It’s confirmed. The new Sony phone has an unusual 21:9 aspect ratio display. And it will have a new name: the Sony Xperia 1.

(Image credit: Evan Blass)

The name change — shared along with these photos by reliable phone leaker Evan Blass — confirms the fact that Sony wants to make a comeback with its new phone line.

Or rather than a comeback, a splash, because the company was never considered a mobile player even while it arguably has the best phone camera sensors in the planet, which are used by all the top manufacturers, including Samsung and Apple. Despite having acceptable design and good features, Sony's phones have failed to capture people’s attention or meaningful market share.

(Image credit: Evan Blass)

But this may change with the Xperia 1. Firstly, the Japanese company has chosen to use a 21:9 aspect ratio OLED display that gives the phone a stylized look when held vertically. Horizontally, this will be perfect for movies, and it will work great with split-screen applications.

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Sony has also avoided all the usual hacks to get rid of bezels. There’s no notches, no punch holes, no slider display, or extra screens on the back. Instead, Sony has made the bezels really thin except for the phone’s forehead, which holds the selfie camera, speaker, and front sensors. It’s a simple albeit quite unusual design that manages to look elegant.

(Image credit: Evan Blass)

There are no definitive specs yet, but rumors point at a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of internal storage. It may all be powered by a rather large battery: 4,400mAh.

The screen render seems to show a fingerprint icon, which may mean that the phone has in-display biometrics. But it also has four buttons: one for power, one volume bar, and one dedicated shutter button that signals its camera-focused nature.

According to the photos released by Blass, there seems to be three models. Two with two cameras on the back, with one of them being more compact than the other, and one with three cameras, which will probably be the top Xperia 1.

Given that it owns the best mobile photo technology, and its Alpha cameras are extraordinary imaging machines, these cameras are actually Sony’s best bet for the Xperia 1 if it wants to truly succeed and compete face to face against the Apples, Samsungs and Huaweis of this world.