Sony unveils the dual-SIM Xperia C3, touted as the “world's best selfie phone”

It looks like the selfie craze is here to stay and Sony's newest Android smartphone rides on that wave, as it is aimed at the self-photographing crowd. The phone in question is the mid-range Sony Xperia C3, which got caught in the wild yesterday, and its front-facing camera comes with pretty adequate photography-centric capabilities.

The rise of selfies shows no signs of abating – its usage has increased by 17,000% since 2012

See, the front-facing snapper of the Xperia C3 is a 5MP one. In terms of senor size, just a few flagships endow such a big selfie-taking snapper these days – the HTC One (M8) with its 5MP front cam comes to mind immediately, whereas the Huawei Ascend P7 excels in this category with its panorama-capable front-facing snapper. The Sony Xperia C3 has something something to woo us with, too. Its wide-angle front camera is toting a hefty 80-degree field of view and is paired with a “soft” LED flash. The snapper is also capable of shooting in Superior Auto mode, which automatically adjusts certain aspects of the image in accordance with the ambient lighting.

But let's not forget about the regular rear camera of the Xperia C3. It sports an 8MP Sony Exmor RS sensor, which comes with auto focus and is capable of shooting 1080p videos, as well as HDR photos/videos. The rear flash is a pulsed LED one. The back snapper of the C3 is also capable of utilizing the Superior Auto shooting mode.

Overall, Sony seems pretty satisfied with the wide set of selfie-centric apps that come preloaded on the C3. Portrait retouch v.2 allows you to enhance your selfie in real-time, Timeshift-burst captures a whopping 31 frames in 2 seconds and enables you to select the best one(s), and Sweep Panorama snaps panoramic images as you move the Xperia C3 sideways. Other similar apps and features are also present.

There are a number of ways to take a selfie with the C3. Apart from the regular pressing of the hardware or the software shutter button, users can also double tap the rear cover of the device or make use of the Smile Shutter feature, which takes the selfie as you smile for the camera.

Hardware-wise, the Sony Xperia C3 is yet another regular mid-ranger. It is equipped with a quad-core Snapdragon SoC, ticking at 1.2GHz, 1GB of RAM, 8 gigabytes of internal storage, and a microSD slot. The 5.5-inch Triluminous display sports a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels, and this results in a mediocre pixel density of 267ppi. Users of the Xperia C3 can snap two SIM cards in their device, whereas a 2,500mAh battery takes care of the power department. The smartphone will be running Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box.

The selfie-centric phone will be available in black, white, and mint (which is a pastelly nuance of green). Sony says that the Xperia C3 will launch this August in China “as the first launch market”, which hints us that the device might grace other markets across the globe. Still, we don't know which ones. Pricing is yet to be revealed, too.

One of Sony's greatest rivals, HTC, is also believed to be working on a selfie-centric smartphone. It seem that the selfie craze is pretty far from being over.




source: Sony