Next Sony Xperia flagship due in second half of 2014, featuring new design

Though not even a week has passed since Sony announced its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z2, talks about the next flagship upgrade have already begun. Yoshiro Kurozumi, Sony Mobile's Creative Director, Director of Product Planning and UX General Manager, has discussed why the Japanese firm needs to upgrade its products after every six months.

Kurozumi, speaking with Japanese publication K-Tai.Impress, said that to retain the 'flagship' title for a product, one must keep upgrading it, and prove to be a strong rival against other leaders in the market.

He went on to speak of how the company would be changing its annual product update cycle to a more frequent one. Kurozomi also confirmed that the Sony Xperia Z2, launched at MWC 2014, is the "flagship of the first half of 2014."

This indicates that Sony will probably unveil its next Xperia Z flagship (which may be called the Xperia Z3) sometime in the third or fourth quarter of 2014. Kurozomi also added the company did not want to stick to a single design, hence may move away from the OmniBalance design introduced with the Sony Xperia Z.

The Sony Xperia Z2 smartphone was launched on 24 February 2014 alongside its tablet version, the Xperia Z2 Tablet, and the mid-range smartphone, the Xperia M2.

The Xperia Z2 runs Android 4.4. KitKat, and features a 5.2-inch (1080x1920 pixel) Triluminos display with X-Reality engine. Powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974AB) processor with an Adreno 330 GPU, the Xperia Z2 features 3GB of RAM.

Shipping with 16GB of built-in storage, the Xperia Z2 features microSD card storage expandability up to 64GB. It features a 3000mAh battery that's rated to deliver up to 830 hours of talk time, standby time of 880 hours, continuous music playback time of 110 hours.

Notably, the Xperia Z2 features the same 20.7-megapixel rear camera with Exmor RS sensor as its predecessor, capable of 4K (Ultra-HD) video recording. Also onboard is a 2.2-megapixel front-facing camera. Connectivity options include 4G LTE, HSPA+, Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi hotspot functionality, DLNA, GPS with A-GPS, Bluetooth v4.0, NFC, FM radio with RDS, and a 3.5mm audio jack.