Sony officially announces Xperia Z and gives release window

The specs on the Xperia Z are what we expected from the rumors. It will be a 5" 1080p display, a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, LTE, a 2330mAh battery, and the highly anticipated new 13MP Exmor RS camera sensor. As we saw in leaked images, the Exmor RS camera sensor will allow for HDR video recording, and a newly announced feature is that it will also offer a 10fps burst mode at 9MP. The phone also has NFC and a microSD card for those of you looking for that. 

An interesting addition to the Xperia Z is that the phone will be water resistant to a depth of one meter. To achieve this, the Xperia Z has glass panels on the front and back, as well as plastic strips on the sides that cover the ports. And, they cover all of the ports from microSD card slot, to headphone jack, to microUSB. 

The phone will be running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which is part of the reason why the March release date is so disappointing, because that will be coming up on Google I/O and the expected announcement of Android 5.0, although Sony has promised an upgrade to 4.2 "soon after launch". Other software enhancements include Sony's ClearAudio+, Bravia Reality Display, and the Bravia Engine 2 which all work to enhance the device's multimedia output. There is also a new Battery Stamina mode, which automatically kills all background processes and apps when the screen is off, delivering "easily four times longer standby" according to Sony. Although, the company didn't happen to mention what this would mean for multitasking. 

source: Sony