Sony Xperia Z1 Mini arriving in Japan

We caught wind of the Sony Xperia Z1 Mini a while back, but now it's a whole lot more official and it's headed to Japan's NTT DoCoMo network.

Japanese site ASCCI is reporting that DoCoMo announced the Xperia Z1F at an event, though stated that it's not headed to Japan until December.

If and when it will arrive on these fair shores is not currently known. We asked Sony and they came back with "The Xperia Z1F is for the Japanese market and will be available exclusively from Docomo. We cannot comment further on availability in other markets at this stage."

That doesn't sound overly hopeful for a UK release, but given the current obsession with mini versions of flagship phones, such as the HTC One Mini and the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini it's no surprise that Sony wants to get in on the act too.

Given that those phones seem to be doing pretty well over here it's not a stretch to think that Sony would give customers an Xperia flavoured option, when shopping for a pocket friendly handset.

Specs glorious specs

Name change aside it seems like much the same phone as it was back when we were calling it the Xperia Z1 Mini. It has a 4.3-inch 720p screen, a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built in storage, a 20.1MP camera, 2300mAh battery, NFC and Qi wireless charging.

In other words aside from the shrunk down screen it's almost as spec happy as its big brother, the Sony Xperia Z1.

The Sony Xperia Z1F is shipping with Android 4.2 and will be available in black, white, lime or pink when it launches in Japan.

• 4.3 inches too small for you? Then check out the full sized Sony Xperia Z1.