Mid-Range Android devices seem to be gaining in popularity these days, after all companies like Samsung, HTC, Motorola and Sony wouldn’t keep spending money on them if nobody was buying them. With devices like the Moto G and companies like BLU delivering decent experiences without contracts and for a great price, it’s no wonder people can’t seem to get enough of these devices. Android 4.4 KitKat is Google’s effort to tighten up the OS and make it run on devices with as little RAM as 512MB. Of course, most mid-range devices feature 1GB, so in reality performance from 2014’s affordable devices should be better than most budget-devices have had it in a long time.
Now, we’re hearing that Sony might be gearing up to release their own device like the Moto G. A recent Sony device with the model number D5103 has been spotted in GLBenchmarks and it looks like a mid-range device with Android 4.4.1 KitKat on board. The device is listed as having a resolution of 1280 x 720, which could make for a 5-inch device or possibly a 4.7-incher similar to the Xperia SP. As for the processor inside of the D5103, a Qualcomm chipset of MSM8226 which looks like a Snapdragon 400 quad-core CPU. It doesn’t appear to support LTE though, so there’s every chance that this is a device meant for emerging markets with no need for LTE.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Sony has released a mid-range device, and it won’t be their last. While we often think of Sony as a company that only produces high-end electronics that are arguably a little too pricey, they know how to make a decent mid-range device. Take the Xperia T2 Ultra released earlier this year and the Xperia SP from last year. Sony really offloaded their VAIO laptop business in order to better focus on smartphones and such, and with mid-range and low-end smartphones becoming more profitable for companies like Sony, we might be seeing a lot more like this in the coming year.