Sony is changing the design of a phone expected to launch next weekend

Sony Mobile has made a request to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for one of its grants be dismissed due to a “design change.” The letter, dated February 7, was picked up by Xperia Blog and is believed to relate to one of the company’s upcoming flagships.

This news arrives little over a week before MWC 2018 begins where Sony is rumored to launch three new handsets: the Xperia XZ Pro, Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact.

What kind of design change Sony intends to make—and to which device—we can only speculate; given the timeline, however, it may only be a minor alteration. Sony is likely to have finalized the main components—display technology, chipset, cameras etc—many months ago and I imagine it would be tricky to change these aspects of the device this close to launch (if indeed and MWC launch was intended). It’s probably something aesthetic rather than functional.

We also don’t know if this change will result in a delay or postponement of the device’s launch date. Hopefully, we’ll learn more on the MWC press days next weekend.