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Better components, I guess.
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Posted: 2014-03-22 18:25:50
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@Wintermute
And its what i meant - sony wants to makes the ultra as more of a tablet because z kind of fills the phablet roll already. BUT, sony better market the z ultra as mini tablet with 7" display or more because aside of you and few other people, the rest won't buy it as daily driver. i hope that sony wants z ultra to be successful in the mini tablet category or else, why put a device on the market if very few people will buy it? be prepared to carry a bag with you 24/7 because it's not possible to carry 7" tablet in your pocket as daily driver, unless you are a rapper with baggy pants. i suppose you are not. z ultra with 6.44" is borderline in pocketability. are you really going to carry 7" display device as daily driver?
You are not aware of sony's strategy which is:
first half: compact>z>z ultra
second half: z
and according to what people are saying here and in other forum it will stay that way. to sony z IS the main flagship so it's the device that will change a number first in second half. z ultra is basically a mini tablet of it's bigger brother.
i see no prob with that strategy, or with z ultra last announcement time frame (june) - its shortly after the new s8xx is released so the new z ultra will surely be announced with s805 and will be one of the first devices with it. a great time frame. your suggestion of sony announcing z and z ultra together is really bad because it will make the z ultra look old since it will have to carry the old number and labeling it as z3 ultra will make it skip 2 number which would be even more strange then going from z to z1.

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Posted: 2014-03-22 18:54:15
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wide angle lens
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Posted: 2014-03-22 18:54:53
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It's probably because Sony's sensor is much larger than the competition, and as such may require a larger diameter lens in order for the whole scene to remain sharp.
Perhaps the slightly smaller sensor will resolve this, assuming they're still using the same lens set-up.
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Posted: 2014-03-22 19:19:33
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I mean, I wear normal, 4 pocket, tapered-leg trousers. No baggy pants, and ZU fits in ALL of my pant pockets without problem. The ZU pocketability complaints are REALLY overblown. Now, you may not enjoy carrying a device that big in your pocket, I can certainly understand that, but it WILL fit in your pockets, I assure you. You would have to have some TINY pockets for the ZU not to fit. There are some people who carry Nexus 7s with Google Voice for calls as their phone. Phones are getting bigger anyway, with the new flagships exceeding 5," and even Apple is rumored to have larger phones coming out. 6.44" already seems smaller than it did last year, and it'll seem even smaller by next year.

Anyway, I understand Sony's strategy, I just don't agree with it. Who cares if the Z Ultra skips from Z to Z3? It's already going to skip to Z2, unless they really want to bring out a new Z1 Ultra at the same time they unveil the Xperia Z3. THAT would be stupid.

I understand the reasons why they've done things the way they have, but at this point, Sony has put themselves in a position where their phones have confusing names, and fixing it is going to involve doing something weird no matter how they choose to go about it. I'm telling you though, having three current, top-of-the-line phones with three different numbers is a bad, bad move. Releasing the new Z Ultra alongside the Z3 makes the most sense, and it's about the only way to align all the numbers. It doesn't matter if it makes the Z Ultra look "old" because, A). it ALREADY looks old (we already have an Xperia Z2; why would an uneducated customer look at the Z Ultra when they know the Z2 is the latest and greatest?), and B). they would be pushing the new Z Ultra. Sony, by virtue of their two-flagship-per-year strategy, already has their name in the news more often than other companies. I really don't think they need to sacrifice a coherent naming scheme in order to get in the news four times per year rather than three, or whatever. Z(x) around MWC, Z(x+1) (and Z(x+1) Ultra and Compact) around IFA is enough.
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Posted: 2014-03-23 06:43:52
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@Wintermute
z ultra is at the border of pocketability for anyone. period. it's not just if you can stuff it in your pocket but also how comfortable it is to carry inside your pocket, especially when you sit. making the next one bigger (supposedly 7" which is one step up from 6.44") then 6.44" which some already say it's too big while marketing it as a phone is not good. nexus 7 is a tablet. it doesn't have cellular phone capabilities which also makes it's price tag lower if i'm not mistaken. irrelevant. if sony release the next ultra with 7" display and don't market it as a mini tablet while having a very high price tag then i assure you, it will not sell. nobody aside of you will buy a 7" daily driver. how do you encounter this point? wouldn't you like sony to keep releasing 7" phones in the coming years? they won't if it will keep not selling, unless they are stupid. i think we don't hear how much z ultra sold because only few people bought so it would be a joke to publish the numbers to the press.
no, apple is not going to cross 5.7" with their new phablet. (in 5 years from now they will arrive to 6" and stop there ). no, the other companies which market their devices as flagship phablets will not cross 6" (note for example). not comparable.
bottom line: if you market your device as a daily driver phone and you can't carry it comfortably in your pocket (which with 7" display no one really can) then your device won't sell and the line will disappear.

who cares? their marketing team care very much and any company that wants to sell as much of their products.

a) not the same devices - z is a flagship. z ultra is an over sized phone. b) so you are basically saying that less buzz is "enough"? in order to sell, a company will do what is ideal for their products to make the most buzz. marketing both z and z ultra as high end phones and announcing them together would be silly. no company does it for this reason and for the reason that both would not sell as much because they would be released at the same time. you will never ever see samsung or any other company announce their note and galaxy s at the same time frame/event.

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Posted: 2014-03-23 10:03:49
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another solution for bigger phablets aside of making foldable phones, is cloths companies making pants with "mobile pockets". it could help making such devices more acceptable as daily drivers: http://bgr.com/2013/04/26/phablet-size-study-pants-467278/ although it's questionable how 7" display phone would feel when you sit.

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Posted: 2014-03-23 14:47:41
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I didn't say they needed to make the next ZU 7." That WOULD be too big, in my opinion. But a slightly bigger screen in the same chassis or the same screen in a slightly smaller chassis are both possible and either would please me. And again, please post sales numbers for the XZU, or else stop talking about how it "didn't sell." That's an empirical question, and you need to have empirical evidence before you start making claims about it. But anyway, the ZU series could have a higher price tag and be more of a low-volume, high-margin proposition. You don't have to sell 50 million units of something to make money on it.

Anyway, you're wrong about pocketability. The ZU fits in pockets fine, and that's a FACT. It fits in mine, and there are numerous "pocket tests" on the Internet that show that it goes in pockets. You may not have a lot of extra room, but don't you think that's something Sony would have thought about when they were designing the phone? Of course it is.

About the Z brand: they have very clearly marketed their Xperia Z_ series as being their signature, premium line. Talk about "the flagship" is irrelevant, and it's a distinction you've just invented, with no basis in fact. The Z Ultra is a bigger Z1. So if the Z1 is a flagship, the Z Ultra is a bigger flagship (actually, the Z1 is a smaller Z Ultra--since the ZU was released first, that really makes the ZU the flagship, and the Z1 the derivative, if you want to play that game). How are you making your distinction? The answer is, of course, that you've just invented it on the spot. Now of course the "regular size" Z1 and Z2, etc. are going to sell the most, because they're the most normal size, but the entire Z lineup is essentially the same hardware, just in different form factors.

Yes, I am saying that less buzz is enough. You don't need to be in headlines all the time, or people will stop paying attention. Anyway, even if you don't agree, by your logic, Sony ought to release a new flagship every month, because that would be more buzz, and would cause more units to sell, right? Of course not, that's stupid.

Anyway, I respect your opinion, but please stop talking like you've been in the consumer electronics business for 30 years. You don't seem to have any more business acumen than any of the rest of us.

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Posted: 2014-03-23 21:25:42
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@Wintermute
We can agree that the z ultra reached the borderline in pocketability for some and for others it's not pocketable at all. and let's say that the first person is willing to compromise on comfort for a bigger display.

randomuser says the next ultra may have a bigger display so that only could be 7". they wouldn't go for less the 7". would be silly. that's why i wrote 7". in THAT case, they need to market it as mini tablet, not as phablet. this is what i meant.

there are no sales number so that's my safe assumption. i think that it's safe to say that it didn't sell a lot at all. if sony wants to have a good starting point then they need to make the phone dimension smaller and market it as second flagship or make it slightly bigger - 7" display and market it mainly as mini tablet. that's my opinion. you don't have to agree, but i have no doubt that with either of the options i made sony would sell more then they did with the z ultra. no doubt. as of now, the z ultra is an outsider. it doesn't have any identity. they didn't even give it a freaking LED flash.

saying that the z ultra is a flagship is simply not true. flagship does not compromise on ANY internal that is common in other flaghips. not the same hardware. nope. premium is not necessarily a flagship. g flex is a premium phone but it's not a flagship, just an example.

about the buzz, you took what i said and over exaggerated it by miles. there is not ONE good reason for sony to create less buzz. by announcing the ultra seperately they create a new buzz, it's a great time frame to be one of the first devices with the latest snapdragon, the devices gets all the attention it needs. that's far better then announcing it at IFA with the z. no company does that for a reason - they are all not stupid.

i respect your opinion too, but i don't find anything wrong with the way i write. you make it sound like i write in arrogant way or something which is really not the case. that's silly to think. i have my strong opinions and common sense as all here do (well, most, *nodarsixar* *cough*) but i give all the respect to others opinions. actually i'm electronics consumer for not far from 30 years and i have passion for tech, especially for mobile, especially for sony stuff so i do have strong opinions. i think that we are all trying to have fun discussing here about sony like we are doing right now.

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Posted: 2014-03-23 22:20:05
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Well, the iphone 5 is borderline unpocketable for some people (girls with tiny pockets), but that doesn't stop it from selling well. Of course there will be some people who can't fit it in their pocket, but I really don't think it's that many people, since I have many pairs of plain pants from different manufacturers and have no problem at all.

I think it's a REALLY questionable assumption you're making about the 7" display on the ZU 2 (or whatever they call it). Why wouldn't they go for less than 7"? Samsung just did a 0.1" increase from S4-->S5. Why couldn't Sony go to something like 6.7" in the same chassis? Isn't there already another giganto-phablet announced by some Chinese company that has a 6.7" display? There's no just logical reason to assume that they'll go 7" or bust.



There is no safe assumption about numbers. It could have sold a million units, and that would invalidate your whole argument. We just don't know, so there is no defensible reason to assume either way, much less to draw further conclusions from those assumptions. Even if you are correct, you're trying to do a single-variable analysis on this, and I just don't think it works that way. There are many reasons other than the size this might not have sold well, and that's even granting your assumption. In short, not nearly enough information here to draw conclusions.



But you just made this up. There is no universally agreed-upon definition of what makes a phone a flagship phone. This phrase was never even uttered until a couple years ago. For a while, there wasn't really any problem: manufacturers tended to have their one brand and several tiers. So you had the Galaxy S, the Moto Droid X, the iPhone, etc. There was pretty much one top-of-the-line phone from each OEM, and so we started calling it the flagship. But then the line-ups started to diversify. Phablets became popular, and then mini versions, so now many companies make a "regular" phone, then a bigger and smaller version, in addition to a tablet, many times. In short, there's a whole range in different form factors. It doesn't make sense to arbitrarily call one of them the flagship. If you do, you at least need to recognize the fact that it is totally arbitrary.



There's a VERY good reason for them release them together, and I've already mentioned it. The names are TOO CONFUSING, period. Do you honestly think it's a good move for Sony to be simultaneously trying to sell a Z something, a Z1 something, and a Z2 something? If so, why? It makes 0 sense. You were the one talking about the importance of marketing. Well, your customers have to be able to figure out your product line. Samsung has two big reveals each year. HTC had two big reveals last year. Apple has ONE big reveal each year. Clearly, you don't need four big press events every year to get people's attention. In fact, I recall seeing many people on the Internet complain about the HTC of yore and their habit of releasing two dozen phones every year. People couldn't keep up with it and got sick of it. It certainly didn't help them. There is some value in building people's anticipation for your product. It's the reason Apple sells 25 million iPhones (or whatever the number is) every opening weekend when they announce a new one. People haven't seen a new one for a whole year and there's a lot of pent-up curiosity and demand that, for a lot of people, is enough to override discipline and make them buy a new phone.



Sorry, it sounded to me like you were saying anyone who disagreed about product release timing was stupid, like it was a fact.
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Posted: 2014-03-24 05:09:30
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