Sony 'Yuga' flaunts 5-inch 1080p screen in leaked pics

A whopping new Sony smart phone has leaked online, reportedly sporting a 5-inch display and a 12-megapixel camera, alongside other hardware treats.

The mystery mobile, codenamed 'Yuga' (the name of an epoch or era within a cycle of four ages in Hindu philosophy -- thanks, Wikipedia) has showed itself in a series of snaps on German-language site Android-Schweiz.

It's always wise to take unconfirmed leaks with a pinch of salt, though the Yuga certainly looks to feature Sony's familiar squarish design. It also looks to sport a prominent power button on its left flank.

The 5-inch screen is described as "full HD", which likely means a 1080p resolution -- a pixel count backed up by benchmark results that leaked last month.

On the inside, meanwhile, the Yuga is reckoned to feature a quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz and 2GB of RAM, and be powered by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The battery appears to be non-removable, but it apparently plays host to a microSD card slot.

Put all that together, and it looks as though Sony could finally be bringing out the big guns in the smart phone war. The PlayStation-crafting firm's current flagship -- the Bond-bedazzling Xperia T -- is a decent mobile, but doesn't measure up to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S3 or the HTC One X. Or the iPhone 5 or Google Nexus 4 for that matter. Or the Nokia Lumia 920. You get the idea.

An enormous 5-inch screen with a proper HD display, a mega-powerful processor and a recent version of Android sounds much more likely to tickle my gadget fancy. Here's hoping Sony can get the mysterious Yuga into shops as soon as possible -- I'd wager we'll see this phone making its debut at the CES trade show in January, or possibly at Mobile World Congress in February.

What does Sony need in order to steal the smart phone crown? Tell me in the comments or on our Facebook wall.

Image credit: Android-Schweiz