Sony’s Xperia 1 Viii Is Still A Phone For The Fans

The Xperia 1 VIII marks an effort astatine a measurement alteration for Sony’s flagship telephone line. Not only has it had an artistic overhaul, but Sony has besides revamped nan camera system, dropping nan continuous optical zoom telephoto that’s defined nan last 4 generations of Xperia phone.

It’s not each different. Sony staples for illustration a 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD paper slot remain, and a fewer circumstantial creation touches, for illustration a heavy beforehand bezel that fits stereo speakers, person stayed intact. Sony’s eager pricing hasn’t changed either: The Xperia 1 VIII isn’t launching successful nan US, but successful nan UK and Europe, it starts from £1,399 / €1,499 (about $1,850), rising to £1,849 / €1,999 ($2,450) if you want 1TB of storage.

For Sony diehards, this delivers nan flagship essentials, including a tin camera, and looks bully doing it. For everyone else, you tin find amended Android phones astatine this price, for illustration Xiaomi’s 17 Ultra aliases nan Vivo X300 Ultra.

Sony’s Xperia 1 phones person looked almost identical to 1 different since 2020. It was a beautiful handsome design, to beryllium fair, but astir apt overdue sprucing up. The 1 VIII does conscionable that, moving to a blocky caller camera land and an different textured decorativeness that make nan telephone consciousness very different to each erstwhile Xperia.

I’m a large instrumentality of nan design, which has a stark, brutalist quality. The somewhat grippy texture — a spot for illustration an incredibly good nail record — was designed to alteration subtly betwixt nan backmost and frame, which helps forestall nan telephone from emotion for illustration a monotone slab. The texture helps waste nan phone’s precocious value moreover amended than ultrasmooth solid mightiness (not that this isn’t glass, pinch Gorilla Glass Victus connected nan rear and Victus 2 connected nan front).

I emotion nan details, for illustration really nan camera island’s edges driblet disconnected steeply connected 3 sides, while connected nan past it angles down to meet nan frame. Sony’s accustomed knurled two-stage camera shutter fastener returns, adding different textural constituent and improved camera controls. Unfortunately, truthful does nan recessed powerfulness fastener and fingerprint sensor, which is little reliable than modern under-display options. It fails astir a 3rd of nan clip I effort it. I’m besides confused by nan overseas rectangular spot supra nan measurement button, which has an particularly unsmooth texture and looks for illustration it should do something, but doesn’t. Is it immoderate benignant of antenna cutout? I’ve asked Sony.

Sony agelong agone gave up connected utilizing its unique 21:9, 4K displays connected nan Xperia lineup. The 1 VIII uses a little awesome 1080p show successful a modular smartphone facet ratio. The solution is debased for this people of phone, but different I can’t kick astir nan panel, which is simply a 6.5-inch, 120Hz OLED pinch decent brightness. I do still miss nan taller screens Sony phones utilized to offer, though. Unlike astir rivals, nan show is besides wholly uninterrupted by a camera cutout, notch, aliases Dynamic Island. The tradeoff is nan alternatively heavy bezel supra and beneath nan screen, which houses nan camera and a brace of stereo speakers (good for telephone speakers, but still telephone speakers).

The Xperia 1 VIII’s internals are unremarkable, pinch nan aforesaid Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset you’ll find connected astir comparable handsets. It’s paired pinch either 12GB of RAM and 256GB of retention — disposable successful black, red, aliases metallic versions of nan telephone — aliases 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. That exemplary is only disposable successful gold, meaning that anyone tempted by nan Trump phone’s lustrous decorativeness and built-in headphone jack tin bask nan aforesaid luxuries present for quadruple nan price.

What is singular is that Sony has managed to make nan 8 Elite Gen 5 execute rather poorly. While nan telephone runs smoothly nan mostly of nan time, I’ve tally into repeated stuttering and slowdowns, particularly successful nan camera aliases while switching betwixt apps. It gets hot, too. Using nan telephone to grounds nan audio of a caller property event, pinch real-time AI transcription running, it became worryingly lukewarm aft conscionable 30 minutes aliases so, and arsenic nan hourlong telephone ended, it was basking to nan touch.

I don’t emotion nan artillery either. Sony claims you’ll get 2 days of life retired of nan 5,000mAh cell, but I don’t spot how. I’m a light-to-moderate personification astir of nan time, and I’ve dipped into single-digit territory by bedtime much than once. This will past nan time unless you push it hard, but expect to complaint each 24 hours. That mightiness return immoderate clip too, fixed nan 30W max speed, substantially slower than astir rivals. Only Google’s Pixel 10 Pro charges rather truthful slowly.

I person amended news connected nan camera front. After years of carving its ain path, Sony has taken nan “if you can’t hit ‘em, subordinate ‘em” attack to its Chinese flagship rivals, abandoning its clever continuous zoom lens and alternatively packing nan 1 VIII pinch nan biggest telephoto sensor it could fit. That Sony dropped continuous zoom successful nan aforesaid twelvemonth Xiaomi yet copied it and did it amended feels for illustration a sadistic twist of fate.

Still, what nan 2.9x (70mm-equivalent) telephoto lens present loses successful versatility by giving up continuous zoom it much than makes up for successful quality. That’s driven mostly by nan move to a ample 48-megapixel, 1/1.56-inch-type sensor — nan aforesaid size arsenic nan ultrawide’s and almost arsenic large arsenic nan 1/1.35-inch-type main camera sensor. Those different cameras, on pinch nan 12-megapixel selfie shooter, are unchanged from last year.

The telephoto and nan ultrawide are nan 2 standouts, some utilizing comparatively ample sensors compared to nan competition. I’m a instrumentality of Sony’s daytime processing, which leans toward higher opposition and somewhat much muted colors than immoderate different phones, and nighttime shots travel retired crisp and well-exposed too, though still struggle pinch agleam streetlights. This is decidedly Sony’s champion telephone camera yet and holds its ain against nan competition.

That is, isolated from for nan egregious caller AI Camera Assistant. More often than not, erstwhile you’re trying to return a changeable pinch nan rear camera (not selfies — don’t inquire maine why), a pop-up appears pinch 4 AI-suggested edits to your photos, earlier you moreover return them. The overwhelming mostly of these are simply overaggressive filters, either ramping up opposition aliases dialling backmost saturation, often to comically bad effect. Occasionally 1 will see algorithmically generated bokeh, and Sony claims it tin besides propose lens swaps for amended framing, but this has yet to hap to me. Every azygous proposal has been markedly worse than nan default camera settings, and nan pop-up unsocial is simply a distracting annoyance that seems to make nan camera app sluggish. Fortunately, you tin move it off, and if I wasn’t reviewing nan phone, I would person done truthful immediately.

The AI camera suggestions consciousness emblematic of Sony’s Xperia line, which ever delivers an awesome magnitude connected insubstantial and past contrives to travel itself up. The headphone jack, expandable storage, and stereo speakers are great. The caller creation connection is striking and unique. The camera is nan champion it’s ever been. Sony’s comparatively simple, streamlined return connected Android 16 has its entreaty too, but a meager committedness of 4 OS updates and six years of information support gives maine pause. It has its irritating quirks too: it keeps insisting connected creating location surface folders, adding Facebook to my Instagram icon to make a Meta folder, and throwing a full big of Google apps connected apical of Google Maps. Throw successful nan middling battery, capacity problems, and precocious price, and nan 1 VIII is difficult to urge to nan mean flagship buyer.

All of which leaves Sony backmost wherever it started. It redesigned nan Xperia, rethought its camera, and simplified its software, but this is still what it ever was: a telephone for nan fanboys. The remainder of america tin do better.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge