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The story
Sony has globally announced its new Android smartphone, the “Xperia 10 VIII.” On the forum thread, comments split between frustration that the chipset is nearly unchanged from the previous generation, and steady support for it as one of the few remaining models with microSD card support.
Sony has globally announced its new Android smartphone, the “Xperia 10 VIII” (Xperia Ten Mark Eight). No Japan release has been confirmed at this time.
It comes with 8GB of RAM, plus a virtual memory feature that lets up to 6GB of internal storage be used as extra working memory.
The chipset is Qualcomm’s “Snapdragon 6 Gen 3.” The device measures 153×72×8.3mm and weighs 168g. It has 128GB of storage and supports microSD cards up to 2TB. It also features IP68 water and dust resistance.
Source: k-tai.watch.impress.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Eh, I dunno…
Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 is plenty!
it's still Android…
Though it doesn't support wireless charging
Virtual memory (RAM expansion) will probably just keep growing
The Xperia 10 VII was ¥74,800, so no way
If you care about price or value for money, you wouldn't touch a Sony product anyway
Once it's out, it'll probably rank near the top of sales at places like the Docomo Online Shop!
I need an SD card slot, sorry ☺
If you're filming videos of your kids every day,
you'll burn through one 512GB SD card every 3 months
If Galaxy would just bring SD card support back, even on the A50 series alone, I wouldn't need Xperia at all
It's the 8th generation of the Model 10 line!
Huh, I see
So the Model 10 was such a great model that they just keep making upgraded versions?
Counting from the very first model, how many generations has the Xperia series had in total?
High-end — 1 series
Mid-range — 5 series
Entry-level — 10 series
The 10 series is the entry-level line, so it's the lowest-spec in the whole Xperia lineup
Besides the Xperia 1 series,
there's also the Xperia PRO-I,
and the Xperia Ace series too…
Because it still takes an SD card
iOS diehards stubbornly refuse to admit how clunky the UI and App Store are…
That's because I don't actually find it clunky
There are plenty of other options actually
Brands like TCL, OnePlus, and vivo
Right, that's true — it's all Xperia models,
plus only the regular AQUOS, not the PRO 😔
If only the Galaxy A50 series had an SD slot…
Stuff like the A25 is trash. The A23 is small and great
The A53 is great. The A54 cracks easily
Re: #44
Do phones like TCL, OnePlus, and vivo even have SD card slots?
They're so obscure I have no idea lol
I could at least name Huawei, Xiaomi, or BALMUDA lol
Vivo actually puts real effort into their cameras
Would totally want it if it had an SD card slot 😲💡
Re: #78
35 Anonymous Who Still Works (a default/joke username on this board) 2026/08/25 (Tue) 13:54:14.13 ID:t0QGRZwNd
If you want microSD support, your only real choices left are Xperia or AQUOS
74 Mainly posts on Kenmo, with NanJ & Kanro as side boards 😊 hage 2026/08/25 (Tue) 14:12:28.48 ID:lcw5Re0E0
Re: #35
Right, that's true — it's all Xperia models,
plus only the regular AQUOS, not the PRO 😔
I mean, Xperia is basically synonymous with a "dominant smartphone"…
Yeah, that's right
Globally too, it's Galaxy, not Apple
Pixel's garbage, go with Xperia!
The 5 IV has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which had a really bad reputation
Even if the performance is worse, the peace of mind on security is on a completely different level
Overseas phones might have better specs, but their custom OSes send a lot of mysterious data, so I don't want to use them for anything involving money
It even has something like a "poikatsu mode" (a mode for earning reward/loyalty points)!
There's no such thing as a "Japanese company" anymore. What are you even talking about?
On paper it's a Japanese company, but the shareholders are mostly foreign
Doesn't Xiaomi not support SD cards anymore?
I'm an Xperia 5 user myself
It's inconvenient, right
I'm still using the 5 III
Background and Key Points
The Xperia 10 line sits at the bottom of Sony Mobile’s three-tier lineup — flagship “1” series, mid-tier “5” series, and this entry-level “10” series — so “Mark VIII” simply means it’s the eighth annual refresh of the budget model, not some flagship’s eighth generation. That matters for reading the spec sheet: a “Snapdragon 6 Gen 3” chip and 8GB RAM (extendable via a swap-to-storage trick, not real RAM) are entirely normal for this tier, and Sony has priced this line closer to ¥70,000+ in Japan historically despite the mid-range hardware, since carriers there bundle it into two-year installment plans rather than selling it as a true budget phone. No Japan release or price has actually been confirmed yet, which several posts gloss over while already speculating about a sub-¥50,000 tag.
The thread’s real fault line isn’t Sony-love versus Sony-hate — it’s whether an unchanged chipset generation-over-generation is a dealbreaker or beside the point. One camp treats the flat performance as proof Sony is coasting; the other treats it as irrelevant next to the microSD slot (up to 2TB) and IP68 rating, since Samsung, Google, and Apple have all abandoned expandable storage on their current lines, leaving Xperia and Sharp’s AQUOS as nearly the only mainstream holdouts.
One thing the thread never grapples with: the “it’s a Japanese phone, so it’s safer with my payment data” argument gets challenged only in passing. Sony Mobile still ships stock Android with Google Mobile Services and Google Pay integration underneath, so the “domestic OS” security premise posters lean on doesn’t really hold up against the actual software stack running on the device.
※This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Livegalileo) thread “[Good News] Sony Announces Dominant Smartphone “Xperia 10 VIII”“.
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