Sony Xperia 10 VI to rival Google Pixel 8a thanks to modern Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset
A few days have now passed since Evan Blass provided a first look at the successor to last year's Xperia 10 V (curr. $339 on Amazon). Since then, the same leaker has shared equivalent photos of the Xperia 1 VI. Additionally, Sony itself has now announced the date of its next Xperia launch event.
Although Blass revealed what the Xperia 10 VI would look like, his leak did not confirm too many technical specifications. However, Sumaho Digest claims to have found a Geekbench listing that offers some insights into the potential performance of the forthcoming mid-range smartphone. Incidentally, camera specifications have recently surfaced online too, details of which we have covered separately.
For context, Sony equipped the Xperia 10 V with the Snapdragon 695 5G, an octa-core and 6 nm chipset that it complements with 6 GB or 8 GB of RAM. Given that the Snapdragon 695 5G was roughly 18 months old when Sony announced the Xperia 10 V, it should come as no surprise to learn that the company will employ a similar strategy with the Xperia 10 VI. Nonetheless, the Xperia 10 VI has the potential to deliver much better performance than its predecessor.
In short, Geekbench suggests that Sony has equipped the Xperia 10 VI with a Snapdragon 6 Gen 1, which we have already reviewed in the Honor Magic6 Lite. Please note that Geekbench does not confirm this directly. Instead, it refers to the 'Sony XQ-ES72', with 'XQ-DS72' being the model number for the Xperia 10 V. Likewise, the motherboard name, CPU identifier and CPU clusters all point to the XQ-ES72 utilising the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1.
Paired with 8 GB of RAM in this instance, the XQ-ES72 falls in line with other Snapdragon 6 Gen 1-equipped devices that we have tested. Thus, the Xperia 10 VI should provide up to 50% better performance than the outgoing Xperia 10 V when it arrives on May 15. As a result, the Xperia 10 VI could be a solid alternative to the new Pixel 8a, considering that the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 only trails the Tensor G3 by 7% in our benchmarks.