Sony’s late 2013 flagship phone, the Xperia Z1, has all the makings of a champion. There’s a Snapdragon 800 in there, 2 GB of RAM, and a 20.7 megapixel camera. Unfortunately, the camera isn’t too hot, and the phone, while eye catching, is bulky due to the massive bezels around the otherwise “small” 5.0 inch 1080p display. Sony being Sony, they sell the Z1 in three colors: White, Black, and Purple. A fourth color variant has just been spotted in Vietnam, Red, but what’s even more interesting is the fact that Android 4.4.2 is running on the device.
Before I jump to Android 4.4.2, let me just say that Sony’s devices are absolutely gorgeous. Their phones belong in museums, however, not pockets, which is an incredible shame that I hope gets addressed in 2014. This red Z1 looks absolutely amazing, with the front facing bezels having a fiery orange tint to them. I can’t think of any other company who has been this bold with glass and metal, other than HTC, but HTC hasn’t really introduced a new design language to the market since the One.
And as for the version number, there’s not much else to say other than that it’s 0.0.2 bigger than what’s currently out on the Nexus 5. How does Sony have access to a future version of Android? They’re a hardware partner, so they likely get builds before everyone else. What has Google added to this new version? Probably bug fixes and very few user facing features. Those will come in 4.5 or 5.0.