It seems that Sony is keen on keeping its mobile division alive and running, despite the fact that Xperia phones make up less than 1% of the market share in the segment. The Japanese company is gearing up to release its next flagship phone – the Xperia 1 III – sometime in June but leaks are already building up around the new device.The latest information comes from the Chinese leaker ZACKBUCKS and is posted on Weibo. The leak is quite extensive, featuring almost all of Xperia 1 III’s specs, including the expected price of the phone, as well.
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There’s some news around the camera system of the Xperia 1 III as well. It seems that for the first time Sony has decided to go along the periscope route. According to ZACKBUCKS, the Xperia 1 III will sport a classic periscope lens with lossless zoom, made in-house by Sony’s Cyber-shot division (although something might’ve been lost in translation – Cyber-shot point-and-shoot cameras don’t feature any periscope lens technology).
The main camera of the phone is listed as a 64MP wide-angle, and it will be accompanied by a 12MP ultra-wide-angle snapper. The phone will be powered by a large 5,000mAh battery, supporting 65W fast charging as well.
The latter is a bit dubious, as the Xperia 5 II can only charge at 21W max. Either Sony has taken a page from Chinese smartphone charging manuals (think Xiaomi and Oppo), or the leak is plain wrong about this part.
Lastly, there’s a price mentioned in the leak, and it’s 8999 Chinese yuan. This converts to $1,369 – a 10% increase compared to the price of the Xperia 1 II. Sony is notoriously bad at smartphone launches, and even worse at getting the devices to the users fast enough, which is a huge part of the issue. The Xperia 1 III should be officially announced in June but sales could be pushed to August-September. Stay tuned for more information on the subject.
Sony Xperia 1 III rumored specifications:
- CPU: Snapdragon 888
- Display: 6.5 inch, 4K HDR OLED (10 bit, maximum brightness 1300 nit ), 120Hz refresh rate
- Memory and storage capacity: 12GB + 256GB (Chinese version 16GB + 512GB)
- Camera: 64MP wide-angle + 12MP ultra-wide-angle + Cyber-shot classic periscope lens with optical lossless zoom
- Battery capacity: 5000mAh
- Charging: 65W fast charging
UPDATE: ZACKBUCKS shared another interesting info on Weibo. It seems that Sony has proved us wrong this time and is gearing up for a big announcement event later this month. According to the leaked info, the announcement will happen on April 14, and will feature three Sony devices – the Xperia 1 III, Xperia 10 III, and Xperia 5 III.
