Image credit – Pocket-lint
At MWC 2019, Sony took the wraps off their flagship smartphone the Xperia 1 along with their Xperia 10 and 10 Plus mid-rangers. However what was missing from Sony’s announcements (aside from flexible displays and ways to hide the notch) was 5G. The company briefly touched on the topic but it seems that they did not have any 5G smartphone to announce.
However according to Pocket-lint, Sony did have a 5G prototype sitting quietly at their booth at the event. The company did not exactly announce with any fanfare, so there is a good chance that this prototype could simply be used to shown to Sony’s business partners and less for consumers.
The device pictured above looks rather standard in terms of design, so it is unclear if this could be the final product or if it is merely a shell that Sony is keeping its 5G innards in. Unsurprisingly the device in question uses the Snapdragon 855 and the X50 5G modem, but other than that, we’re not sure what else we might be able to expect.
According to Sony’s Adam Marsh who is part of the company’s global communications team, the device in question is more for testing of 5G rather than being a commercial product. “Product [the company] is using in trials with certain key customers who are using it to do consumer testing, as well as network testing and experience testing”. That being said, we wouldn’t be surprised if Sony were to eventually launch a commercial 5G smartphone, after all it is pretty much what everyone is expecting this year.