Sony haven’t been doing well in the smartphone market as of late – despite a stylish unified look and powerful hardware in their 2012 smartphones, they’ve fallen behind rivals like HTC and Samsung in selling their wares. Next year, they’ll undoubtedly be looking to turn around their fortunes, and we’re starting to get a better idea of some of the phones they’ll be looking to launch. Two models are known thus far, which go by codenames Yuga and Odin.
The Odin was revealed first, coming to the fore in August this year. The phone, which appeared with fan-made renders, including some pretty hot specifications – a quad-core S4 Pro processor at 1.5 GHz, 2 GB of RAM and a 5″ 1080p display. If these specifications sound familiar, that’s because they’re identical to HTC’s Droid DNA which was released today but hadn’t been revealed at the time.
The Yuga has incredibly similar specifications, but with the addition of a 12 megapixel camera. Sony has always lead in this area – at least in raw megapixels – so it isn’t too surprising that their 2013 phone would include 4 more megapixels than the Droid DNA, which was also the case for the Sony Xperia T.
The similarity of the two phones is said to be the result of them actually being the same phone, just localised for two different regions.
It’s thought that the Yuga is the Japanese variant, and will measure 138.6 x 71 x 8.1 mm and weigh 140 grams. It will likely come with waterproofing and TV reception, which are commonplace for phones in Japan.
The Odin, conversely, measures 131.6 x 69.7 x 9.8 mm and weighs 147 grams. It also may include an IR emitter to work as a remote control and may be picked up by T-Mobile in the US.
So there we have it – two upcoming Sony smartphones, but sadly no real indication as to how they’ll get to the head of the Android pack.
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