Sony is set to follow up its high-end Xperia 1 III with yet another premium offering in the next few months. This new phone, likely called the Xperia 1 IV, is claimed to be launching in May. 

If true, that would make it around a month earlier than the launch of the third generation model last year. It's worth noting, however, that the Xperia 1 III had a somewhat staggered launch, with it arriving in different regions in the months after initial launch. 

As expected, the next phone is rumoured to feature the latest flagship Qualcomm processor: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which sould sit alongside 12GB or 16GB RAM, as well as 256GB or 512GB storage. 

As well as that, it's claimed we'll see a beefy 5000mAh battery, plus faster charging than previous models. Specifically, the original tipster source - ZackBucks on Weibo - states we'll see 45W PD (Power Delivery) charging. That's up from 30W on the current model. 

Sony Mobile's efforts in the smartphone market it have seen it focusing on delivering high-end flagship phones with very different priorities to the rest of the crowd. 

It typically launches phones with long, narrow, cinematic 21:9 ratio displays with 4K resolution panels in them, and that's set to continue with the next flagship phone. 

The Xperia 1 also tends to include features long-since ditched by the likes of Samsung and Apple. Things like a physical fingerprint sensor, microSD card slot and a 3.5mm headphone port are usual in Sony's smartphones. We'd expect the next model to continue along those same lines. 

No other details are mentioned, but we'd expect a big focus on camera quality and - probably - a trio of 12-megapixel sensors, just like the 2021 model. 

As always, with any rumour, none of this is official until Sony itself announces the product, but there's nothing about the most recent rumour that strikes us as implausible.