Sony’s flagship phones usually face the same two major issues, one being the price, and the other being a baffling release schedule, which sees them go on sale long after they’re announced. Sadly, it looks like at least the latter of these might continue with the Sony Xperia 1 V.
According to leaker Zackbuks (opens in new tab), writing on Chinese social media site Weibo (via NotebookCheck (opens in new tab)), the Sony Xperia 1 V will launch at around the same time this year as the Sony Xperia 1 IV did last year. Specifically, it might be announced in May, and go on sale in June.
Now, that doesn’t sound too bad, but there are a couple of things to note. First of all, the specific dates in May and June last year meant there was over a month between announcement and release for the Sony Xperia 1 IV, and that was just for the UK, with the US not getting the phone until September.
Zackbuks is also likely talking about Chinese dates here, and typically Sony’s flagship phones land in China and Japan before anywhere else. Sometimes long before, with the Sony Xperia 1 III for example landing in China in early June of 2021, but not in the US or UK until mid-August.
All of which is to say that Sony often likes to make much of the world wait, for some reason. So, if the Sony Xperia 1 V is working on the same release schedule as the Xperia 1 IV, then there’s a high chance that the US, at least, will be waiting until quite a while after the May announcement to get it, and even the UK may be waiting over a month.
An unfortunate wait
That would be a shame, because by then interest in the phone may have waned, and the September US launch last year was particularly poor timing because by then attention was turning to the iPhone 14.
Of course, there’s no guarantee this will happen again. Zackbuks – via the machine translated text – sounds like they’re making an educated guess as much as anything, and even if they’re right, perhaps Sony will work to bring the Xperia 1 V out globally in early June, rather than making some countries wait until late June or subsequent months.
The good news is that May isn’t far away now, so if the Sony Xperia 1 V really is being announced then, we’ll at least have a clearer idea of this best phone contender’s release date soon.