Does Sony have something special up its sleeve?. Photo: Rajesh Pandey/Cult of Android

Like many of its predecessors, Sony’s new Xperia Z4, which was quietly launched in Japan on Monday, is somewhat disappointing. But a rumored Xperia Z3+ that’s expected to appear in late May could be the real upgrade Sony fans were hoping for.

Remember that recent Samsung patent that detailed a new smartphone, believed to be a future Galaxy Note, with a wraparound display? Well designer Jermaine Smit has turned Samsung’s illustrations into a gorgeous Galaxy Note 4 concept that looks so good it almost guarantees the real thing will be a disappointment.

Imagine if there was an Android smartphone that let you easily upgrade internal components, replace broken parts, and personalize the overall appearance of the handset without buying a brand new handset altogether.

The Sony XTRUD, imagined and designed by Francois Rybarczyk, would allow you to do just that. Straight out of the box you would be able to tinker with your smartphone to your heart’s content, upgrading several internal components in an effort to create your ‘ultimate smartphone.’

A lot of interesting tidbits have been coming out of the Oracle vs. Google court battle, one of which is the original “Google Phone” concept. It appears Google wanted to manufacture a phone back in 2006 and approached carriers with the concept designs in hopes of convincing adoption. This BlackBerry-esque QWERTY represent a style popular among the power users of the day and while no official specs for the concept were revealed, we do have what Google considered baseline specs for any device that would run Android: