You are stating a problem that ALL phone makers have...how to differentiate themselves.
I say if you want to differentiate yourself then why not "borrow" a few features from Sony? Maybe a return to the way smart phones were designed 10 years ago...you know...when they did hardware properly? They could go back to 16:9 screens! Do you realize how many people would love this? Truly FLAT screens...no curved edges AT ALL! Put the selfie (if it must have one) in the top bezel so NO holes in the screen! Or how about a return to the notification LED which is way better than AOD and many, many people would love this! Or, what about bringing back the HEADPHONE JACK???? How many people want this? The point is that there are numerous ways to "differentiate" themselves that many end users would jump all over. Adding useless RAM, or putting a stupid thermometer on the back (looking at you Pixel) is NOT the way to do it! Why is this so hard for the OEM's to understand????