We previously saw the Sony Xperia 1 VIII getting listed on Amazon ahead of schedule. Not particularly surprisingly, this turned out to be a sign that the phone was pretty close to launching. The company has scheduled a new product announcement to happen pretty soon, at least in its home country of Japan.
More specifically, Sony has scheduled a stream to happen on 13 May 2026, on 11AM Japan time, or 10AM local time. You can find this on the official Xperia YouTube channel. And from the teaser image used as the thumbnail, it looks to be the camera island of the Xperia 1 VIII, at least as shown by the leaked CAD renders.
Thanks to both the aforementioned Amazon listing and CAD renders, we know quite a bit of what to expect from the Sony Xperia 1 VIII. The list includes a 6.5-inch 19.5:9 120 Hz Full HD+ OLED screen, the triple camera setup, and other Xperia staples like the side-mounted fingerprint sensor, hardware shutter button, and the 3,5mm audio jack. It is also likely to retain its bezels on the top and bottom, which means no punch-hole for the front-facing camera, as well as proper stereo speakers.
That being said, the Amazon listing came with a pretty worrying price tag. It is listed as getting the WH-1000XM6 as being bundled in, but it’s unclear if that’s the only way the phone will be purchaseable, or if the phone alone can be bought at a more reasonable price. Granted, the listing was for the UK and German market, and it remains to be seen if it translates the same way when the phone lands on our shores. Hopefully it doesn’t take a month between the announcement and availability, as those listings suggested.
