Sony Xperia Z6 to launch in Feb. or Sept. 2016

The revelation of the next Sony flagship, the Xperia Z6, currently has two theoretical launch dates: one in Feb. 22, 2016 and another sometime in Sept. 2, 2016.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premiumsonymobile.com

According to PC Advisor, Sony has sent out invitations to a press conference to be held by the company during the opening of the Mobile World Congress, which will be happening on Feb. 22, 2016. However, there is reason to believe that the Xperia Z6 will not yet launch on that date, but will rather be ready for IFA 2016, which will be on Sept. 2, 2016.

The reason for the belief in a late 2016 launch comes from an interview with Sony's Art Director Rikke Gertsen Constein in IFA 2015, where she stated, "We always work very hands-on with the future. We are already working on 2016 second half, 17 and 18."

According to the Bit Bag, the upcoming Sony Xperia Z6 will escape from the usual boring box design that the previous Xperia flagships have sported. Rumors state that the next generation Xperia will have more curves and will sport a metallic enclosure. It is also believed that the handset will have a 5.2-inch full HD display just like the Sony Xperia Z5.

The Xperia Z6 is also expected to sport a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset coupled with at least 3 GB of RAM. Other rumoured specs include a 23-megapixel back-facing camera, a pressure sensitive display much like Apple's 3D Touch, a 2,900 mAh battery capacity and the Android 6.0 Marshmallow firmware coming out of the box. 

For reference, the Xperia Z6 predecessor, the Sony Xperia Z5, sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset and 3 GB of RAM. The handset's back-facing camera is a 23-megapixel shooter with eo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, HDR, panorama and phase detection autofocus. The front-facing camera has 5.1 megapixels.

The Sony Xperia Z5 is the Japanese company's current flagship, and was released back in Sept. 2015.