Take a look at the image below, it shows a purple Sony Xperia Z1 next to a new device, believed to be a revamp of the Xperia Z1. We understand that this mystery device is the Xperia Z1s, the name that was leaked by @evleaks and the one that appeared on the official website before being pulled. We did initially speculate that the Xperia Z1s was the global name for the Xperia Z1 mini, however we now believe this is not the case. The name of the Xperia Z1 mini remains a mystery for now.
Back to this Xperia Z1 refresh, we can’t tell much from the image below, although one of the most obvious differences is the headphone jack placement. The 3.5mm jack sits very close to the edge of the Xperia Z1, however the mystery device (let’s call it the Xperia Z1s for simplicity) has it near the centre. It is not smack-bang in the centre though, if you look carefully it is very slightly off centre, around 55%-60% from one edge.
This is similar to the previous leak we had seen of the Xperia Z1s that also showed a similar off-centre placement of the headphone jack.
The other thing we noticed is that the phone looks ever-so-slightly taller and wider than the Xperia Z1. Now this could be down to the angle of the photo, after all it’s not the clearest angle, but there does seem to be a slight shadow on the Xperia Z1 caused by the Xperia Z1s. Could this new handset come with a larger than 5-inch display? Perhaps it has a 5.2-inch to 5.5-inch display with a higher resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels? A number of rumours point to this new resolution hitting flagship Android phones next year, whether there is need for this ‘4k’ resolution is debatable, but it seems to be coming whether you have a need for it or not. Perhaps we will see this new Z1 refresh and Z1 mini announced at CES in January, until then we can only speculate.
Top image via Digi-wo.