Sony would be ready to launch a smartphone with 5K display. The presentation should already take place in September during the IFA in Berlin
The Japanese giant Sony for some time now occupies a somewhat marginal position in the smartphone market, but soon it could return with a novelty that will certainly make talk about itself: a device with 5K screen. They begin to turn in the network, in fact, the first rumors about a device at the time called Sony Xperia 1R, codenamed J8220.
A few weeks ago were turned news about the Sony Xperia 20, likely successor to the current Xperia 1 with 4K display. At the moment it's not clear whether the Xperia 20 and Xperia 1R are the same device or two different models in the Sony range. By the way, the Xperia 1 is on sale very recently, while for this new 5K smartphone there is talk of a presentation at the IFA 2019 in Berlin, that is, in early September. Everything therefore still needs to be clarified but what seems certain is that, at some point, Sony will present a device with a display with a resolution higher even than that of a modern smart TV.
Sony Xperia 1R: technical characteristics
Taking any leaked information with due caution, we can say that the Xperia 1R will have a 6.1-inch OLED display with a resolution of 5,040×2,160 pixels and a form ratio of 21:9. A screen, therefore, great for watching multimedia content thanks to the very high pixel density: 889 ppi. For comparison, the current top of the range Xperia 1 has a 6.5-inch 4K display with a resolution of 3,840×1,644 pixels (643 ppi), also in this case 21:9 CinemaWide.
The other technical characteristics of the Xperia 1R should be higher than those of the Xperia 1, so we assume a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus SoC processor (which is basically a factory overclocked Snapdragon 855) and a RAM not less than 6/8 GB. Strong doubts, however, on the front and rear camera compartment and, above all, on the battery. Rumors speak of a 3,200 mAh accumulator, so lower than the already not huge 3,300mAh battery of the Xperia 1. Such a low capacity, at least in theory, is unlikely to keep a display with that huge amount of pixels on for very long.
Sony Xperia 1R: what's the point of a 5K display
There's one last thing to understand: what's the point of a screen with such a high resolution on a 6.1-inch terminal. There are very few apps that can benefit from it and even streaming videos, at best, today (and for a long time to come) do not go beyond 4K resolution. There are those who speculate on the use of 5K for viewing content in virtual reality or augmented reality. Already since 2016, in fact, Sony offers on its Xperia smartphones the AR Effect application that allows you to add augmented reality content to photos and videos. Meanwhile, the Japanese manufacturer is continuing to develop this technology on the PlayStation platform and, most likely, we'll see a big leap of it on the PS5.