Sony Xperia Honami

Francie Barrett

Pictures leaked today - this phone looks like it could be an absolute belter.

http://www.gsmarena.com/more_sony_xperia_honami_photos_show_a_xenon_flash-news-6290.php

The Sony Xperia Honami is back in more spy shots – these show it from all sides and give us a much better look at the design. It looks like the device isn’t final though.

The back is quite interesting – it's built from some patterned matte plastic rather than glass, though that can change for the final version.

Anyway, the more interesting bit about this leak (and the smartphone itself for that matter) is the camera. The rumor is that the Honami features a big 1/1.6" sensor of 20MP resolution. Below it is a single-LED flash and on the right we see what might be a xenon flash. From yesterday's shot we assumed that it was a loudspeaker grill (it's about where it is on the Xperia ZL), but these more detailed shots show a big loudspeaker grill at the bottom (this is a slight departure from the current OmniBalance design).

The photos also show a dedicated camera key, which suits the camera phone personality of the Xperia Honami. There are also microSD and microSIM card slots on the sides, covered by flaps. Also, yesterday's leak showed the phone in White, so we have at least the two basic colors covered.

Other than its impressive camera, the Android 4.2-powered Honami is rumored to have a 5" 1080p screen and a Snapdragon 800 chipset.

Yesterday we questioned if this is really the Honami with only a single-LED flash, but the xenon flash and camera key make it more convincing. There's still another issue though – a 1/1.6" sensor is quite big for a phone this thin, so we're keeping our pinch of salt.

This phone looks to have everything, top class imaging, a 1080p display, the best cpu, lovely design.

ED E

Totally agree. And I'm confident Sony will f'ck it up like they always do with terrible FWs.

When I need to move off the S3 I may pick up one as long as the BL is unlocked so I can flash something stable.

BionicRasher

I wont touch it with Mr Kazuo Hirai's barge pole

Sony are a real let down in the phone arena

Riesen_Meal

tui0hcg wrote: »

I wont touch it with Mr Kazuo Hirai's barge pole

Sony are a real let down in the phone arena

Never really had much of anything other than a brief play with their heavily skinned software on some nice looking handsets...

I thought they were far more open to modding/rooting/flashing these days with their handsets and are actually embracing the XDA community?

I'd they do that's more than I can say for a lot of manufacturers of android phones....

jimmycrackcorm

tui0hcg wrote: »

I wont touch it with Mr Kazuo Hirai's barge pole

Sony are a real let down in the phone arena

I have to say that the xperia z is the best phone I've had and I think they're getting them right now.

BionicRasher

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I have to say that the xperia z is the best phone I've had and I think they're getting them right now.

Having had 4 Sony phones in this house over the last 18 months I can honestly say they are all pretty poor. Plagued by laggy software, poor support from Sony in updates and just poor ergonomic design of the handsets.

All of them look great but don't judge a book by its cover. we have had Samsungs, HTC and even a Vodafone cheapo handset and I will never recommend a Sony to anyone again.

I think they are spreading themselves too thin with too many devices and need to step up the things like getting software right and things like the screen etc before I would consider them again. Also the square nature of a lot of the devices are not nice to hold in the hand and a HTC or Samsung just fits the hand way better.

But I suppose we have just had a bad experience with the 4 Sonys we have had

ED E

Fieldog wrote: »

Never really had much of anything other than a brief play with their heavily skinned software on some nice looking handsets...

I thought they were far more open to modding/rooting/flashing these days with their handsets and are actually embracing the XDA community?

I'd they do that's more than I can say for a lot of manufacturers of android phones....

Only originally sim unlocked phones. If it comes locked you can unlock it but not the bootloader, so its a pain to ROM at all and very few work as the kernel cant be touched.

tui0hcg is at least partially right, software support is muck. They have a new flagship every 8wks and take ages to go back and supply promised updates(not one has ever been on time). **** the S shipped on GB cause they couldnt finish ICS in time.

The shape of them, most people, myself included, like. My GS3 doesnt feel nearly as good one handed(big hands).

If you got the Honami from Amazon.de and were expecting to ROM it, good buy, other than that I cant recommend it, which is a big shame.