Sony’s latest flagship smartphone looks awfully familiar… for two reasons. First, the Sony Xperia Z3+ is virtually identical to the Xperia Z4 the company introduced in April. Second, both of those phones look almost exactly like last year’s Xperia Z3.
So what’s new? Unlike the Xperia Z4, which is only available in Japan, the Sony Xperia Z3+ will be available internationally in June. And while last year’s mode has a Snapdragon 801 processor, the new phone has a Snapdragon 810 chip.
The phone has the same basic design as last year’s model and most of the specs are unchanged. Both the Xperia Z3 and Z3+ feature 5.2 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel displays, 3GB of RAM, 20.7MP rear cameras, and waterproof designs.
The biggest difference between this year’s model and last year’s is that Sony has swapped out the Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor for a 64-bit, octa-core Snapdragon 810 chip. It should offer a bit of a performance boost, but there have been reports that the Snapdragon 810 chip can run hot which causes the chip to slow down in order to keep from overheating.
Sony did make a few other changes though: last year’s phone had a 2.2MP front camera, while the new model has a 5MP camera. And the Xperia Z3 shipped with a 3,100 mAh battery, while the Xperia Z3+ has a 2930 mAh battery (although Sony says you should still be able to get up to 2 days of battery life).
All told, the Xperia Z3+ is a pretty minor update to last year’s phone… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The original Xperia Z3 is a pretty great phone. But if you were hoping for a dramatically new design or other changes, this phone doesn’t have them… which makes the Xperia Z3+ name seem a little more honest than the Xperia Z4 name Sony used for the Japanese launch.