Sony's Xperia Z4 flagship is a slight spec bump over the Z3

We've already seen Samsung's and HTC's high-end handsets for 2015, and now Sony has joined the party. The Xperia Z4 offers a small specs bump and a similar design to last year's Xperia Z3, as well as a front-facing camera designed to make your 'selfie' shots the best they can be.

The Xperia Z4 brings with it a 5.2-in screen with 1080p resolution, a glass and aluminum body, and a thickness of 6.9 mm (0.27 inches). With a 20.7-megapixel rear-facing camera installed, those specifications and dimensions make it almost identical to the Xperia Z3, though the new model is a touch thinner.

One component that has received a substantial upgrade is the front-facing camera, boosted from a 2.2 MP lens to a 5.1 MP wide-angle one. Digital image stabilization is thrown into the mix too, so it's a move obviously designed to play to the selfie crowd who spend more time shooting themselves than anything else.

Inside the phone there's a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor clocked at 2 GHz, 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of internal storage (with a microSD card slot for expanding it) and a 2,930 mAh battery.

On paper, this isn't going to worry a handset like the Samsung Galaxy S6 too much in terms of raw specs, but the Z4 does at least have water and dust resistance ratings – something Samsung left out of this year's flagships.

The Z4 is going to be available in white, black, copper and aqua green sometime later this summer, according to the press release.

It's been a strangely quiet launch from Sony, though: so far all we have is one press release issued in Japan, so there's no word on international availability or pricing for other markets. The low-key launch, together with the minor spec bump, could potentially fit in with the hints given by Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai in February that the company was thinking of getting out of the smartphone business in order to focus on more profitable areas.

Source: Sony Mobile Japan via Engadget