Last year, Sony was at the MWC tech show in Barcelona to unveil a new Xperia X series and this year, the story wasn’t different.
At the MWC 2017, the Japanese tech giant unveiled the Xperia XZs, the successor to the Xperia XZ phone that had been released in September 2016, alongside a new Xperia XZ Premium. At the upcoming MWC 2018, we expect the two to be succeeded by the Xperia XZ1s and Xperia XZ1 Premium (these are not the confirmed names of the phones). Over the past few weeks, we’ve come across a handful of leaks and speculations regarding the pair, but the latest development is all about the alleged Sony Xperia XZ1s.
When Sony unveiled the Xperia XZs, most fans weren’t so happy with the company’s decision to stick with nearly the same hardware configuration seen on the original Xperia XZ, most notably the same Snapdragon 820 SoC (not even the slightly more powerful Snapdragon 821). In fact, it is for this reason that the XZ has been experiencing a sharp decline in terms of price (it started out priced at $700 and is currently going for about $400) and it seems Sony has finally learned the lesson the hard way.
With the MWC 2018 only a few weeks away, some Sony fans have expressed their concerns about the expected Sony Xperia XZ1 successor, a phone that was announced at the IFA 2017 show back in September. Following what happened at the MWC 2017, there have been concerns that Sony might repeat what it did by turning to the same hardware configuration used on the Xperia XZ1 with respect to the Xperia XZ1s, but from the new leak, it is evident that this won’t be the case.
The alleged Sony Xperia XZ1s has just been spotted on benchmarking platform Geekbench with model number H8266. As usual with Geekbench, we only get a few core specs of the phone and on the list is the most important one – the processing unit. Apparently, Sony will turn to the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 instead of using the outgoing Snapdragon 835 that appears on not only the Xperia XZ1 family, but also the Xperia XZ Premium that was unveiled alongside the Xperia XZs.
Despite the fact that the Snapdragon 835 is still a top chipset, this is a great decision from Sony, especially since some Xperia XZ1s hardware specs are expected to remain unchanged when compared to the Xperia XZ1. The most notable mainstays are the 4GB RAM module and Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, but of course, there should also be a few tweaks here and there.
For instance, a previous leak has pointed towards a slightly bigger 5.48-inch full HD display, a dual 12MP camera on the back, a 15MP selfie shooter, a much better 3130mAh battery unit and IP68 dust and water resistance. All these will reportedly be packed in a compact body that measures just 148mm tall (same as Xperia XZ1), suggesting that Sony is about to shed off a significant chunk of those huge bezels synonymous with Xperia phones.
As pointed out earlier, there’s no guarantee that the leaked info will turn out on the Sony Xperia XZ1s. In short, this could also be the Xperia XZ1 Premium, especially when looking at the screen size and overall specs. But what makes it not possible to rule out the former is the full HD display resolution. Usually, Sony uses UHD resolutions on its Premium variants, a feature that has widely been associated with another set of Sony Xperia phones carrying model number H81XX.