The ‘mini‘ phone has become somewhat of a running joke in the smartphone world, typically involving the shrinking of a manufacturer’s flagship phone to what is now considered ‘mini’, often 4 to 4.3-inches in screen size. The issue with these mini phones is not that they are built badly because they generally have the same build quality of their flagship big brother, which is very good, however it’s what is on the inside that is cause for concern. A prime example of this is the HTC One Mini which carries a Snapdragon 400 processor compared to the Snapdragon 600 in the HTC One, resulting in a huge difference in performance which isn’t worth the premium price tag. The Sony Xperia Z1 f, however, aims to buckle this trend of disappointing mini smartphones.
The Xperia Z1 f was fortuitously leaked last week in a NTT DoCoMo brochure, and while it was scaled down at 4.3-inches, it still possessed the same Snapdragon 800 processor as the full-sized Sony Xperia Z1. This much was confirmed by NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest network, when it officially announced the mini Xperia Z1 and the fact that it would go on sale later this month in black, white, pink and yellow; apart from a few predictable concessions due to phone size i.e. battery capacity, the Xperia Z1 f looks to be every bit as powerful as the Z1 was intended to be. There hasn’t been word on whether the Xperia Z1 f will be available anywhere else but Japan, but hopefully it makes the jump in the near future.
This kind of power has normally been reserved for the 5-inch-plus smartphone club, however the Xperia Z1 f not only gives Android fans who can’t deal with larger handsets a smaller option, it also gives Android its first real competitor to the iPhone at that smaller form factor for a long time. Whether this works out for Sony or not, it is definitely a bold move for the Japanese tech company who is lately making a lot of waves in the smartphone industry.
What are your thoughts on the Sony Xperia Z1 f: mini smartphone done right or a disaster waiting to happen? Let us know what you think.
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Source: Xperia Blog
