Sony launches the Xperia Z2 in India

Sony has already made the Xperia Z2 available across major retailers in the UK and on its online store in the US. Today, the manufacturer has officially launched the device in India, stating that the handset will be available in stores starting May 15.

The Xperia Z2 is priced at Rs. 49,990 ($833), which is Rs. 6,300 ($104) more than what the Galaxy S5 is available for in the country. Samsung has already reduced the price of the Galaxy S5 in the country once, and a further reduction earlier this week sees the Galaxy S5 selling for Rs. 43,690 ($728) on Flipkart, one of India's biggest ecommerce stores.

However, the Xperia Z2 that will go on sale in India features Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801 (MSM8974-AB v3) SoC, whereas Samsung's offering in the country comes with an in-house Exynos 5 Octa 5422 octa-core SoC. Qualcomm licences ARM's instruction set and tweaks the design to create its own CPU cores, which are more energy efficient when compared to ARM's Cortex CPUs. The Snapdragon 801 features four such Krait 400 CPU cores that are clocked at 2.3 GHz. Meanwhile, the Exynos 5 Octa has eight cores in a quad-core 1.9 GHz Cortex A15 and quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex A7 configuration, but loses out to the Snapdragon 801 when it comes to performance. The Snapdragon 801 also comes with a Gobi 4G LTE modem, while the Exynos 5422 does not feature LTE connectivity.

Other hardware specs of the Xperia Z2 include a 5.2-inch full-HD LCD display, 3 GB RAM, 16 GB internal memory, microSD card slot that can accommodate a further 128 GB storage, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, LTE Category 4 connectivity (150 Mbps downstream, 50 Mbps upstream), Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, microUSB v2.0, DLNA and a 3200 mAh battery (the Galaxy S5 features a 2800 mAh variant). There is also a 20.7 MP camera with a 1/2.3-inch sensor size that can record 4K video at 30 fps and a 2.2 MP front facing shooter. The device will be available in black, white and purple color variations. As far as the design is concerned, the Xperia Z2 looks identical to last year's Xperia Z1 and continues Sony's infatuation with an OmniBalance design. An IP58 certification means that the device is dust protected and waterproof.

To justify the high price of the Xperia Z2, Sony is bundling a lot of freebies. Customers purchasing an Xperia Z2 in India will receive Sony's fitness tracking SmartBand for free. The SmartBand when used in conjunction with the Lifelog app allows users to track and chronicle their physical, social and online activities straight from their wrists.

In addition to the hardware freebies, Sony is also going to give away $350 worth of digital services that include 50 GB Box online storage for life, Evernote premium, 6 free movies from a selected Sony catalogue and other utilities. To see the full list of services Sony is giving away, click here. Users can access the exclusive content via the Xperia Lounge app, which can be downloaded from the Play Store link above.

Source: Sony India

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