Sony Xperia 1 V review: A good flagship with no purchase advice

The Sony Xperia 1 V is a perfect smartphone with a wonderful display, amazing performance, a long battery life, and decent stereo speakers, but I can’t recommend it now. For around 1.000 euros, I believe there are options with a better zoom camera, fewer display bezels, and faster charging. In addition, the successor, the Sony Xperia 1 VI, is expected to be announced soon. As a result, I recommend that all potential purchasers wait for the replacement, look at the competition, or go for a less expensive Sony Xperia 5V with a longer battery life.

The Sony Xperia 1 V is a pleasant phone that demonstrates Sony’s preference for unconventional approaches. You don’t see many flagship phones with a headphone jack. However, you pay a premium for its distinguishing features. In more challenging settings, the camera falls short of the greatest, and its 30W charging is out of date by 2023.

SONY XPERIA 1 V KEY FEATURES

There are plenty of flagship phones to select from nowadays, but just one is designed for casual and professional photographers. It has a timeless design, great grip, high-quality cameras with a hardware shutter key, 4K display, and front-facing stereo speakers. Yes, it is a Sony Xperia 1, the fifth in the line.

The 4K OLED display is here to stay, as are the front-facing stereo speakers, which now have an upgraded amplifier for better sound. The Xperias’ signature haptic feedback is also available.

Let us chat about the camera. The primary imager received a significant upgrade, with a multi-aspect 52MP Sony sensor delivering an effective 48MP resolution. Sony believes the new stacked architecture should provide noise performance and dynamic range comparable to a full-frame camera (in low light).

The remaining cameras are the same as in the Xperia 1 V: a 12MP telephoto with 3.5x-5.2x continuous optical zoom, a 12MP ultrawide-angle with autofocus, and a 12MP selfie camera with fixed focus. All rear cameras can capture 4K120 video, however, the front camera can only record 4K60.

The Sony Xperia 1 V is powered by a 5,000mAh battery and supports 30W wired charging, as well as wireless and reverse wireless charging. The phone runs Android 13 with Xperia UI.

SONY XPERIA 1 V UNBOXING

The Sony Xperia 1 V comes packaged in a compact, thin box made of recycled paper. Inside, you’ll find only the Xperia.

Sony provides neither a charger nor a cord. If you want the greatest charger (and cable) for your new Xperia 1 V, you’ll need to get Sony’s 30W XQZ-UC1 charger bundle for around €50.

CAMERA

In a nutshell, the Xperia 1 V camera produces flat photographs. It didn’t matter which lens I tried or if I compared the Xperia’s photographs to those taken by the Galaxy S23 Ultra or the iPhone 14 Pro Max (two of the greatest camera phones available). Sony photos consistently lacked the vibrancy that most other smartphones deliver.

It was already a cloudy day when I strolled up to the old power plant in Battersea, but this ultrawide view of the north entrance made the sky appear even more foreboding than it was. The iPhone image is a more accurate representation of how everything appeared to my eyes, though it is still probably a touch too bright to be a truly accurate depiction of the situation.

Similarly, the scale model of Battersea Power Station inside the power plant appears dull via Sony’s lens. The iPhone makes everything appear considerably brighter (and more yellow due to the ambient lighting).

The Sony phone’s tendency to underplay things extends beyond color. The patina of the metal components of this ancient bus reactor, which is still on display in the power station, stands out significantly more in the iPhone photo than in the Sony.

Again, you could argue that the iPhone has gone too far with how bright the highlights of the shot are, but the details that suddenly appear when switching from the Xperia image to the iPhone image are almost as striking as when I put on and removed my glasses.

This close-up shot of a cooling tower seems better through the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s cameras, owing to Samsung’s enhanced zoom capabilities. The Xperia requires digital zoom to achieve 10x zoom, whereas the Samsung does so natively via one of its two telephoto cameras.

The flatness of the Xperia’s photos is most noticeable in this primary camera shot of a London Underground roundel. While I prefer being able to focus on the roundel directly, it’s weird how there’s almost no reflection in the lower section of the Sony shot compared to the S23 Ultra.

DESIGN AND SCREEN

The Sony Xperia 1 V is a huge smartphone that, while not suited for every occasion, can be managed with one hand. Nonetheless, I prefer the form factor since Sony has once again used an elongated aspect ratio of 21:9, which makes it easier to use with one hand than similarly sized smartphones with 19:9 or 20:9 aspect ratios. It also weighs only 187 grams and measures 8.3 millimeters, neither slim nor thick.

Both the front and the frame feature a unique structure that not only looks nice but also adds to a comfortable ride. Although I notice that the Xperia 1 V feels fairly angular in the hand, it is nothing near as terrible as its little brother—the Sony In my perspective, the power button is too far down and lacks a decent pressure point. I’ve accidentally pressed the volume up/down button instead of the power button, which should be where the volume up/down button is located. However, because the smartphone is longer and the buttons are higher than on the Sony Xperia 5 V, I don’t think it’s as horrible as the 5 V.

The front features a 6.1-inch OLED display with fairly broad borders. Sony uses the area for superb stereo speakers, although smartphones may have both narrow display bezels and good stereo speakers, as evidenced by the Procenter of competitors in this price bracket. The Xperia 1 V simply looks outdated.

At the very least, the screen is of high quality. Sony has finally figured out how to control maximum brightness, which has always been a major issue with Sony flagships. It is not as bright as the newest iPhones or the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, but the panel can read problems even on sunny days. The sharpness of 3.840 x 1.644 pixels is fantastic, colors are reproduced wonderfully and naturally, viewing angle stability is robust, and a smooth refresh rate of 120 Hertz completes the excellent display quality.

HOW’S THE PERFORMANCE?

The Sony Xperia 1 V runs Android 13 with a light Sony-designed UI and a slew of wallpapers that give the program a distinct Sony flair. However, there isn’t much to offend or annoy here. Sony’s Android layout is standard, as is the drop-down notifications bar. There are a few minor Sony modifications, however.

You may, for example, create folders in the app drawer and arrange your programs in your preferred order rather than simply alphabetically. Of course, this is all optional, and you can simply leave the Sony Xperia 1 V to sort out the order. Sony’s value-adding strategy focuses on preinstalled software rather than the interface.

Music Pro is a multi-track recorder tool that is a very stripped-down version of a DAW (digital audio workstation) like Reason or Logic. External Monitor, another app, allows you to utilize your Sony Xperia 1 V as a USB-connected display. The primary use case is as an external monitor for a Sony mirrorless camera. But it’s not just that.

We’ll go over the Cinema Pro, Video Pro, and Photo Pro apps in the camera portion of this review, but Sony’s pitch is straightforward. It wants us to see the Xperia 1 V as both a professional tool and a normal phone.

Buy it if...

• Classic design, lightweight, excellent ingress protection.
• Class-leading grip.
• Excellent 4K 21:9 OLED panel, bright enough to be color-accurate.
• Excellent battery life.
• Outstanding front speakers, produce powerful, balanced, and rich sound.
• The latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset.
• Excellent photo quality from all cameras, day and night.
• Dependable video quality, excellent sound, and exceptional stability.
• No-nonsense launcher based on Android 13.
• There are plenty of professional camera apps.
• 3.5mm jack, microSD expansion slot, and a real camera shutter key.

Don't buy it if…

• There are no chargers or cables in the box.
• There is no dynamic refresh rate for the screen.
• There is no close-up focusing available with any camera in photo or video.
• The Night View functions more like a low-light HDR, mostly restoring highlights.
• It still throttles under heavy loads, but it’s largely due to GPU throttling.
• The movies produced in Auto (Photo app) are pretty disappointing; they have average quality, low contrast, and poor dynamic range at night.

FULL SPECIFICATION