According to a recent disclosure coming straight from Sony Germany's official Facebook page, the Sony Xperia Z - the company's first smartphone underpinned by a quad-core processor - will hit the German markets on February 21. The release date of the handset was mentioned by Sony Mobile's Deutsche branch on Facebook.

As per some earlier reports, the dust- and water-proof Xperia Z will be Sony's new flagship handset; and there are speculations galore that the sales of the smartphone will apparently be overwhelming.

The Sony Xperia Z will be powered by a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset based on four Krait cores clocked and supported by an Adreno 320 graphics unit. The other noteworthy features of the handset will include a 5-inch TFT capacitive screen with full HD resolution; 2 GB of RAM; 16 GB on-board storage capacity; and support for microSD cards.

In addition to the above-mentioned features, the Sony Xperia Z will have an impressive 13.1-megapixel rear-side camera, with LED flash, autofocus, image and video HDR and stabilization, and support for 1080p video recording at 30fps.

Along with the back camera - which will be capable of shooting 1,000 burst pictures in 68 seconds -, the handset will also have a 2.2-megapixel front-facing camera with full HD video recording capabilities.