Sony Xperia XZ4: Specs and benchmarks for Sony’s latest flagship leak online

MWC 2019 is fast approaching, and it’s highly likely that Sony will announce a new flagship smartphone in the form of the Xperia XZ4. The Japanese tech firm has made a habit of announcing new Xperia phones every six months: the XZ2 appeared at MWC 2018, and the XZ3 was unveiled in August of the same year.

The Xperia XZ4 is a dead cert: recently leaked benchmarks, renders and specs prove that a new phone is well on its way. But what do we actually know about the latest Sony handset? Read on to find out.

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Sony Xperia XZ4 release date: When will it launch?

If the six-month trend continues, we can expect to see a first look at the Xperia XZ4 at MWC 2019 in February. Based on precedent, it’s likely that the official launch will take place in the following couple of months.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 followed this same template: it was first revealed at MWC in February 2018, and it then launched two months later in April. Currently, there’s been no word on an official release date, but this theory remains exceptionally likely.

Sony Xperia XZ4 price: How much will it cost?

Given the lack of tangible information on the Xperia XZ4, the best we can offer is a well-educated guess at the price.

Both the Xperia XZ2 and XZ3 cost £699 at launch. In an ideal world, this price doesn’t change: £699 was too much for the previous Sony XZ smartphone, but is now relatively inexpensive compared to the £1,000 plus you might be spending on a Samsung Galaxy S10.

Sony has a slightly confusing business model, launching variants of flagship phones at unusual intervals and generally making a mess. As previously mentioned, the XZ3 launched at £699, a full £100 less than the XZ2 Premium which launched only one month before. This tentative attitude to price increases bodes well for our wallets, but does make for some uncertainty on the price of the new handset.

All we can say with any surety right now is that we expect £699 to be the absolute minimum you’ll have to pay for the XZ4.

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Sony Xperia XZ4 specs: What will it offer?

Leaks are springing up everywhere in the build-up to MWC 2019, and we now have a firm idea of how the Sony Xpera XZ4 will look and run. The above image is a CAD render of the phone: the most prominent new feature, as we can clearly see, is the vertical row of three cameras that stretches down the rear of the device. There’s been no confirmation of what purpose these additional lenses will serve, but at least one of them will provide depth-sensing capabilities for those ‘portrait mode’ selfies we all love so much.

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Display and battery

According to a leaked specs sheet, the Xperia XZ4 will have a 6.5in 21:9 OLED QHD+ display, with a resolution of 3660 x 1440p. As the render above suggests, Sony is opting to steer clear of the notch, instead simply tucking the front camera and speaker into a small bezel. To keep this sizeable screen running for longer, it seems that the XZ4 will pack a very reasonable 4,400mAh capacity battery. The specs sheet points out that the phone will also feature some kind of fast charging function.

Processors and memory

As we had first assumed, the Xperia XZ4 will very probably use the Snapdragon 855 chipset. The specs sheet suggests that the new handset will come with 128GB storage as standard; currently, it’s looking like there will be room for a MicroSD card, of up to 512GB in size. 6GB RAM will keep things running as smoothly as possible.

It’s looking increasingly likely that the latest Xperia handset will be blazingly fast. A recently-leaked benchmark test – if it can be trusted – saw the XZ4 score higher than any other high-end smartphone, beating the likes of the iPhone Xs and Huawei Mate 20 Pro.

Software and features

The new Sony handset will run Android 9.0 Pie, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the Japanese manufacturer does away with some of the bloatware that weighs their previous smartphones down. The phone will undoubtedly make use of a USB-C charge port, and seems to be missing a headphone jack; there’s no obvious fingerprint sensor, but reports suggest that Sony will integrate this feature into the power button on the right hand side of the device.

We’ll be updating this page as more information comes to light, so stay tuned.