Is Sony running out of design ideas?

Sony is in a rough spot. Their new smartphones don’t tingle and excite your loins like the early Xperia Z smartphones used to do. They’re getting rather lazy with their smartphones, and if this recent set of leaked images is to be believed, they haven’t realised what they’re doing wrong yet.

GSMArena stumbled across some leaked images of what is supposedly the upcoming Sony flagship, model name Xperia F8331, in a pretty dark blue colour and it looks a lot like, well, their existing Xperia smartphones.

On the front, things are very Sony, with a large forehead and chin plus thin side bezels and on-screen navigation keys. Around the back, it’s also got the camera-bump-less rounded camera module and out-of-place pill-shaped dual-flash module alongside what looks like laser AF.

There’s also a rectangular panel at the bottom of the smartphone that kind of sticks out from the otherwise flush back. One other silly design feature is that it looks like the NFC sensor has been placed on the front of the smartphone towards the earpiece. This means you’ll be tapping the front of your phone to contactless payment terminals.

One other thing worth noting is that the power button is flat, likely meaning it’s one with a fingerprint sensor tucked underneath. At the bottom, you’ll notice the USB Type-C port used for charging and data transfer, a first for Sony.

Besides the one or two adjustments, this “new flagship smartphone” from Sony looks a lot like their existing smartphones. And the ones before that. And the ones before that. Could Sony be taking a page out of the Porsche 911 design handbook?

There have been no further leaks on the internal specifications of the new Sony Xperia, but last we checked, the rumour mill was hovering around a Snapdragon 820 processor with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage alongside a 5.1-inch Full HD display. It was also supposed to get a 21MP/12MP back/front camera combo.

I think that it’s a nice and cleanly (except for that hideous flash module) designed smartphone but, after so many iterations of roughly the same look, it’s a bit boring. What do you guys think of this design? Does it work for you?

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