Sony announced a phone back in March called the Xperia L. In short, it’s a device that looks like the company’s flagship Xperia Z, except that the specs have been ratcheted way down. Forget about 1080p, or even 720p, we’re talking 4.3 inches of 854 x 480 pixels here.
The Xperia L’s model number is S36h. Thanks to the Xperia Blog, we now have photos of a phone called the S39h. I’m tempted to just call it a Chinese Xperia L and call it a day, but there are notable differences between the two devices. Starting with the front facing camera, on the L it’s on the left, but on the S39h it’s on the right. Also, the L has a silver grill on top of the ear piece. Meanwhile, this leaked handset has a silver grill on both the ear piece and the bottom of the phone.
In order to do some investigating, I went to the Chinese Sony Style website, and sure enough, Sony’s Chinese phones have the same model numbers as Sony’s phones for Europe and North America. This leads me to believe that the S39h is somehow a spec bumped version of the Xperia L that we’ll see at some point later this year.
Yes, it’s weird that we’re seeing this phone leak less than two months after the Xperia L was officially announced, but I’m hesitant to call the S39h a regional variant.
