Sony Xperia T4 Ultra, the successor to the rather successful T2 Ultra, will be launched in India next month at a market operative price of around Rs 22,000 27,000, according to sources.
The sticker price for the handset will be around Rs 30,000.
The T4 Ultra will get an upgrade to a full-HD display. The T2 Ultra had to make do with an HD (720p) screen.
The T4 Ultra will also be a 6-inch phone like its predecessor, and will target the mid-range, while the more premium Sony Xperia Z3 Ultra will be launched soon after to target the high-end.
The Z Ultra and T2 Ultra are the biggest phones in the Indian market right now. The T2 Ultra is selling for Rs 19,000, while the 6.4-inch Z Ultra is selling for around Rs 20,000.
Sony does not update its big-sized phones as often as it does its smaller range. As a result, they often skip a generation.
The Z Ultra was launched in mid 2013 for Rs 47,000, and there have been no updates on that range for two years. The Z3 Ultra will fill the gap.
The T2 Ultra was launched in April 2014 at a price of 26,000, and has not been updated for about 15 months. There will be no T3 Ultra, according to sources, and Sony will move straight into T4, skipping one generation.
While the Z3 Ultra will continue to be a premium product, costing upwards of Rs 40,000, the T4 Ultra will have a market price of only around 21,000 27,000.
There tends to be a huge gap between the official price announced by Sony at the time of launch and the price at which the phone becomes available in the market.
For example, the Xperia M4, which was launched a month ago at Rs 25,000, is already available at Rs 21,700 online. Similarly, the Xperia C4, launched two weeks ago at a price of Rs 29,500, is already available for Rs 25,000 on Infibeam. Therefore, it is likely that the new model will also be available at around Rs 25,500 within three weeks of launch.
Part of the reason for the high divergence between the sticker price and the actual market price is that Sony tends to be generous with partner margins. Many partners, especially online, prefer to charge only a small margin and pass on the benefit to customers by selling the product at a cheaper rate.
As a result, the sticker price of the Xperia T2 Ultra can also be expected to be around the Rs 24,000 mark.
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE T2 ULTRA
However, the most keenly watched aspect of the upcoming T series phone will not be the price, but the specifications.
The reason for the excitement is precedents. When Sony launched the Xperia E4, C4 and M4 in the last two months, it has doubled the display resolutions.
For example, the E4 now qHD resolution, while the C4 and the M4 have full-HD displays. The C3 and M4 had only HD displays, and not full-HD ones.
Similarly, the T2 Ultra also came with HD (720p) resolution, and there is a lot of expectation in the market that the T4 Ultra will come with a full HD display.
If it does, then Sony will give the HTC Desire 826 (Rs 23k) and the Samsung Galaxy A7 (Rs 26k) a good run for their money. Though both Desire 826 and Galaxy A7 are 5.5-inch models, they will be the primary competitors for the 6-inch T4 Ultra.
In addition, the T4 Ultra is also likely to have a 64-bit octa-core LTE-enabled chipset from MediaTek known as MT6752, which is slightly more powerful than Snapdragon 610. The phone is also likely to have a 13 MP camera and 2 GB of RAM.
SONY XPERIA Z3 ULTRA
Similar details about the Z3 Ultra have not been obtained yet. However, it is widely believed that the Z3 Ultra is likely to have a display with resolution higher than that of the Z3.
The Z3 is just now becoming available in India, and comes with a full-HD display. As a result, many expect the Z3 Ultra to have a quad-HD display. However, our sources have not been able to confirm any details about the specifications of this upcoming model.
[socialpoll id=”2279186″]