MOVIE MAGIC
The Sony Xperia 1 brings cinema-scale widescreen to phones on a gorgeous 4K screen
T3 has been waiting for 21:9 screens to get their time in the sun. This widescreen format is commonly used for cinema, so a few screen makers have dabbled in producing TVs or monitors in that shape, so that when you watch movies you don’t get black bars at the top and bottom.
Well, as phone screens have extended to become nearly that level of widescreen, Sony has just skipped ahead, offering a stunning 6.5-inch 21:9 display on the Xperia 1 phone with a resolution of 1644x3840. This means you can watch 4K movies at full resolution, in HDR, on one of the best OLED screens out there (Sony packs in tech from its brilliant TVs). It’s working with Netflix, Amazon and YouTube to make sure movies in this format display perfectly. Dolby Atmos support means it will all sound fantastic too.
This does come with some caveats. For starters, it makes the phone extremely tall when you’re using it in portrait. It means it’s a bit more usable than its 6.5-inch size would suggest, because it’s relatively skinny, but that’s still a lot of phone to grip securely. It also means that regular 16:9 video won’t be in full 4K, but that’s true of any other phone too, so isn’t exactly a big problem. It might be a bit odd with some games, but don’t worry: Sony is working with Epic Games to make sure that Fortnite works perfectly on it.
It’s powered by a Snapdragon 855 processor (we told you it’d be popular), and there’s a triple camera system on the rear that matches what is apparently now the standard on new phones – you get a regular lens and 2x telephoto (both of which have five-axis optical stabilisation), plus an ultra-wide lens, all at 12 megapixels, with 4K video recording that includes HDR.
Sony’s usual music prowess is here too. Hi-res file support is pretty comprehensive, and it includes the new aptX HD wireless format for better-thanCD quality streaming. And with Remote Play for your PS4 built in too (a feature often forgotten, but one that’s pretty nice if your internet is up to it), the Xperia 1 could well be the ultimate entertainment phone for 2019.
5G support seems to be lacking here, though it’s hardly universal yet anyway, and the 3,330mAh battery is a bit smaller than we would like. The £849 price is fairly competitive, and it’s due in spring.