Sony Mobile, despite its lackluster presence here for the past few years, is gradually re-entering the US market. The Japanese company's latest flagship, the Xperia XZ, went up for pre-order a little over a week ago, and it's now available for purchase. Unfortunately, at $700, I don't see the XZ helping Sony's dwindling smartphone business much.

For your seven Benjamins, you'll get a handsome metal build, a Gorilla Glass 4-covered 5.2" 1080p display, a Snapdragon 820, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage with microSD expansion, a 23MP camera, USB Type-C, and IP65/68 water resistance. However, there's no fingerprint sensor on the US model, which is a big no-no for a late 2016 flagship.

Oddly, the Forest Blue color that showed up during the pre-order phase is no longer available on Amazon. B&H, which still has the XZ in pre-order phase, still lists blue as being available. Maybe Sony decided to ax that option for us 'Muricans? That leaves Graphite Black and Platinum (Sony's naming, not mine), both of which still look pretty decent.

As of the writing of this article, Amazon has 20 black and 6 silver XZs in stock. Is this because people are grabbing them up, or because Sony, knowing the phone wouldn't sell well, only allotted a few units? We may never know.