Check out the mid-range Sony Xperia 10 IV in all its flat, tall, and boxy glory

Despite failing to turn any of its Xperia handsets released over the last few years into bona fide box-office hits and slipping closer and closer to global smartphone market irrelevance, Sony still seems to have a very devoted and passionate fanbase among our readers.

The problem is that many of these fans can't actually buy the mobile devices they often feel so deeply attracted to, either because they're not very "competitively" priced or because they're not up for grabs in major markets like the US at all.

Unfortunately, there are no guarantees any of that will change anytime soon, but unlike LG, for instance, Sony is at least sticking to it, purportedly working on three new trend-defying phones to follow in the footsteps of the Xperia 1 III, 5 III, and 10 III this year.

A familiar yet totally one-of-a-kind design

That sounds like a major contradiction, but if you take just one look at the Sony Xperia 10 IV renders leaked today by the extremely trustworthy Steve Hemmerstoffer in collaboration with zoutons.ae, you'll immediately notice the similarities with the company's other devices... and pretty much nothing else.

They simply don't make'em like this anymore, and for the most part, they never did. By "they", we mean almost every other smartphone brand under the sun, from Samsung to Motorola, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Huawei, and Google, all of which are in a constant quest for a solution to the screen bezel (non) issue.

Instead of going down the notch/hole punch/under-display camera road, Sony continues to embrace screen borders as far as both its high-end and mid-range handsets are concerned.

Similar to the recently leaked Xperia 1 IV flagship, the Xperia 10 IV (pronounced Ten Mark Four) sports symmetrical top and bottom bezels in addition to a very tall screen that few other companies ever tried to adopt.

The undoubtedly high-quality OLED panel also comes with no trendy curves and relatively thick side bezels making it crystal clear right off the bat that this is not a flagship model. Compared to last year's 6-inch Xperia 10 III, the 6-inch Xperia 10 IV is apparently ever so slightly shorter, narrower, and thicker overall, at 153.3 x 67.3 x 8.4mm.

Perhaps more notably, the (presumably plastic-made) frame is also boxier, with sharp edges possibly aimed at making the Xperia 10 family look even more similar to the high-end Xperia 1 and Xperia 5 lineups.

Expected specs and availability

Apart from a flat 6-inch OLED screen with an unknown resolution and refresh rate support (probably Full HD+ and 60Hz respectively), the Sony Xperia 10 IV is pretty much guaranteed to feature a triple rear-facing camera system, side-mounted fingerprint scanner, and yes, a good old fashioned 3.5mm headphone jack following today's leak.

Sadly, there are no words on actual camera capabilities just yet and the rumored Snapdragon 690 processor seems... unlikely. That's the exact same middling Qualcomm SoC the Xperia 10 III packed a year ago, and while we obviously don't expect an upgrade to a state-of-the-art Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, something tells us at least a (5G-capable) Snapdragon 778 chip is in the cards.

A 4,000mAh battery would also be a disappointing way to follow the 4,500mAh-packing Xperia 10 III, so it might simply be best to ignore all the non-visual details "revealed" today.

Of course, an entry-level variant with 128 gigs of internal storage space and a 6GB RAM count feels like a solid educated guess, and so does a late spring or early summer release... in Europe. Alas, the 5G-enabled Xperia 10 III never made its way to the US officially, and at least for the time being, there's nothing concrete to suggest things will be any different as far as the Xperia 10 IV is concerned.