Next Sony flagship phone might feature 12GB of memory and the Snapdragon 865 SoC

The Sony Xperia 3 (or perhaps the Xperia 1.1) is rumored to be the manufacturer's next flagship handset and could be unveiled during the IFA 2020 trade show in Barcelona next February. Thanks to a Geekbench benchmark test spotted by Suahoinfo.com, we might have some information about the specs for the Xperia 1's successor. A phone known only as PM-1310 appeared on the Geekbench site powered by the Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform. That is the 5nm Samsung-built Applications Processor that most flagship Android phones will have under the hood next year. And this device will be equipped with 12GB of memory. That is twice the amount found inside the Xperia 5.

On the face of it, the Geekbench listing doesn't show any obvious connection to Sony. However, the PM-1310 model number seen on the top of the Geekbench results dovetails with a PM-1310-BV reference found on Sony Mobile's server. It appears to be the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) ID of the handset. The Xperia 1 had an OEM ID of PM-122X-BV. There could be four different versions of the next Xperia flagship with one offering 5G connectivity

Back in June, tipster Max J. said that Sony was working on a handset featuring six cameras on the back with another pair in front. Currently, the record for most rear-facing cameras on a phone belongs to the Nokia 9 PureView with five. There remains no word on how Sony would implement the six sensors.

The most recent flagship model released by Sony was the Xperia 5 that launched in October. The company took a step backward specs-wise from the Xperia 1 that was released in May with a 6.5-inch 4K P-OLED display. The newer model carries a 6.1-inch AMOLED screen with a 1080 x 2520 resolution. Both sport a tall and thin 21:9 aspect ratio, perfect for viewing cinematic content.

Sony has just been unable to get any traction in the smartphone industry. For example, the manufacturer originally expected to ship five million handsets for the fiscal year that ends on March 31st, 2020. But after a poor calendar second quarter, Sony cut its estimate by one million phones. And that was followed up with an even worse calendar third quarter that saw the company deliver only 600,000 handsets from July through September. As a result, Sony now believes that it will ship only 3.5 million handsets during the current fiscal year.

Sony has had global success with mobile technology before. Remember how popular the Walkman cassette and MP3 players were? You might say that they were the Apple iPods of their day. But the popularity of the Walkman line did not carry over to mobile phones and by 2000 it owned less than 1% of the global handset market. The company jumped into the modern touchscreen smartphone era in 2008 with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. Powered by Windows Mobile, the HTC built handset had a unique panel-type UI that might have developed into something interesting had Apple not introduced the App Store. The first Android model offered by Sony was 2010's Xperia X10.

The best year Sony ever enjoyed in the handset market was 2007 when it shipped 103.4 million phones. Last year, only 6.5 million units were delivered by Sony with the aforementioned 3.5 million expected in the current fiscal year. You might wonder why a company known for its digital imaging prowess can't produce a hot selling phone. In our review for the Xperia 5, we raved about the rear camera system but there is no indication that the phone sold tremendously well. Sony's problem might have been stated early last year by former Sony chairman Kaz Hirai. The executive said that Sony wasn't making phones to compete with leaders like Samsung and Apple, but to monitor what is going on in the communications industry until the next paradigm shift. That could explain why Sony doesn't appear to put its all into its smartphone offerings.