Sony has been a big player in the Android smartphone game for a long time now, and while they might be selling as many handsets as they used to do, the firm is at least making money these days from their smartphone business. For a long time, the Xperia Z line has been their flagship line, mirroring Samsung’s Galaxy S or LG’s G-series line of devices. This changed with the launch of the Xperia X line during Mobile World Congress earlier this year. The Xperia X and Xperia X Performance made up the focus of the line, with the Xperia XA and Xperia XA Ultra rounding things out. So far over the last few weeks, we’ve been hearing about an Xperia XR that could launch during next month’s IFA show, but it now looks as though this could end up being the Xperia X Compact.
According to a recent tweet from @evleaks himself, the Xperia X Compact is a very real device, and in the one image that he had to share with the World, it looks a lot like the previous shots of the Xperia XR we’ve seen. From those previous shots, we can see that Sony is looking to launch something with a more rounded look and feel to it, at least around the edges of the device, and that appears to be present in this latest leak here. As for specs, we’ve so far heard of the Xperia XR – often spotted as the F8331 – featuring the same Snapdragon 820 and 23-megapixel camera as the Xperia X Performance ships with. Given that the Xperia X Performance comes in at just 5.0-inches in terms of display size, it makes us wonder how much smaller Sony can make a smartphone.
It’s arguable as to whether or not there’s much of a market for such a small device that still carries a high price tag, but Sony could be planning two devices, the Xperia X Compact as well as the mysterious Sony F8331. Sony often releases more than one smartphone at a time, and if IFA 2016 is going to be their next big event to announce something, then it could be to announce more than one Android smartphone.