Sony's Xperia Z Ultra – features and specs

It has been a long time coming but Sony’s “phablet” the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, was launched today in two simultaneous events in Shanghai and London.

The latest in the company’s Xperia series of smartphones packs the biggest HD screen on a mobile and some interesting new display tech.

So for the screen you get a 6.4-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) Triluminos display which Sony says offers a greater range of colours and is more in keeping with the shades the eyes see than other mobiles,. Sony has also included the Bravia Mobile engine on which works on video to add missing pixels thereby making the footage on the screen more rich, with better levels of contrast and detail.

In spite of the screen size the phone is Ultra Z is skinny at just 6.5mm and it weighs just 212g.

Like the Samsung Galaxy Note the Xperia Ultra Z use pen technology but cleverly the handset will respond to any pen or pencil. To do this it needs a tough screen and the screen is very hardy, Like other Sony mobiles and tablets it is waterproof. The difference is this time that the 3.5mm jack is also waterproof so you can listen to music on headphones in the bath and not worry if the phones takes a dunking.

The phone also marks the debut of the Snapdragon 800 processor, a quad-core beast clocked at 2.2GHz. Battery life is 11 hours, aided by a sizable 3000mAh battery pack. There’s also a magnetic battery charging accessory which makes things simple.

Other features include an eight mega pixel camera with face detection and a burst shooting option. a 2MP front-facing camera also features.

It will be available in black, white and purple from Q3 2013 across the globe. No word on pricing or carrier details yet.