Sony Mobile might be pumping out some powerful phones like the Xperia XZ in 2016 and now the Xperia XZs and Xperia XZ Premium but that doesn’t mean everything is going smooth for the company. Despite finally being profitable, which is a positive when compared to where they’ve been and their competitors like HTC and LG, Sony has seen their smartphone sales decline year-over-year since 2014 and likely won’t see them shipping many more than 15 million units for FY2016. Seeing how units sold is continuing to drop at an alarming pace, Sony might have gone back to the drawing board which could be why we now have a new budget phone from them, the Xperia L1.

As reported on by XperiaBlog, the Xperia L1 truly came out of nowhere with no prior leaks or hints to me from any little birdies. So what can we expect from the Xperia L1 (G33XX)?

  This is a budget handset that will use a 5.5-inch 720p HD display with a MediaTek MT6737T chipset (1.4GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor and Mali-T720 MP2 graphics). The handset will come with 2GB RAM and 16GB eMMC internal storage, along with microSD memory card support.

Camera duties are taken care of by a 13MP rear camera with F2.2 lens and a 5MP front camera with 24mm wide angle F2.2 lens. Other features include a 2620mAh battery, USB Type-C port, Bluetooth 4.2 and NFC. It has dimensions of 151 x 74 x 8.7 mm and weight of 180g. 

The last time we saw a phone from Sony carrying the “L” marking was way back in 2013. Since then, the E series has been the primary driver for their budget phones, making the L1 an off choice. Is this meant to be even more entry? Is the E series going away? Is the L1 meant for very select markets? A lot at this point is unknown about the phone as we’ve yet to get any official word from Sony about their vision for the L1 but hopefully that will change soon.