Sony set to reveal the Xperia IV in May, will likely cost even more than before

Sony’s smartphones in recent years have been… polarising to say the least. Their Xperia devices tend to come with some seriously capable camera hardware yet are extremely expensive and lack that final bit of polish that makes it stand out from the crowd. That won’t be stopping Sony though, who have announced a launch event this 11 May where they’ll likely be showing off the latest generation of Xperia smartphones, including the Xperia 1 IV.

We actually do know a little bit of the upcoming Xperia 1 IV already, thanks to a leak that happened earlier this year showing the Xperia 1 IV’s design. It still retains a mostly similar look to the current generation Xperia 1 III with its long 21:1 display. There’s also no notch, instead keeping the thin bezel and chin which could actually be seen as a feature for some. Its edges are flat with a side-mounted fingerprint sensor as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. Some might even say it’s pretty courageous of Sony to retain the audio jack and bezel in 2022.

Unfortunately, it seems as though Sony will likely continue its pricing strategy for the Xperia 1 IV, which in other words will be very high. Earlier this month, a Weibo account claimed that after digging through the code of a website found details of the Sony Xperia 1 IV pricing, with it starting at CNY8,999 (~RM5,946.65) for the model with 256GB of storage, rising to CNY9,999 (~RM6,607.47) for the model with 512GB of storage. That’s about CNY500 higher than the Xperia 1 III launched for in China last year.

A separate leaker meanwhile claims that the Xperia 1 IV will start at CNY10,199 (~RM6,739.02) rising to CNY11,399 (~RM7,531.46) for the 512GB version. In comparison, the Apple iPhone 13 Pro with 512GB of storage costs CNY10,399 (~RM6,870.75) while the 1TB version costs CNY11,999 (~RM7,927.89), just a tad more than the purported cost of the Xperia 1 IV. There’s still no word of course if Sony will actually increase the price of their flagship smartphone, but all signs seem to hint that it’s not a question of if they will, but rather by how much.

As a quick refresher, the Sony Xperia 1 III came with a 6.5-inch, 21:9 4K OLED display that had a 120Hz refresh rate, while under the hood it packed the then-flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The real star of the show though was its camera setup, with a triple 12MP rear camera setup offering wide, telephoto and ultra-wide photography.

There’s OIS on both the wide and telephoto shooter, with dual PDAF sensor on the latter for both 70mm and 105mm focal lengths. You could even enter manual mode and shoot in RAW for more control over the smartphone’s camera and shoot videos in 4K60 too. The Xperia 1 III launched in Malaysia at a cool RM5,799 for just the 256GB version, and was only available in Malaysia months after it originally debuted globally.

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