Sony Plans to Unveil a Smartphone in 2013: Challenges to be Biggest Threat to iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3

| Updated: Saturday, November 17, 2012, 11:21 [IST]

Sony the Japanese tech giant might have lost its foothold in the global smartphone arena, but it seems that it is quite confident that it will regain the position by launching a new handset that can pose a threat to the market dominators – Apple iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S3.

On Friday, Dennis Van Schie, CVP Sales & Marketing, Sony Mobiles told Financial Times Deustchland (FTD) in an interview that “We will create in the near future a flagship model that can compete with Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S III.”

The report goes on stating that this flagship model of Sony will be unwrapped during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2013 in Las Vegas in January or during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2013 in in Barcelona in February.

Though Van Schie did not disclose any information on what the device could feature, he made it clear that it will be based on Android OS.

Sony has been in the news since a couple of months for its flagship smartphone – C650X codenamed Odin. Also, earlier rumors suggest that the next flagship smartphone Odin will be running on Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean OS and that it will be unveiled at the CES 2013.

Reportedly, Xperia C650X Odin with a 5 inch touchscreen display with a HD 1080p resolution and 440 ppi pixel density, a quad core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 13MP rear shooter, 2GB RAM and 32GB on-board storage.

Competition with Apple iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S3

When it comes to the smartphone market, research firm Canaccord Genuity reported that Apple and Samsung combine to generate 106 percent of the mobile industry's earnings. Moreover, iPhone 5 made sales of 5 million units only in the first few days of its release and Galaxy S3 has achieved over 30 million sales in five months of its release.

However, in the case of Sony offering, if the rumored 5 inch HD display with 440 ppi pixel density turns out to be true, then it would surely remain unmatched has both iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3 have significantly lesser pixel densities.

Anyways, these are rumored specifications and tech enthusiasts will have to wait until the official unwrapping of the handset to know more details on the same.