Sony Xperia 1 VII: Official teasers reveal 'powered by' Alpha and Walkman hardware

Sony has dropped fresh hints about its next Xperia smartphone, having confirmed its May 13 launch date earlier this week. Initially, the company suggested that its 'Next ONE' is powered by its Alpha camera series. While that is unlikely to be literal, it is clearly a nod to the device's camera prowess.

Unfortunately, we suspect that the images contained in Sony's first teaser show the Xperia 1 VI (curr. $1,049.99 on Amazon) rather than the Xperia 1 VII. Although tricky to pick out, the camera housing design resembles the former, not the latter, based on recent leaks. Nonetheless, one can already pour over the rear design of Sony's next flagship courtesy of one careless regulatory body.

Sony has now teased that its next smartphone is 'powered by Walkman' too. Again, it has not elaborated much further beyond showing the NW-WM1ZM2 Signature Series followed by two older Xperia handsets. Presumably, this is an indication that the Xperia 1 VII will launch with a 3.5 mm jack. However, it is unclear whether Sony will include a dedicated Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) or it will stick with the one that Qualcomm provides inside its Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.