In a move that’s as strange as Sony’s strategy for smartphone sales in the US in the recent years, the company’s Xperia Z5 and Z5 Compact will be making their way into the country with their fingerprint scanners stripped off. The firm calls it a ‘business decision,’ but it’s still hard to wrap your heads around this fact.
A fingerprint scanner that’s placed on the side-mounted power button was a first for any smartphone when the Sony Xperia Z5 range was launched last year. In fact, it’s one of the selling points of these devices, which makes the decision to omit it from the US release even more astonishing.
Android Authority was told by Sony that this is a ‘business decision,’ but the Japanese firm refrained from elaborating further on this topic. The water and dust proof smartphones will be sold in the US from February 7 onwards in unlocked form. They have been revealed to be meant only for GSM networks in the country though.
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The Xperia Z5 adopts a 5.2-inch 1080p full HD display, and runs on an octa core Snapdragon 810 chipset. Its Compact variant on the other hand, goes for a 4.6-inch 720p HD display but retains the octa core Snapdragon 810 SoC. Both these phones carry high-end 23MP cameras on their backs, and boast of 48-hour battery backup.
When they arrive in the US this February, the Sony Xperia Z5 and Z5 Compact handsets will be sold in exchange of 599.99 and $499.99, respectively. A third smartphone with a 5.5-inch 4K display also exists in this range, but there’s no word on when it will be seen arriving in the country.