BERLIN -- Brace yourselves: Sony's just announced the world's first smartphone with a 4K display.
Ahead of the IFA tech trade show in Berlin, and as predicted, Sony announced a trio of new Xperia Z5 smartphones: Xperia Z5, the Xperia Z5 Compact and the Xperia Z5 Premium -- the world's first smartphone with a 4K screen.
Although Sharp had previously showed a smartphone-size 4K display, the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is the first phone with 4K resolution people will actually be able to buy.
The main difference between the three Sony phones comes down to size and screen resolution; the industrial design is more or less Sony in that they're boxy rectangles -- a metal frame with frosted glass on the back. The Z5 Premium is the new flagship and sports a 5.5-inch 4K display. The Z5 has a 5.2-inch 1080p (full HD) display. And the Z5 Compact has a 4.6-inch (720p) HD display.
New to Sony's Xperia phones is the fingerprint sensor, which is embedded into the power button on the right side of the phone, as opposed to embedded in the home button like it is on the iPhone 6, Galaxy S6/Note 5/S6 Edge+ and OnePlus 2.
The phones also have a dedicated camera button to quickly launch the 23-megapixel back cameras, which is said to have lightning-fast autofocus that locks onto a subject in 0.03 second (the world's fastest). On the front is an 8-megapixel camera for shooting selfies.
Surprisingly, despite the Z5 Premium having a 4K display, Sony says the phone will have two-day battery life. In fact, all three of the Z5 phones are supposed to have two-day battery life. Long battery life is one of the reasons why the Xperia Z3 was such a great phone.
As with virtually all of Sony's Xperia smartphones, all three Z5 phones are waterproof, too.
Xperia Z5
Xperia Z5 Compact
Z5 Premium
