Sony has been under the radar lately and besides countless leaks about their upcoming flagship device, the story ends there for them. But today, the company has announced a new flagship device in their home country, Japan.

Continuing their number scheme, this new flagship is called the Xperia Z4 and according to reports from hi-tech, this device will be exclusive to Japan and Sony will unveil an international model of the Xperia Z4 in May.

Moving on to the device itself, just about 6 months ago, the Xperia Z3 was unveiled during IFA 2014 and included probably the most significant change in the series. The Xperia Z4 in the other hand follows in the line of it's predecessors. Externally, Sony is still keeping up their omni balance design which features a metal frame on the sides and glass on both the front and back.

The significant changes are all inside the Xperia Z4, Sony has upgraded their flagship to the brand new Snapdragon 810 CPU which is found on the LG G4 and HTC One M9. 3GB of RAM is onboard and Sony has increased the internal storage to 32GB and it does support microSD cards. On the front, the 5.2" 1080P Triluminous display is still there, no fancy Quad HD display included.

For the most part the cameras are still the same but Sony has improved the front facing camera to a new 5.1MP wide angle camera which features digital stabilization to help you take better selfies. The 20.7MP camera is still the same one found in the whole Xperia Z lineup but Sony has added a new "cooking mode" which apparently helps users take better photos of food.

Probably the biggest change on the Xperia Z4 is the battery capacity, instead of putting in a bigger battery, Sony has opted to reduce the battery capacity from the 3100mAh capacity on the Xperia Z3 to the oddly numbered 2,930mAh battery on the Xperia Z4. However, this change helped Sony reduce the thickness of the device by 0.4mm (Xperia Z3: 7.3mm; Xperia Z4: 6.9mm) and it's also 8g lighter.

That is about it for what's changed on the Xperia Z4, the device is still IP68 rated and runs Android 5.0 Lollipop atop of what looks to be the same Xperia software from 2 years ago. Sony says the Xperia Z4 will be available in Japan during the Summer (May-June) and if you want to check out more on the Xperia Z4, do check out Engadget Japan's coverage




SOURCE: ENGADGET via SONY