Sony announces Google edition phone.

Of the three announced, this is the best one....

Great build quality, SD card support, waterproof construction, excellent traditional modding support from Sony, and ON SCREEN BUTTONS...

Like a nexus is supposed to be.... If this comes out, this will replace my nexus 4, 100%
 
This had always been the mystery to me. Why isn't this a true Nexus? Sony is the only manufacturer contributing to the Android project.
 
Not the only one, but the biggest contributor. I have to say, this looks like an absolutely incredible device.
 
I'm not so thrilled, myself.

I've had a chance to use the Xperia ZL, and while the software and camera are generally good, the display is rather nasty: it washes out at very slight angles. The ZL's battery life was pretty poor, too. It's hard to look at the Z and say someone should get that over an HTC One or Samsung GS4.

Also, a slight bit of pedantry here: Sony didn't announce anything! It's an unconfirmed rumour. It would make sense if Google is asking for a Nexus experience device from multiple OEMs, but it's not official.
 
I posted this last week in the GE phone thread. Basically, I think that releasing the Xperia Z GE at this point (mid-July to early-August, as rumored) is a bit pointless. Honami, the successor, is rumored as an August-October release. Can we get a GE of that instead? The Xperia Z was launched in February, and would have made more sense to have a GE back then.

Compared to the Nexus 4, the upgrades are;
  • construction and materials
  • camera
  • MicroSD
  • 1080p display
  • likely LTE support (current North American Z does not support LTE, but the upcoming T-Mobile version does)

Is that worth the likely $250-$300 price premium? Possibly. But, the HTC One and Galaxy S4 offer some degree of the above upgrades, while also having upgraded internals. The One and S4 each offer a Snapdragon 600 (1.7 and 1.9ghz, respectively). The S4 offers faster RAM and a removable battery. Both phones offer superior cameras and displays. The Z's display has been universally panned.

I think that the Z would have made sense back in February as a GE, but now, bring on Honami instead.

EDIT: Just want to clarify that I've always had a soft-spot for this device. However, with the overall positive posts towards it, I just want to point out the negatives. (Had everyone slammed the phone, I'd be pointing out the positives). It's a great device, but given age, specs, likely pricing, competition, and the upcoming successor, I just don't feel that this should be Sony's GE. It should be Honami (rumored Sony i1).
 
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@#%#!!!!!

This is what I was waiting for, but I sprung for a Nexus 4.... now I don't know if I should wait for the N5 (if there is one), or buy this.
 
I wonder if this is just a fad for 2013 or if OEMs will continue to offer GE versions of their flagship devices in the future. I'm still surprised any of them did it; there's no money to be made in it (compared to selling their normal versions to the carriers). Samsung can afford to play around with things like this and it only strengthens their support from devs and tech geeks. HTC is struggling somewhat, so I'm really surprised to see them release a GE One when there's not much to be made in it. Now this Xperia is definitley a bit late to the game with its previous gen hardware/SoC. Other than design, I'm not sure why anyone would choose it over the GE GS4 or GE One for the same or similar price. Now if it was $400-$500, then it would be priced more appropriately and entice more people to get it. But still, not many people are going to be willing to drop $400+ on a phone when they can get an equivilant or better (in hardware at least) phone for $250 or less on contract. Then unlock the phone's bootloader (which I think you can do on all of these phones now anyways, regardless of carrier) and put the same GE ROM on it yourself.

Wouldn't it be much more logical (and cheaper) for OEMs to give you the option of running stock Android on all of their phones, besides making you purchase a special phone with identical hardware at full retail price and being restricted to GSM networks? I read that HTC is considering doing this on the One, but that was before the GE One was announced, I think. So I wonder if they're still considering doing this. I hope so, that would set a nice trend for other OEMs to follow.
 
T4rd said:
I wonder if this is just a fad for 2013 or if OEMs will continue to offer GE versions of their flagship devices in the future. I'm still surprised any of them did it; there's no money to be made in it (compared to selling their normal versions to the carriers).
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I'm not sure why you think there is no money to be maid (in terms of per unit). The price for the S4 and One is the full price you would pay off a carrier unsubsidized. If anything they may make slightly more per unit since I assume the carriers have some kind of bulk discount and they may have lower support costs with Google taking some of the burden.

Are you basing this off statements from LG and the Nexus 4? The pricing and business model is not the same with the Nexus 4 and these devices.
 
Per unit prices are high, but volume is expected to be low. Not sure on why the thread title is as it is. Nothing has been announced or confirmed.
 
The sales volume is low for sure but at the same time the development costs likewise would be correspondingly low as well.
 
Until they fix the screen viewing angles, and washed out blacks, that look like gray, nothing would make me buy the Z.
 
limitedaccess said:
The sales volume is low for sure but at the same time the development costs likewise would be correspondingly low as well.
Click to expand...

Which still doesn't equate to any significant amount of revenue/profit being generated from it.

If they were able to make these phones available for Verizon/CDMA, for the people who need it most because the only way they can keep unlimited data is to buy the phone off-contract (or transfer upgrades to/from tiered data plans) and have a relatively poor phone selection compared to AT&T/T-Mobile too. I'd rather give my money to anyone else but Verizon anyways, so it'd be nice if that option was available. But in reality, I think it'd just be best to buy a used carrier variant, unlock the bootloader yourself and flash the GE ROM or whatever else you want on it.
 
T4rd said:
Which still doesn't equate to any significant amount of revenue/profit being generated from it.

If they were able to make these phones available for Verizon/CDMA, for the people who need it most because the only way they can keep unlimited data is to buy the phone off-contract (or transfer upgrades to/from tiered data plans) and have a relatively poor phone selection compared to AT&T/T-Mobile too. I'd rather give my money to anyone else but Verizon anyways, so it'd be nice if that option was available. But in reality, I think it'd just be best to buy a used carrier variant, unlock the bootloader yourself and flash the GE ROM or whatever else you want on it.
Click to expand...

Except with how you phrased it your post seems to suggest that these would be money losing efforts or eat into the profits of their carrier sales and so manufacturers would avoid it purposefully.

As it looks now what would be the harm in releasing these? You could even view it as another distribution channel if anything. Don't let the branding and PR be misleading these are hardly "new devices" in any traditional sense and the costs/efforts to release Google Edition Phones is likely a throw away amount.

I am not saying they will continue to release these or not but I do not see how the reason for not doing so would be that they have a negative impact financially due to lower margins versus selling to carriers which is what I got from your post.
 
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