Sony has announced that it will be attending 2018’s CES show in Las Vegas, and rumor has it that the company will unveil one or more new flagship smartphones based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 platform. Specifically, the rumors point to the H8266, which is already out in the rumor sphere. The specs laid out for the device include 6GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage, a 3,210mAh battery, and Android 8.1 (Oreo), all underneath a 5.48-inch screen set to full HD resolution. This new rumor flies in the face of specs for the phone that showed up on Geekbench, and it’s worth mentioning that Sony does not typically reveal new smartphones at CES. When the company does make a showing, it’s usually to show off products outside of its smartphone range.
For the time being, there are two Sony phones making the rounds in benchmarks and rumors. The H8266, from its previous appearance in Geekbench, seems to be a fairly plain flagship, and was seen running Android 8.0 with some fairly run of the mill specs for a 2018 flagship, including 4GB of RAM. The H8216, meanwhile, differentiates itself with dual cameras, but is otherwise similar to the H2866. Design may be another differentiating factor, but benchmarks alone won’t tell the whole story there. The H8216 appears to be an update to the Xperia XZ1, while the H2866 seems to follow on the heels of the Xperia XZ Premium. Beyond specs and a few rumors about design changes, not much is known about the two devices at this time.
Whatever the specs may be and whenever or wherever the phones may first appear, evidence of Sony’s new flagships thus far seems to follow the same pattern set by Sony smartphones in previous years. The Xperia XZ Premium, for example, was actually announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which happened in February, and pre-orders began in May. Interestingly, at least one of this year’s flagships from Sony are purported to follow a new design philosophy that updates the classic OmniBalance design with a minimal screen bezel and a sleeker frame, among other small details.