Sony Xperia 5 IV certification suggests it could land very soon - with a key upgrade

A Sony Xperia 5 III leaning against a wall
A Sony Xperia 5 III (Image credit: TechRadar)

The Sony Xperia 5 IV is one of this year’s smartphone mysteries, as while we had expected such a phone to exist, it didn’t launch alongside the Sony Xperia 1 IV, and leaks about it have been slim. But the best evidence yet for this phone has now emerged – and suggests that it might land soon.

GSMArena has spotted an FCC (Federal Communications Commission) listing for a phone that appears to be the Sony Xperia 5 IV. The device isn’t mentioned by name, but it’s a Sony smartphone with the sort of dimensions we’d expect.

Specifically, this phone is said to be 155.74 x 67.1mm, which would make it marginally smaller than the 157 x 68mm Sony Xperia 5 III.

The phone listed here also has a screen diagonal of 153.5mm, which should translate to a 6.04-inch display, making the screen marginally smaller than the 6.1-inch screen on its predecessor too.

Broadly though, this sounds like a very similarly proportioned phone. The FCC listing also mentions wireless charging – which isn’t something the Mark 3 model offers, along with NFC, a 3.5mm headphone port, and a USB-C port.

So if this is accurate then the addition of wireless charging might be one of the Sony Xperia 5 IV’s main upgrades, though of course a lot of specs aren’t included here. We’d take all of this with a pinch of salt anyway, but information held by the FCC is usually accurate.


Analysis: an FCC listing suggests an imminent launch

Beyond the included specs, the very existence of an FCC listing suggests that the Sony Xperia 5 IV could launch soon, as these listings tend to emerge quite soon before launch – though the exact timing can vary.

Still, we wouldn’t be surprised if we therefore officially see the Xperia 5 IV within the next month or so, and that timeframe would also make sense, as the Sony Xperia 5 III only went on sale in the UK in September 2021, despite an April announcement. Some other regions got it even later, with the US for example not seeing it until January 2022.

So Sony might well announce the Xperia 5 IV in September and then ship it soon after – at least in some regions. We can’t be certain of that, but if you’ve been looking for one of the best small phones, you might soon have a new option.

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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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