Sony Xperia 1 V review: Elegant Android phone for content creators
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Sony Xperia 1 V review: Elegant Android phone for content creators
The latest Sony smartphone is superb, but it is clearly not for everyone.
Hyperdrive Hits
4/5 Medals of Yavin: The Sony Xperia 1 V is highly recommended for those who prefer manual mode, but it’s too expensive for basic users
Lovely form factor, superb design, excellent features
Exhaustive imaging software and capabilities
Serves as an external monitor for Sony Alpha cameras
It’s been nearly a decade since I used a Sony smartphone as my daily driver and over the past month I was able to keep my T-Mobile SIM in the new Sony Xperia 1 V (referred to as the Mark 5) for nearly three weeks without using other smartphones. There are many things I loved about the experience, but I cannot justify the $1,400 price so my time with it ends as I return the evaluation unit.
I purchased a Sony Alpha 7 IV camera last year and I am still exploring all of its features and learning about all of the different settings and options available to me. This new Xperia 1 V is similar to that camera experience and even after using it for a few weeks there is still a lot left to discover.
You can certainly buy this phone and use it in point and shoot mode, but there are less expensive options out there if that is your intended usage. The Google Pixel 7 and OnePlus 11 offer a better Android experience for most people, but Sony offers an advanced experience for still image, video, and music creators while also being optimized for gamers.
Rating:
As explained in my palmsolo’s Refresh Rating Scale post, I’m awarding the Sony Xperia 1 V four (4) Medals of Yavin. It’s a lovely smartphone and if you enjoy professional modes for content creation then you might even give it a 5.
The Good and the Bad
It’s pretty rare for me to not find something that can be improved with a product, but there are clearly far more pros than cons for the Sony Xperia 1 V.
Pros
Perfect design with narrow width, high end materials, and light weight
High end specifications
No bloatware or ads
Powerful professional photo, video, and music applications
Support for vertical camera capture interface
Ample RAM and storage
Side fingerprint sensor and physical camera capture button
Cons
Expensive
Two major Android updates is fewer than competitors
Hardware Experiences
One design element of the Apple iPhone that continues to annoy me is the width of the phone. At the other end of the spectrum we find Sony with a narrow phone design and I love it. The Sony Xperia 1 V continues the Sony tradition with a phone that is just 71 mm across. Some people don’t like the long and narrow phones, but combined with the light weight it is lovely to slip into a front pocket and hold comfortably in your hand.
Sony sent along the Khaki Green color for me to test out and it’s awesome. If I was going to buy one, it would definitely be in this color. It’s a very dark green that is found on the back and four sides of the phone. The back panel, made of Gorilla Glass Victus, as a textured surface that means there are no fingerprints at all and it is a bit easier to hold onto the phone.
There are lines in the sides to help with grip, as well as a textured physical camera shutter button on the lower right side. Rotate the phone into landscape and the shutter button helps the phone perform like a standard point and shoot camera, if you remember what those were.
It’s lovely to have a SIM/microSD card tray that can be removed without a tool and yes it does support up to 1TB of storage on a microSD card. We also find a 3.5mm audio port at the top. Three microphones and solid stereo front-facing speakers make this a phone for audiophiles, as well as camera enthusiasts.
In typical Sony tradition, the power button on the middle right side also serves as a reliable fingerprint sensor. If I was to wish for an optimal piece of smartphone hardware, the Sony Xperia 1 V is likely what I would come up with and I absolutely love the form factor and legacy elements of the 3.5mm audio port and microSD card.
The three cameras are also found on the back in the upper left corner with a lovely matte black frame piece protecting the three cameras. The ultra-wide 16mm 12MP camera is at the top, the main 24mm 48MP camera is in the middle, and the12MP telephoto camera is on the bottom. The telephoto camera supports continuous zoom between 85 and 125mm.
Software Experiences
The Sony Xperia 1 V launches with Android 13 and the evaluation unit I tested has the April 1, 2023 Android security update. The phone is likely to receive two major Android updates and given we are now in June the Android security updates may be issued on a quarterly basis.
Compared to a Samsung phone, it’s nice to see a very clean user experience on the Xperia 1 V with limited bloatware and no ads. There was a Sony Newsuite app that was popping up in the notifications, but I was able to uninstall the app. There is also a Tidal trial installed that can also be removed.
Sony includes specific apps for the camera, external monitor feature, game enhancer, and PlayStation app. The camera apps include Photo Pro, Video Pro, and Cinema Pro. There are a TON of functions and settings in these apps and I highly recommend you check out Juan Bagnell’s detailed YouTube videos that dive into these elements better than I can cover here.
The external monitor app supports connecting the Xperia 1 V to a Sony Alpha camera via USB-C. I connected it to my Alpha camera to check out the available options, but since I don’t have an easy way to mount the Xperia to my camera it was not a practical solution during my testing period. The external monitor functionality lets you take advantage of the 4K display of the phone to help you focus in on your subject, find the best lighting, live stream, and more.
There are some additional settings and options available on the Xperia 1 V, including Side Sense, Split Screen, and Pop-up Window. We’ve seen some of these functions on other Android phones, but Sony offers an optimal user experience. The Side Sense menu is opened up with a simple double tap on the small bar on the display and then you can slide up or down for other quick functions. Two apps at once can also quickly be launched with the Split Screen option and given the long, narrow display I find it very useful to have two apps open at once.
Open up the accessibility settings to discover 20 different options to customize and optimize the phone for your needs.
Specifications
Specifications alone don’t mean much, but they are useful for comparing similar devices and checking that you are getting value for your money.
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform
Display: 6.5-inch, 21:9 aspect ration, 4K (3840x1644 pixels), 120Hz refresh rate
Operating system: Android 13
RAM: 12GB LPDDR5X
Storage: 256GB and microSD card supporting up to 1TB cards
Durability: IP68
Cameras: 52MP main, 12MP ultra-wide, 12MP telephoto, and 12MP front-facing
Battery: 5000 mAh with wireless charging
Dimensions: 165 x 71 x 8.3 mm and 187 grams
Colors: Black and Khaki Green
Bottom Line
Thanks to my past writing career on ZDNET, I have the opportunity to bounce around between iPhone and Android smartphones. As much as I enjoyed using the Sony Xperia I V, if I was to purchase an Android phone at this time I would likely choose a Google Pixel 7 Pro or OnePlus 11 5G primarily to save hundreds of dollars and have a phone that will be updated for years to come.
The $1,400 price of the Xperia 1 V places it into a niche market, but for those who enjoy having complete control over their camera experience and want a unique phone that stands out from the pact then that cost might be worth it.
The design is superb, fits well in your hands and pocket, has excellent legacy features, and performs reliably. Sony has been challenged with heating issues in the past, but with long video recording at high resolution and active gaming it never overheated and it is clear Sony has solved this problem.
I took many comparison photos between the Sony Xperia 1 V, Google Pixel 7 Pro, and Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max and you can see the full resolution versions of these sample photos in this Flickr album. Sony blew out some photos, but in many others the colors were “truer” than what the iPhone captured. Most of the Sony photos were in Basic mode, with some in Program Auto mode, but the Sony also allows full manual adjustment in the camera software so I could have made these photos even better. The Sony camera hardware is outstanding and with some effort users will turn out excellent results.
The Sony Alpha 1 V also performed well for entertainment with good speakers and a gorgeous display. In addition, phone calls were crystal clear and pairing the phone with Sony earbuds blew me away in the audio department. While it is expensive, I am still intrigued by the phone and keep figuring out which phones I can sell to pick one up for myself.