Sony has a new 5.45-inch Xperia smartphone in the works, but it's not all that compact

Sony has not released a new Xperia Compact since the XZ2 Compact, which it announced over two years ago. The device is reaching the end of its life too, with it already having received its customary two OS upgrades. There are hardly any modern smartphones as small as the XZ2 Compact besides the Galaxy S10e, with the likes of the Pixel 3a and Mi 9 SE all about 150 mm tall. Hence, the appearance of a 5.45-inch Sony smartphone at the TENAA could have been exciting news for fans of compact smartphones.

Sadly, the device that Sony has certified with the TENAA is not a successor to the XZ2 Compact. Codenamed the S20A, the device measures 150.8 x 72.8 x 12.5 mm, making it significantly larger than the XZ2 Compact and even the Mi 9 SE. Worse still, the 5.45-inch display of the S20A is only a 480 x 960 TFT panel, underlining its entry-level credentials.

Likewise, a quad-core SoC is onboard, although the TENAA does not specify what chipset Sony has included. The device has been certified with up to 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage too, along with a 4,000 mAh battery.

Oddly, the device has been certified running Android 6.0 Marshmallow, an OS that Google released in 2015. The S20A may be exclusive to the Chinese market though, seeing as it was registered by Sony Ericsson Guangzhou. GSMArena reports that this is Sony's smartphone Chinese sub-division.