We're mere hours away from the full launch of the Sony Xperia 1 III and a leak has spilled practically everything we wanted to know about the phone. The leak not only shows new renders of the phone, but it also reveals a full spec sheet.
It all comes courtesy of AndroidNext, though fair warning: the renders are very low res. Luckily, we have previously leaked renders to go off of (like the one above). It looks quite similar to its predecessor, the Xperia 1 II, just with a larger camera bump and a hole punch for the selfie cam.
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Unfortunately, we can't tell too much more from how low res this render is. For now, the rest of the leak focuses on the spec sheet.
As you might expect from a flagship, the Xperia 1 III features a Snapdragon 888 paired with 12GB of RAM. The phone will come with 256GB of storage and a 4,500 mAh battery. If all of these specs sound familiar it's because you'll find them on the top-tier OnePlus 9 Pro.
However, where the Xperia 1 III hopes to differentiate itself is in the display. The spec sheet says it'll sport a 6.5-inch 4K 120 Hz screen, which is just crazy. This is the first phone to offer such a thing, and we'll have to see how well it works in practice.
For cameras, you'll get 12.2MP sensors for the wide-angle, ultrawide, and Time-of-Flight (ToF) shooters. The front camera is 8MP. Finally, the Xperia 1 III will apparently support wireless charging for the 4,500 mAh battery (up from the 4,000 mAh one on the Xperia 1 II).
Sony has historically struggled with camera software and putting out pictures to match the likes of Google and Apple, even though it has the hardware chops to do so — the company does provide camera sensors for most of the phones out there, after all.
Previous Xperia devices have had impressive spec sheets, but end up underperforming in real life. It seems like with each Xperia, there's some caveat. Whether it's the asterisk next to the 4K display or the underwhelming photos, Sony is just missing something with its phones. Yes, it's often the first to a lot of things, but being first does not always equal being the best. Just look at some of our previous Xperia reviews, like for the Xperia 5, Xperia 1, and Xperia 10.
The phone will launch tomorrow, April 14, so we'll hear the final bits of details we need, like price and availability. Knowing Sony, this is going to be one expensive handset, especially with that 4K 120 Hz display.
