Sony Not Willing to Add USB Type-C Ports in Xperia Smartphones Yet

USB Type-C port adoption is on the rise, as two of the most important companies in the mobile industry, Apple and Google confirmed they are very committed to this connector standard and will certainly include it in their products.

Many other handset makers have decided that USB Type-C standard is much better than microUSB standard and decided that now would be a good time to try and make it streamline. Unfortunately, Sony Mobile is now one of those companies, FocusTaiwan reports. After the Japanese company confirmed a few days ago that it's not yet ready to include Quad HD displays into its smartphone, Sony now says that USB Type-C port is not on its immediate agenda. While speaking at a technology workshop in Taipei, Takeshi Nitta, a program manager at Sony Mobile Tokyo, said that his company is investigating USB Type-C, but that the industry needs more time to migrate to the new connector standard.

Moreover, Nitta said that while Sony could include USB Type-C port into its Xperia smartphones that will not benefit in the near term to the company's focus on achieving thinner and light designs.

Thinner camera modules are more helpful for Sony

For the time being, the only things that count and need to be smaller and thinner are camera module and display. As soon as these become thinner, Xperia smartphones will be thinner and lighter, Nitta believes. The next Nexus smartphones built by LG and Huawei are expected to pack USB Type-C ports, but Google's Chromebook laptops and Android smartphones launched by other companies are likely to include the connector standard in the coming months. Unfortunately, by not adopting the latest technology at a faster pace, Sony will remain behind competition, which in turn means lower sales and large financial losses.

Let's hope the Japanese company will start being more open-minded in regard with the new technologies that appear in the smartphone industry, otherwise it could end very soon for Sony.

Devices with USB Type-C ports
Image credits to Analogix

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Gionee Elife E8 Goes Official with 6-Inch Quad HD Display, Octa-Core Helio X10 CPU

As expected, Chinese OEM Gionee introduced its innovative Marathon M5 that comes with two batteries inside, as well as the premium Elife E8 smartphone.

We already reported on the Marathon M5's launched earlier today, so let's see what the other Gionee smartphone, the Elife E8 has to offer in terms of specs. First of all, fans of the brand should know that Gionee Elife E8 won't come cheap. The Chinese company confirmed the smartphone will be available beginning July 15 for no less than $645. The good news is the device is packed with more than decent specs, such as 23.7-megapixel rear-facing camera that can take 120-megapixel resolution photos thanks to the embedded software.

The camera features True Tone LED flash, sapphire glass 6-element lens, OIS (optical image stabilization) and 4K video recording. There's also a secondary, no less impressive 8-megapixel camera in the front with autofocus and full HD (1080p) video recording.

Premium design, powerful features

Another strong point of the Elife E8 is the huge 6-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display that supports Quad HD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution and 490ppi (pixel per inch). On the inside, Gionee has included the new 64-bit 2GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6795 Helio X10 processor, which is complemented by a PowerVR 6200 GPU, 3GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal memory, which can be further expanded up to 128GB via microSD card slot. It's also worth mentioning that the smartphone is powerd by a 3,500 mAh battery and that it will ship with Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system with Amigo UI on top.

The Elife E8 will be initially launched in China, but we expect Gionee to make available in other countries as well. In that regard, we reported yesterday that the smartphone was already introduced in Romania as Allview X2 Xtreme, which will be available beginning August 15.

Gionee Elife E8
Images credits to Gionee

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Sony Xperia Z4 Launches in Japan, People Already Complain of Overheating Issues

We reported yesterday about the issues the Xperia Z3+ might face if Sony doesn't do something about the overheating issues of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 chipset.

A video showing a prototype unit with pre-release software proved that Xperia Z3+ powered by the Snapdragon 810 has major issues when running multiple apps. The smartphone issues warning messages from time to time telling users that some apps might have been closed in order to cool down the CPU. Keep in mind that Sony Xperia Z3+ is equipped with a revised Snapdragon 810 v2.1 chipset, which was supposed to address all the overheating issues that date since the launch of the silicone piece. Even Japanese carriers posted warning messages inside their stores informing customers about all the smartphones equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processors, which inexplicably overheats regardless of what users do with their device.

Well, it looks like there are serious problems with the Xperia Z4 as well, which is likely to be equipped with the same revised version of Snapdragon 810 chipset.

This seems to be a widespread issue

As many of you probably know by now, Sony launched the Xperia Z4 in Japan on June 10. Sadly, many customers that purchased the phone are now complaining of overheating issues, XperiaBlog reports. They have taken it to Twitter, Sony support website and other forums to find out why is that happening and how they can prevent their phones from becoming too hot to be used. This doesn't seem an isolated issue where only a limited number of users is affected. However, we expect Sony to release a software update for the Xperia Z4, which should throttle down the Snapdragon 810's speed. In fact this has become mandatory since Xperia Z3+'s global release is just a few weeks away and no will buy it under these circumstances.

People complain about Xperia Z4's overheating issues
Image credits to XperiaBlog

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