Sony's upcoming smartphone aims to dethrone iPhone, Galaxy S III

Over the past few weeks a host of leaks have indicated that Sony would launch a few smartphones in early 2013. The sales and marketing head of Sony Mobile, Dennis Van Schie states that the company is aiming to take on Apple and Samsung when it launches its next smartphone.

Cnet, which sourced its information from Financial Times Deutschland (FTD), reports that Sony is going to launch a smartphone, which Van Schie calls a flagship model that can compete with the likes of the Apple iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S III. Though Van Schie did not shed much light on what this handset will entail, he did confirm that it will run on the Android operating system.

Could the Sony exec be talking about the Xperia Odin?

When asked if Sony would launch a handset running on the Windows Phone 8 OS, Van Schie said that the company was watching the development of the Windows Phone 8 platform closely. If it succeeds, Sony would not be caught off guard.

In reply to a question about the possible unveiling date of this handset, Sony’s Van Shie said that this flagship model will be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show 2013. It will also be showcased at the Mobile World Congress event scheduled to be held early next year.

Sony is preparing a handset codenamed Xperia Odin, which is expected to be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in early 2013. The handset has been captured in the wild, and this time it makes an appearance in an official press photograph. The official image, like the one spotted earlier, shows the phone with an extremely narrow bezel and the Xperia logo at the bottom. It also sports a metallic finish.

As far as specifications are concerned, the handset is expected to feature a 5-inch Full HD display, 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset and 2GB of RAM, 13MP rear camera and 32GB of onboard storage. An earlier report stated that Sony was preparing a C650X smartphone under the code name of Odin. The report went on to state, “As detected in its User-Agent Profile (UAProf), the phone looks to run Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean and Sony's 10.1.A.0.XXX firmware. To be clear, there is no other evidence to support the claim of "flagship" device. Considering we're talking about early 2013, the idea of anything older than 4.1 would be met with a collective grumbling by the Android masses. Yet, if Sony is able to build on the momentum of recent models (Xperia T), then the Odin could be mythical indeed.”