After all, Sony isn’t dead yet with its smartphone lineup. Sony is struggling very hard in this competitive smartphone market with OEMs like Samsung and OnePlus in the flagship segment and Xiaomi, Realme in the mid-range segment. A recent render leak from OnLeaks has shown as a good view of the upcoming Sony Xperia 1 III, the design, the dimension, the material, camera tech, and much more.
Speaking of last year’s Xperia 1 II, it was the only flagship device from Sony featuring top-notch specifications like Snapdragon 865, 4K HDR OLED panel, a great set of cameras, and other on-paper specs. Now, Sony is all set to announce the successor of Xperia 1 II soon which will be called the Xperia 1 III (or Xperia 1 Mark 3).
Design-wise I literally can’t figure out what changes have been done by the design team, it literally looks like the predecessor, and the predecessor also looked like the other Xperia series smartphones. Sony always tries to stick to similar designs. According to Steve Hemmerstoffer (aka OnLeaks), the design and the overall form factor shrunk a bit, if we compare it to the previous-gen model, but surprisingly the display size is the same, which means we can expect a more compact and think bezels around the display.
Speaking of the display, it will feature a 6.5-inch flat OLED display with a cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio. And with a display resolution of 3840 x 1644 (means 4K). The refresh rate of the display is yet not clarified but as per the current rumor, they will stick to a normal 60Hz panel, well if we are here competing for smartphones like Galaxy S21 Ultra, then a 60 Hz panel will not be enough. Last year Sony added the Motion Blur Reduction which felt like a 90 Hz panel, maybe Sony will do something like that with Xperia 1 III as well.
Speaking of the dimension of the smartphone, it will be 161.6 x 67.3 x 8.4mm (9.6mm with the rear camera bump), well that s a huge camera bump. Sony placed the fingerprint sensor on the right side along with volume rockers, a camera shutter button. Although SOny could have placed an under-display fingerprint sensor since it has an OLED display, but again it Sony thing.
Under the hood, it might be powered with the new Snapdragon 888 SoC, which is something that isn’t unexpected, as it has become a trend to opt for the best and the latest with flagship series smartphones. In the camera department, the camera module now includes a periscope style zoom lens, something we haven’t seen on any Sony device before. this suggests we are finally getting more than 3X Optical Zoom on a Sony device. The ZEISS branding remains there are alongside the three lenses, there’s also a 3D iToF sensor. An equivalent is there on the Xperia 1 II which calculates the space between the camera and therefore the subject in a moment, for fast, accurate AutoFocus.
Other miscellaneous specifications include 5G connectivity, a 3.5-mm headphone jack ( yeah, it is still there), a microSDXC slot, dual front-firing speakers, and much more. Other specifications like camera specification, RAM & storage, battery capacity, in-box contents, colors, pricing are still unknown to us.