Sony confirms grand product announcement for September 1, Xperia 5 IV expected

The first week of September will be packed with smartphone announcements. Huawei will hold an event on September 6 to introduce the flagship Mate 50 range and Apple's Far Out event for the iPhone 14 family is on September 7. Sony has announced an event on September 1 where it will likely reveal the Xperia 5 IV.

Sony has posted a short video on YouTube so that we mark our calendars for the next Xperia event and although the clip doesn't reveal the specifics, it throws around words like 'Be creative' and 'Go compact', so it's not hard to guess that it's the Xperia 5 IV that the Japanese company is hinting at.

Xperia 5 IV will fill an iPhone 13 mini-sized void

The Xperia 1 III and Xperia 5 III were both announced in April last year, but the Xperia 1 IV showed up solo in May. The timing as clever as Apple is not expected to launch a successor to the iPhone 13 mini, so there will be a void to fill.

As for what the Xperia 5 IV will bring to the table, we don't have to look far from the Xperia 1 IV to get an idea. That's because the Xperia 1 III and Xperia 5 III largely had the same core specs, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipsets, 4500mAh batteries, 120Hz OLED displays, Gorilla Glass 6 backs, IP68 rating, 5G, and headphone jacks.

The biggest differentiator between them was the screen size and resolution - Xperia 1 III offered a 6.5-inch 4K HDR display, while the Xperia 5 III had a 6.1-inch FHD+ screen. And, of course, the Xperia 5 III was also lighter.

Other than that, the former had a quad camera setup and 12GB of RAM, whereas the latter had three cameras and 8GB of RAM. The Xperia 5 III launched with a price of $1,000, and the Xperia 1 III retailed for $1,300.

According to rumors, the Xperia 5 IV will likely have a slightly smaller 6.04-inch screen, something that fans of the best compact phones will appreciate.

The phone is expected to retain its predecessor's camera setup of a 12MP main sensor, 12MP telephoto unit, and 12MP ultrawide module.

Unlike the previous Xperia 5 handsets, the new model is expected to offer NFC connectivity and wireless charging. It will likely be armed with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 and 12GB of RAM.

At $1,599, the Xperia 1 IV is more expensive than its predecessor, but apparently, Sony has implemented some cost-cutting measures to prevent Xperia 5 IV's price from ballooning, although it's not clear where the company cut corners.