Consumers in the U.S. would soon have another top-of-the-line Android-powered smartphone to choose from - the Sony Xperia Z. The smartphone is set to make its way to a U.S. carrier soon, Sony's CEO Kaz Hirai said.
The waterproof Xperia Z, which was unveiled at the International CES in January this year, is already available in the U.S. (only via the Sony Store), albeit the unlocked version which costs a hefty $629.99. Currently, Xperia Z is not available on-contract. However, as indicated by Hirai, the subsidized Xperia Z will soon join the ranks of Android rivals Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One once it is made available on the U.S. carriers as well.
During AllThingsD's D11 conference, Hirai spoke about the Japanese company's product line-up for 2013 and said that the Xperia Z would be offered by a U.S. carrier soon.
"We still have a lot of stuff to do here in the market," Hirai said, per AllThingsD. "There is no question about it."
Hirai also let on that Sony would begin selling the flagship Xperia Z via a U.S. carrier soon and increased marketing efforts would give a fillip to the smartphone's sales. However, he did not divulge which U.S. carrier(s) would offer the Xperia Z.
The Xperia Z features a 5-inch display with 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. The smartphone houses a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and Adreno 320 GPU.
The Sony smartphone also packs in 16GB of internal storage capacity, as well as a micro SD card slot (additional memory support of up to 32GB). The Xperia Z also features a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and is both water- and dust-proof.
While Sony did not disclose the names of any carrier, earlier in May, the Xperia Z was spotted at the FCC with T-Mobile branding. This seems to suggest that T-Mobile could well be the U.S. carrier Hirai mentioned.
