The company will host a live stream on YouTube for the unveiling on the 26th of October, at 12:00 PM JST (Oct 25 23:00 EDT). Since we don’t have much information on this mystery device, it’s hard to speculate what the company has to offer. Given that the Xperia 1 III was only released a few months ago, it’s unlikely that the company will unveil another flagship offering. Sony is currently focusing its attention on its PlayStation and camera divisions. So the announcement of a new Xperia phone has taken some by surprise. Given the timing of this event, it’s likely that the company will show off a mid-range offering.
Sony recently launched the Xperia 10 III Lite in Japan
The Xperia 10 III 5G was revealed in April this year. Meanwhile, a ‘Lite’ version of the Xperia 10 III made its way to Japan a couple of months ago. While the two phones share most of the hardware, Sony cut the storage in half with the Lite version while including eSIM support. As GSMArena points out, this could be one of the few product launches where we’re not sure what to expect. This is contrary to almost every modern-day product announcement, wherein plenty of information is available before the official unveiling. While Sony’s smartphone business isn’t as successful as some of its industry rivals, it has taken giant strides in the camera department. The company is bringing this experience to its smartphone division. We saw this with the Xperia 1 III this year, and its predecessor, the Xperia 1 II in 2020. The manufacturer said that engineers responsible for the Sony Alpha cameras helped develop the camera experience on its Xperia phones. Almost all aspects of the new Xperia camera experience were developed in-house, including the image processors, sensors, and lenses. Sony leveraged the experience of its engineers from the optical, software, and image quality teams to revamp the camera performance on its phones. Although this hasn’t converted into decent sales, the company will hope that changes in the future.