Does the tall Sony Xperia 1 II live up to its equally tall price?
Finally, a Sony flagship that’s worth buying, with a treat for all videographers, but the price is as tall as the handset
PRICE £916 (£1,099 inc VAT) from sony.co.uk
Over the years, Sony has struggled to keep pace with the smartphone juggernauts of Apple and Samsung. It wants to turn those fortunes around with the Xperia 1 II, a flagship release that it hopes will thrust its smartphones back into the limelight and, ultimately, back into your pocket.
Before we go any further, though, we need to address the odd name.
Sony has boxed itself into a corner by releasing two mid-range phones called the Xperia 10 and Xperia 5 in the past year, leaving it limited room for manoeuvre for the successor to its top-of-the range Xperia I ( see issue 304, p84). For the record, this one is officially called “Xperia 1, mark 2”.
Vive la différence
There’s a lot to like about Sony’s flagship – such as its 4K screen and 5G support – but the main selling point is its camera credentials. The trio of 12-megapixel rear cameras offer a variety of treats, including superfast eye autofocus and 20fps continuous shooting, as well as different frame rate and resolution recording options via Sony’s preinstalled Cinema Pro and Photo Pro apps.
“The shooting experience is an absolute dream. Images are captured in the blink of an eye, and it’s handy to use the shutter button”
The he 12-megapixel rear cameras are arranged nged vertically: one is a f/1.7 lens with a 24mm equivalent focal length, and sitting itting above that is the f/2.4 3x optical al zoom camera, which has a 70mm m focal length. Finally, a f/2.2 wide-angle -angle lens is at the top, with a focal length of 16mm.
The main sensor is larger this year, capturing 50% more light than the Xperia 1, and it also has a whopping 247 focus points, covering up to 70% of the sensor. The burst mode has also been improved, allowing you to shoot at a rapid 20fps with continuous focus and exposure tracking. Sony says the focusing is calculated at 60 times per second, and the eyetracking now detects both animals and humans.
So the cameras are stuffed with features, but how did they perform in our tests? In short, very well. Images were filled with fine details in bright environments, with excellent contrast and a neutral colour palette.
The shooting experience is an absolute dream. Images are captured in the blink of an eye, and it’s handy to use the physical shutter button on the right edge of the handset. The basic camera app is limited but switch to the Photo Pro app and you’ll find a wide range of features, bringing
the customisation options from Sony’s mirrorless and full-frame Alpha cameras.
The real stars of the show, though, are the Xperia 1 II’s recording options. The Cinema Pro app lets you switch the recording resolution between 4K and 2K, and you can choose from a wide variety of frame rates, including 25fps, 30fps, 60fps and 120fps slow-mo. You can also fine-tune all sorts of settings, including white balance, shutter speed and ISO. Both the main and zoom cameras are also optically stabilised, meaning the Xperia 1 II’s video is rock-steady.
Long and thin
The Xperia 1 II is long and thin with an aspect ratio of 21:9. That’s taller and thinner than most phones, but Sony’s “Side Sense” feature alleviates the pitfalls of one-handed use; you can access selected apps with a double-tap or finger slide at certain points on the left or right edges of the screen. You can also access a variety of the phone’s settings in this way, as well as the notification drawer.
In other respects, it’s rather subdued by modern standards: the black model I reviewed certainly isn’t as eye-catching as Samsung’s more dazzling handsets. It feels premium, though, with clean-cut edges and a glass-topped back. Notch-haters can rejoice too, as the 8-megapixel selfie camera is in a slim bezel at the top of the handset.
Despite the 3.5mm headphone jack, the phone is waterproof to IP68 standards. There’s also space for a nano-SIM and microSD card on the left edge, with the volume rocker, power button – which doubles up as a fingerprint scanner – and dedicated camera shutter button on the right.
Lastly, the Xperia 1 II has dual, Dolby Atmos-tuned front-firing speakers above and below the screen, and it can also pair with the company’s own DualShock 4
PS4 controller in games such as Call of Duty: Mobile.
4K display
Sony is still the only company to include 4K on a phone and there’s a reason for this: it’s pointless. At this size of screen, your eyes can’t see the benefit and it also adds to the battery drain. You can’t manually dip the resolution down to Full HD in an attempt to increase battery life, either.
Sony says its motion blur reduction technology gives a “90Hz-like” experience but this isn’t actually a 90Hz panel. Swiping and scrolling feels fluid but it’s nowhere close to the whizziness of the 120Hz screens on the Samsung Galaxy S20 ( see issue 308, p63) and OnePlus 8 Pro (se e issue 309, p58).
Still, this remains a stunning screen. It’s an OLED, HDR 10 display that can be calibrated in the settings. The main benefit is the “Creator mode” which calibrates the screen to the BT.2020 colour gamut, using Sony’s CineAlta screen-boosting tech from its high-end TVs.
In this mode, colour accuracy is among the best we’ve tested. With an average Delta E of 0.93 in the BT.2020 colour space, the screen is practically impeccable, with accurate colours across the entire palette.
Sadly, HDR content doesn’t have the same punch as on the iPhone 11 Pro, but that’s mostly down to weaker peak brightness. At a measured brightness of 372cd/m2 , the Xperia 1 II fails to match the eye-searing luminance of Apple’s flagship phone.
Still, everything else about the screen is immaculate. It’s the only phone on the market with the ability to watch films and TV shows in 4K resolution, and note that most Netflix shows are shot in a 21:9 aspect ratio.
Speed boost
The Snapdragon 865 processor is backed by 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, making the Xperia a direct match with every other big-name phone already released in 2020. In the Geekbench 5 benchmark test, there’s very little separating the Xperia 1 II and its Android counterparts.
There’s even less to separate the phones when it comes to the graphics-processing benchmark, even though the Xperia 1 II has a higher resolution screen. That’s because the screen will downscale to a lower resolution unless it detects 4K content in a supported app, and GFXBench isn’t one of those whitelisted apps.
Battery life was less compelling, with the Xperia lasting 15hrs 6mins in our video-rundown test. That’s in line with expectations for a 4,000mAh battery, and the supplied 21W USB charger can take this from zero to 50% in half an hour, but rivals such as the Samsung Galaxy S20+ (see issue 308, p60) are now managing over 20 hours.
Mark down
Lastly, we come to that price. The large 4K screen, 5G connectivity and luscious camera specs have dramatically pushed the price up from the Xperia 1’s £849. SIM-free, the Xperia 1 II costs £1,100, or around £47 per month with a contract.
Rather than learning its lessons about out-pricing Samsung, it seems Sony has decided that the best course of action is to push the asking price further into the realms of the absurd. The Galaxy S20 starts at £899, with the S20+ costing £999.
Yet there’s no avoiding the fact that the Sony Xperia 1 II is an astonishing phone. It’s the complete package, bringing the culmination of Sony’s imaging credentials to smartphones, while simultaneously outdoing last year’s predecessor, the Xperia 1, in practically every area.
SPECIFICATIONS
Octa-core 2.84GHz/2.42GHz/1.8GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 8GB RAM Adreno 650 graphics 6.5in OLED screen, 1,644 x 3,840 resolution 256GB storage dual SIM microSD slot quad 12/12/12/ 0.3-megapixel rear camera 8-megapixel front camera 802.11ax Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5.1 NFC USB-C connector 4,000mAh battery Android 10 71 x 7.6 x 165mm (WDH) 181g 1yr warranty