BARCELONA, Spain — Sony has unveiled the Xperia Z2, the company's new flagship smartphone, a mere four months after introducing Xperia Z1 and one year after launching the first phone in the series, the Xperia Z.

We mention the Xperia Z2's predecessors because all three devices share a nearly identical design: monolithic black rectangles with a silver wake up key and volume buttons on the right side. If it weren't for the difference in size (the Z2 is a 5.2-incher while the Z and Z1 have a 5-inch screen), one could easily confuse them to be the same phone.

However, while the design remained similar to the Z1, the Z2 has been thoroughly improved on the inside. Besides being Sony's biggest Android flagship yet (the enormous Xperia Z Ultra falls into the phablet category), the Xperia Z2 brings some crazy-powerful specifications to the table as well.

It's powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a 20.7-megapixel camera with a 1/2.3-inch image sensor that can take 4K videos, 3GB of RAM and a 3,200 mAh battery.

Z2's camera has gotten several new modes, including Timeshift video, which lets you shoot in 120 frames per second and then slow certain scenes to get a slow motion effect.

Sony has also improved the device's sound capabilities — one of Z1's weak points — with a STM10 stereo mic that enables stereo audio recording, as well as stereo speakers and digital noise cancelling tech.

And just like all Sony's high-end devices, the Xperia Z2 is dust-resistant and waterproof to IP55 and IP58 specifications.

To promote the Xperia Z2, Sony has partnered with the estate of Michael Jackson; details during the presentation were scarce, but we'll definitely see some sort of connection between Michael Jackson's music and the Z2 in the coming weeks.

In short, Sony seems to have taken the Xperia Z1 and improved it in nearly every way it could, while leaving design nearly the same. It's definitely a sound strategy, but having a lot of devices that look very similar is a double-edged sword. We'll be posting a detailed review of the Xperia Z2, which hits the global market March 2014, in the coming weeks.