Sony's Xperia Z Ultra with mammoth 6.4 inch display launched in India; phablet priced at Rs 44,990

After announcing the smartphone in June this year, Sony Mobile Communications has now launched its latest phablet offering called Xperia Z Ultra in the Indian market. The device has been officially priced at Rs 46,990, but a number of e-commerce sites are already offering it for Rs 44,990.

For this phablet, Sony has taken a page from Samsung's book that has earlier launched the Samsung Galaxy Mega devices, sporting a 5.8 inch and a 6.3 inch display, respectively. However, Sony's offering features an even larger 6.4 inch display.

Here is a quick look at the specifications.

The phablet features a 6.44 inch full HD TFT Triluminos display (1920×1080 pixels resolution) and is powered by a monstrous 2.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. The screen analyses elements, depending on the scene, and adjusts them based on pattern, outline and colour composition. It also comes with handwriting recognition and is compatible with any pencil, selected stylus or pen (capacitive stylus or metal pen with tip diameter over 1 mm). The device runs on the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system and has 16 GB (up to 11 GB user-accessible memory) of internal memory that can be further expanded up to 64 GB with a microSD card.

On the camera front, this one sports an 8 mega pixel autofocus camera with 16x digital zoom and Sony 'Exmor RS for mobile' image sensor that can also record full high definition (HD) videos (1080p). Then there is a 2 MP front-facing camera that can also record full HD videos. In terms of connectivity, the phablet has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, 3G and 4G LTE (depending on the market), and also comes with a microSD card slot and a microUSB port. The company has provided its ClearAudio+ mode and Xloud loudness enhancement, for enhanced sound.

Xperia Z Ultra measures 179.4mm x 92.2mm x 6.5 mm and weighs 212 gm. According to Sony, the phablet's 3,000 mAh battery will provide up to 11 hours of talk time and 23 days of standby time. The device also has Near Field Communication (NFC) and GPS (with A-GPS support), and will be available in black, white and purple colours. The smartphone is both water-resistant (IPX5/8) and dustproof (IP5X), and can be used to click pictures or make films underwater.

Additional features

Sony's Walkman, album and movies media applications enable discovery of online and offline content. Also, battery stamina mode improves the standby time of the smartphone four times as it recognises when the user is not using the display and automatically turns off the functions which are not required. The company will also add a number of business-oriented applications, such as software updates, in the future.

This will primarily compete with Samsung's Galaxy Mega range of phablets – Galaxy Mega 5.8 (Rs 25,100) and Galaxy Mega 6.3 (Rs 31,490). It will also see competition from the 6.1 inch phablet from Huawei called Ascend Mate (Rs 24,900) and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 3. But if you compare the price of Xperia Z Ultra with other devices, it is evident that Sony has got its pricing wrong yet again.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)