the X was slightly inferior as it had no water resistance or even 4K video recording , while we wondered on what this new platform was sent out to do , rumors about the Xperia Z platform going under came about , and sadly yesterday , Sony did confirm to us that this is infact true
The Xperia Z line has reached its culmination – Xperia X series represents a new chapter and evolution of our product strategy. Whilst the Xperia Z series was all about bringing the best of Sony’s advanced technologies to smartphones, Xperia X series is based on bringing smart, adaptive Sony user experiences across camera, battery performance and hardware / software design.
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| Xperia X |
The line "Xperia Z line has reached its culmination " means one thing - the Xperia Z lineup is officially over , this was probably due to poor sales , lack or interest or even the lack of ideas on what to do next . The Xperia Z lineup was , as mentioned by Sony - was to bring the best of Sony's advanced technologies to smartphones , this means that the company used its maximum effort to design and manufacture smartphones which probably created a loss for the company in the long run .To overcome this , the Xperia X lineup brings about a single design platform where you could design parts which would be interchangeable or save cost by creating one chassis set up for all , this way Sony can save cost by focusing on designing the internal components rather than designing the exterior in multiple variants , but sadly this also means that the Xperia X would possibly skip the compact versions . Sony's new Xperia X series is a new beginning for Sony as it would incorporate general market technologies into a package that would probably undercut competing smartphones unlike the Xperia Z series smartphones which were sometimes priced too steep . Although we would greatly miss the Xperia Z platform and the compact versions it brought us , this decision would probably mean that Sony's mobile division will live to fight another day and not go down into the history books .The old king is dead , long live the new King ..
Written by Rakitha for MasHD
Sources -
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