Sony announces Xperia Z price in UK at £529

Sony has announced the price of the Xperia Z. The Japanese company's UK website states that the Xperia Z will cost £529 (approximately Rs 45,000) in the UK, but there is no information about its launch or how much it will cost in India. We tried to contact Sony but have not received a reply yet.

Our grey market sources have hinted that the device may make it to Indian shores in the next couple of weeks, but there has been no word from Sony about the launch.

We expected the Xperia Z's price to be in this price bracket, considering it is IP-certified water- and dust-proof. It will be interesting to see how well the device performs in terms of sales against the recently launched HTC Butterfly, or even the relatively older iPhone 5, both of which are in the same price bracket.

The Sony Xperia Z will cost around Rs 45,000

Rs 45,000 seems to have become the new price tag for devices deemed to be high-end. This is very different from even just a year ago, when even high-end phones like the Samsung Galaxy S III or the HTC One X were launched for around Rs 38,000. Even later in 2012, when Samsung came up with the Note II and HTC launched the One X+, the phones cost around Rs 38,000-40,000. This allowed Apple to sell the iPhone 5 for Rs 45,000, but now that all high-end smartphones are coming out at the same price tag, Apple may decide to escalate its pricing or risk losing the ‘premium’ factor people like to flaunt after buying the device.

Sony announced the Xperia Z alongside its near-identical twin, the Xperia ZL, during this year's CES. With this phone, Sony is joining the current trend of stuffing a 1080p resolution display in a 5-inch screen. This gives the device a pixel resolution of 443 ppi. The effect such a high-resolution screen will have on battery life is yet to be seen.

The main selling point of the device will undoubtedly be the 13 megapixel camera, which lets users record HDR video. The phone is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC and is LTE-capable. The company has announced a global launch for the device this quarter.

The Xperia Z's display is powered by Sony's Mobile Bravia Engine 2. It also has a Battery Stamina Mode, which the company claims can improve the standby time of the phone by four times by shutting down battery-draining apps whenever the screen is off and starting them up again when the screen is back on.

Here are some of the specifications of the Xperia Z:

• 5-inch screen with a 1080p resolution, 443 ppi
• 4G LTE, EDGE, Wi-Fi, NFC
• GPS with A-GPS support
• Bluetooth 4.0
• 13 megapixel rear camera with HDR recording; 2 megapixel front-facing camera