Sony Xperia 1 Review: “high” flagship with 4K HDR OLED display

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Sony has repeatedly argued that it can distinguish its smartphones from the competition. How successful -

that is another question. Sony Xperia 1, Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus smartphones were presented in February at MWC 2019 and got a completely updated look compared to the previous ones. There are no cuts in the screens, retractable cameras and other “fashionable” chips in the company's current smartphones, a distinctive feature this time was an elongated display with a “cinematic” ratio of 21: 9. Sony Xperia 10 Plus has already been in the editorial, and now finally got (including the stores), the current flagship Sony Xperia 1.

What is it?
What is interesting Sony Xperia 1?
What is in the box?
What does Sony Xperia 1 look like?
How good is the screen?
What about performance, memory, sound and autonomy?
What about the interface?
How are things going with the camera?
In the dry residue

What is it?

Sony Xperia 1 - the flagship smartphone with 6.5-inch 4K OLED HDR display with an aspect ratio of 21: 9, a Qualcomm top processor, 6 GB of RAM, 128 GB of internal memory, a triple main camera and Android 9 Pie.

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What is interesting Sony Xperia 1?

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Sony Xperia 1 is equipped with 6.5-inch display with an aspect ratio of 21: 9. This format is used in most modern films, in addition, the company claims that it is convenient for working with two applications in a split-screen mode, and it is more convenient to read news feeds. More information is placed. But separately it is worth telling about the screen. This is an OLED with HDR support and a resolution of as much as 3840x1644. In this regard, the approach resembles Xperia Premium: only the corresponding content (video, photo) is played in native resolution, the rest of the time the resolution is 2560x1096. Over the main camera worked thoroughly. It is now triple, all three modules have the same resolution of 12 MP, but the other characteristics, of course, are different. The main module received high-aperture optics f / 1.6 and a viewing angle of 78 °. The second is a telephoto for 2x zoom with a 45 ° angle and f / 2.4 aperture. Sony finally listened to the users and the two above-mentioned modules received optical stabilization. The third module is super-wide with f / 2.4 aperture and 130 ° angle, without OIS. The camera can shoot videos in 4K HDR, including with an aspect ratio of 21: 9. Super-slow shooting of 960 fps FullHD, which has already become familiar to Sony's flagships, is also available. Of the interesting chips added autofocus over the eyes and a separate Cinema Pro application for those who like to dig into the manual settings. Inside, everything is more familiar, as for the flagships of Sony: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 top processor, 6 GB of operational and 128 GB of internal memory, all modern wireless interfaces, including NFC and Bluetooth with support for the LDAC and aptX HD codecs. The smartphone is powered by a 3330 mAh battery with support for fast charging via cable, but for some reason without wireless support. The housing is made of glass and metal and is IP65 / 68 protected.

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What is in the box?

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The box is made of white cardboard, outside -Only the name of the model and the necessary technical information. No colorful printing. We have a smartphone with a not quite complete set. In commercial boxes, in addition to the Sony Xperia 1 itself, there will be a 18-watt USB-PD memory, a Type-C cable, an adapter from Type-C to a 3.5-mm jack, and an intra-channel headset with a standard one (we didn’t have it in the box) ).

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What does Sony Xperia 1 look like?

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Externally, the smartphone looks very unusual: It is really very long because of the aspect ratio. It is about a centimeter longer than other modern flagship smartphones. On the other hand, this aspect ratio allowed it to be made smaller in width. For comparison, the width of the 6.4-inch Galaxy S10 + is 74.2 mm, the 6.5-inch Sony Xperia 1 is 72 mm. Because of this, using one hand is quite realistic and even convenient. Some difficulties can only be with not too deep pockets, in which the smartphone can simply not fit because of the length. Although this is rather a special case: the smartphone is placed in standard men's jeans without problems. The frames on the sides of the screen are thin, the chin is small, without any frills. Above the screen is a speaker, sensors, front camera and notification indicator:

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Smartphone materials typical of modernflagships: metal frame, glass front and rear. The hull form itself is a cross between the “bar-shaped” Sony of the past and the sleek Xperia XZ2 and XZ3. The smartphone is devoid of sharp corners at the same time, Sony recognizes a certain rigor. Some users did not appreciate the thickness and overly streamlined shape of the Xperia XZ2 and XZ3 lines (but in vain), so the new Sony Xperia 1 was made thinner: 8.2 mm, the average for modern flagships. Sony finally and irrevocably abandoned the 3.5 mm jack in the flagships. Below - USB Type-C, microphone and external speaker:

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At the top there is a second microphone and a tray:

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The tray can be removed without additional tools, Sony has long used a similar form. The hybrid tray itself: either two SIM cards, or instead of the second - a microSD memory card:

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The location of the buttons and finger scanner is unusual. We saw this in the Xperia 10 Plus, but in the flagship Sony Xperia 1 it was implemented more conveniently. Fingerprint scanner moved from the back to the middle of the right side. It is conveniently located: it gets a thumb when used with the right hand and an index finger with the left, and it works very quickly and accurately. Just below - the power button, above - the volume rocker. Unlike the 10 Plus, the buttons perceptibly protrude above the body and are clearly pressed. At the bottom of the end is a two-position camera button:

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The back panel is glass, in the upper part -the main camera in the middle is the Sony logo. The back cover is rounded on the sides for a more comfortable grip. Interestingly, the live backdrop looks much more attractive than on official renderers. We came to the review “boring” gray. Live from a little goes to a blue shade and looks very good. Also in Ukraine sold black version. Less “hackneyed” white and purple, unfortunately, decided not to deliver:

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Three lenses of the main camera are located under a common protective glass. It protrudes slightly above the body. Above the camera is a laser rangefinder and a flash, and on the side is the designation of an NFC module:

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Sony Xperia 1 looks unusual and interesting. The elongated body - the moment that can not "go" to everyone. I had no problems with using one hand, the evening went to the addiction. And after Xpeia 1, for example, the Xiaomi Mi9 seemed wide and uncomfortable. Although it is very individual and depends on the personal habits of users. For the consumption of content such as news feeds, social networks and mobile versions of sites, 21: 9 turned out to be extremely convenient.

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How good is the screen?

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The Sony Xperia 10 Plus is installed 6.5-inch POLED-display CinemaWide with an aspect ratio of 21: 9 and a resolution of 3840x1644, pixel density - 643 ppi. Traditionally for Sony (in particular, the Premium series), 4K resolution is used only in a few embedded applications and when viewing photos / videos. The approach is quite justified: it is extremely difficult to visually distinguish, but the charge is spent less. The display supports HDR, there is a Creator mode, it is stated that the display has a DCI-P3 color gamut of 100%, BT2020 and the D65 standard for white. Well, marketing is marketing, but the screen really looks great, especially if you watch 4K HDR content on it, of course. The colors are very saturated, the viewing angles are maximum, and the brightness is sufficient for comfortable work in the sun. Brightness is not specified, but I suspect that the peak value for HDR content is 600 cd / m2. There is an Always on Display function with a display of hours, charge, notifications, track information during music playback. It is possible to set your own picture:

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In the settings there is a brightness, font,scale interface elements, as well as color settings. There are two modes: creator mode and standard mode (you can also enable automatic transition to Creator mode when playing 4K HDR content). Separately there is a flexible setting of the light transmission with presets and sliders on red, green and blue:

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In standard mode, maximum brightnessamounted to 362.209 cd / m2, the brightness of the black field - 0 cd / m2, and the static contrast tends to infinity (like all OLED). The color rendition is slightly inclined to cold colors, the color gamut is much wider than sRGB:

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In Creator Mode, the maximum brightness was 394.97 cd / m2, and the color coverage is closer to sRGB:

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Comparison with other models:

Device name
White field brightness,
cd / m2
Black field brightness,
cd / m2
Contrast

Sony Xperia 1
394.97
0
∞

Samsung Galaxy S10
378.72
0
∞

Huawei P30 Pro
435.845
0
∞

Sony Xperia XZ3
408.047
0
∞

Samsung Galaxy S10 +
397.816
0
∞

What about performance, memory, sound and autonomy?

Sony Xperia 1 - the flagship smartphone and, knowingSony, no options for “hardware” and could not be. Inside - the top eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, which includes 1 × 2.84 GHz cores, Kryo 485 core, 3 × 2.41 GHz Kryo 485 and 4 × 1.78 GHz Kryo 485, and Adreno 640 graphics accelerator. The RAM is 6 GB, built-in - 128 GB UFS standard. So with performance everything is fine. All games and applications in any quantities “fly”. Some games already support 21: 9 and look great. In particular, PUBG Mobile, Arena of Valor, Asphalt 9 and Fortnite. Apparently for this reason they were pre-installed on the smartphone. The rest are “cut off”, but this is not critical:

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Sony also has its own gaming utility undercalled “Game Accelerator”. The functionality is approximately the same as among competitors: screenshots, shooting video with gameplay, a hub with all games, performance tuning for each game and the ability to turn off notifications:

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There were no surprises in the performance tests. This is one of the most powerful smartphones at the moment:

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In real conditions (games, 4K shooting), the smartphone is practically not heated. In the stress test throttling is still present, but within reasonable limits:

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Wireless interfaces are finehas all the necessary set: dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth 5.0 and support for aptX HD codecs and LDAC, NFC and GPS. The sound from the speakers is very sensible, the second for stereo is spoken. The system of vibration in video and games migrated from previous models, maybe someone will go. In headphones, through the supplied adapter, the sound is also very sensible. Although Campfire Audio Polaris is hard to spoil. As for the player, there are no any features: a standard set of functions with filtering by genre, tracks, albums and performers, Dolby Atmos and DSEE HX enhancement:

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Sony Xperia 1 has a battery capacity3330 mAh In practice, no surprises: a day of battery life with very active use. One and a half to two with more moderate appetites (without games and with a small amount of photo / video). Supports fast charging USB Power Delivery, complete with the corresponding power supply for a modest 18 W by today's standards. Although the smartphone charges quickly: a little less than 2 hours to full charge and half an hour to 50%. What is interesting, decided to remove wireless charging. There are additional chips to save energy Adaptive Battery (auto-close rarely used applications), battery care to extend service life, Stamina and Digital Wellbeing modes:

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What's up with the firmware and interface?

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If you like clean (or close to clean)Android, the Sony Xperia 1 will please. The smartphone runs on Android OS 9.0 Pie, the shell is not overloaded, there are several additional features and a redrawn interface. But the basic logic is unchanged. There is a separate application menu and standard navigation options with three and two buttons:

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The application manager is standard, in the form of a horizontal carousel of large cards:

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Side Sense migrated from past models. Double-tapping the side faces opens a menu with applications that are used most often. By moving up the edge, the split-screen mode is turned on, and shortcuts have appeared in the Side Sense menu for quickly launching ready-made combinations of applications. Movement down the edge - analog button “back”. Side Sense panels can be adjusted by position, length, sensitivity is adjusted. If you wish, you can disable it altogether:

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There is an adjustable thumbnail mode that is triggered by double-tapping the home button. A useful thing, given the size of the smartphone:

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The fingerprint scanner on the right side works quickly and accurately. Identification on the face of the owner also exists, but there are no additional algorithms for determining or, especially, no sensors.

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And some pre-installed applications:

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How are things going with the camera?

Sony has long and hard used evenflagship single cameras, the first experience with two modules was the Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium. And already with the current line of dual cameras got smartphones of the middle price segment. The flagship Sony Xperia 1 got a triple main camera with the already familiar set. The main camera with high-aperture optics, telephoto module for 2x zoom and ultra wide angle module. All three have the same resolution of 12 MP, the main module with an angle of 78 °, aperture of /1.6 and optical stabilization, telephoto - 45-degree, f / 2.4, also with OIS, and an ultra-wide angle f / 2.4 with an angle of 130 °. Awesome set. Moreover, Sony did not use optical stabilization before. It is argued that the image processing uses a processor BIONZ X, which uses the operating time of Sony cameras, but is adapted for smartphones. Of the interesting chips there is a focus on the eyes and continuous shooting of 10 frames per second. Plus 4K HDR video and super slow shooting of 960 frames per second FullHD.

The camera application is very close to the past.devices. Switching between photos and videos is done by swipe, on the left there are quick settings for flash, aspect ratio, timer, white balance, button for switching between main and front cameras and switching to background blur mode. On the main screen there is a button for switching cameras: main, 2x zoom and wide-angle. Additional modes are available in a separate menu in the lower right corner. There is also a button for quick access to the last mode used. There are a number of questions for the application: there is no separate night mode and the ability to automatically enable HDR in automatic mode, this is possible only in manual mode. The inclusion of an ultra-wide-angle camera is not quite obvious;

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Compared to past Sony smartphones, the newthe smartphone has grown significantly in quality of photos, especially at night. The camera is really very good. Although it is still a little harder for a smartphone to cope in the evening than top Samsung and Huawei. But, it is worth paying tribute: the picture on the Sony Xperia 1 is more natural and natural. Explicit "dorisovyvaniya" significantly less. The only thing that sometimes HDR in automatic mode can sin on small overexposure around objects:

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Additional cameras do well with sufficient light, but in the evening the results are worse, which is not surprising, considering the f / 2.4 aperture. Telephoto (zoom):

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Super Wide Camera:

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4K video:

Super slow shooting:

The Cinema Pro app will be fun for zadrotam. It allows you to completely manually set the settings for the video. The interface is similar to professional cameras Sony CineAlta. The application has special presets, which, together with the format of 21: 9 can add cinematic. I do not understand all these subtleties, so I prefer the standard camera application.

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In the dry residue

Sony Xperia 1 - extremely unusual and interestingflagship smartphone with the highest possible (at the moment) performance, good cameras, excellent OLED-display, almost pure actual Android, high-quality sound, high-quality materials of the body and dust and moisture protection. As always, Sony doesn’t follow modern trend chips like cutouts in the screen or a retractable camera and the smartphone really looks original. In practice, the “elongated” form factor with 21: 9 screen came out extremely convenient for movies, news feeds and social networks. But the smartphone itself turned out to be long and (according to the results of tests on friends) it is far from convenient for everyone. The main prospects of the smartphone are directly dependent on the price tag and at the moment it is somewhat overestimated: 30 000 UAH in the presence of a number of Samsung and Huawei flagships,spoil the situation. On the other hand, this is Sony, which is still a decisive factor for brand fans. And the price policy of the company is such that the cost will drop to an attractive one much faster than that of competitors.

7 reasons to buy Sony Xperia 1:

the magnificent OLED display without cuts;
top performance;
flagship materials, assembly and convenient (considering the size of the screen) form;
dust, moisture protection;
high-quality and functional triple camera;
Android 9 Pie with a convenient and fast shell;
Mighty sound in headphones and on the speakers.

3 reasons not to buy Sony Xperia 1:

high price;
mediocre battery life and no wireless charging;
the camera in the most difficult conditions is slightly inferior to the flagships of the same price segment.

Sony Xperia 1

Sony's flagship smartphone with 6.5-inch 4K OLED HDR display with an aspect ratio of 21: 9, a Qualcomm top processor, 6 GB operational, 128 GB of internal memory, a triple main camera and Android 9 Pie operating system.

Allo

Rozetka

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Technical specifications Sony Xperia 1

Display
IPS, 6.5 inches, 3840x1644, 623 ppi, 21: 9, Gorilla Glass 6

Housing
dimensions 167x72x8.2 mm, weight: 172 g

CPU
64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, 1 × 2.84 GHz Kryo 485 core, 3 × 2.41 GHz Kryo 485 and 4 × 1.78 GHz Kryo 485, Adreno 640 graphics

RAM
6 GB

Flash memory
128 GB, microSD

Camera
Main: 12 MP, f / 1.6, OIS, telephoto: 12 MP, f / 2.4, OIS, ultra wide angle: 12 MP f / 2.4, 130 °, frontal - 8 MP, f / 2.0

Wireless technology
Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth 5.0 (aptX HD, LDAC), NFC

GPS
GPS (plus A-GPS), Glonass

Battery
3330 mAh, non-removable, fast charging USB Power Delivery 18 W

operating system
Android 9.0 Pie

Sim card
2xnanoSIM

For those that want to know more:

Sony Xperia 10 Plus Review: Smartphone for Favorite TV Series and Social Networks
ASUS ZenFone 6 Review: People's Flagship with Snapdragon 855 and PTZ Camera
Huawei P30 Pro Review: Night Vision
Samsung Galaxy S10 review: All-in-One universal flagship
Sony Xperia XZ3 Review: Special
Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium review: flagship with dual camera and 4K HDR display