Xperia 1 II review part 1: Sony refines its cinematic phone formula By Engadget

Around this time last year, I reviewed, Sony's, Opera, One and, in hindsight, I really missed the mark, among other things, I made the mistake of being too rigid. In my viewpoint, I dinged it because it wasn't practical because it was too niche to bring Sony the kind of success that I thought they wanted at the end of it all. The Xperia one is a powerful device, no question, but it's not a sensible one, at least for most people. I mentioned all this, because I have been using that phone's successor, the $1200 Xperia 1 mark 2, and I firmly believe it is Sony's best phone in years because they ignored people like me and made it even more of a pitch device. Sony drew from its expertise in pro grade photography and cinematography, resulting in a phone that feels like a love letter to creative types and barely anyone else, because of that it probably won't rock it to the top of the sales charts when it hits the US on July 24th. But if full creative control is what you're after then, the 1 mark 2 inspires joy in a way.

No other phone will before we go any further. I have to mention a few things. First, to give the Xperia 1 mark to that sort of fair shake. I didn't last time we're splitting this review into two parts. Today's video is going to focus on what the mark 2 is like as a phone and in part 2 we'll go deep on all the camera stuff.

It makes this thing such a particular kind of pleasure to use Sony has also been very clear that it will release a software update shortly after launch that, among other things, further tunes battery usage, tweaks camera performance and adds the ability to shoot RAW photos. Everything is stable enough that we're comfortable, treating this as a proper review, but we'll post a follow-up. If that update changes, things dramatically with a few exceptions, the Xperia 1 Marty looks a lot like last year's Xperia S a looks like a remote control with glass, where all those buttons would be most of Sony's changes were pretty minor, but they were still pretty practical check it out. The mark two sides are flat instead of ratted, which means you can prop the phone up carefully on a table, so you can shoot photos and video, and instead of having a separate power button and fin print sensor, Sony just kind of mashed, the two together, which is absolutely a good thing. Sonia's commitment to this design also means it use another slightly at blandish screen, and I'm, using the word outlandish, with as much affection as possible.

Unlike every other phone you'll find out there, the Xperia 1 mark 2 has a 6.5 inch, 4k AMOLED display, which looks just terrific when you're doing anything on it and like very few other phones. This display has a 21 by 9 aspect ratio, making it look more like a handheld movie screen than a traditional smartphone, widescreen movies and cinematic videos naturally shine on a display like this, but it's worth noting the 4 by 3 and 16 by 9 videos you'll run into on YouTube and other streaming services will be flanked by a lot of dead space. A screen is different, as this is bound to be divisive. I can already tell people with small hands will find reaching to the top of the screen, all but impossible without shimmying up and down the phone, and personally, it's still not convinced anyone actually needs a 4k smartphone screen Sony also bucked. The trend of high refresh rate displays here, but only kind of it turns out the company couldn't source a 4k screen that I ran at 90 or 120 Hertz natively, but since they're all the rage, it tried to make up for it with a motion.

Interpolation features that attempts to smooth at fast movement on the display. It's a thoughtful addition, I guess, but the effect is often too subtle to even notice, so I'm left wondering why they bothered. Meanwhile, the rest of the one marks used screen features make it really clear who this phone is actually for. By default, the phone's display set to show off the kind of punchy, vibrant colors you'd, expect from AMOLED screens, but a built-in creator mode adopts a more subdued. Look that more faithfully reproduces a creator's intended vision, and if that wasn't enough, the phone offers really seriously granular control over white balance.

In case you're, the kind of person who gets worked up over that sort of thing, these tweets go a long way in making this screen appeal to minefield and would-be tourists, but they can't fix one annoying issue. The display is plenty bright for indoor use, but it's frequently just a little too dim for outdoors, since the mark, 2 is clearly geared towards people who appreciate artistry. It's kind of no, so is that it's audio game is also really strong. The phones front firing stereo speakers are excellent, giving movie scores and jolting sound effects. The kind of present miss to do what they were designed to do if you prefer to keep your mediator stuff, that's also totally fair.

If there's a standard, headphone jack here, just for you, if I were you, though I wouldn't bother with Sony's dynamic vibration feature it makes the phone Rumble along with music and movie, seems like a game controller, but most of the time it detracts from the audio experience instead of improving it. The rest of the phone is pretty typical Sony. It's crazy slippery to the point where you really need a case for it, and rather than force you to reach for a paper clip or something you can actually access the SIM card tray by prying it out with a fingernail. You could even slip a micros card in there too. If these standard, 256 gigs of storage, somehow was not enough, I also should point out that more accessible, SIM tray doesn't actually affect the phone's durability.

It's still rated ip68 for water and dust resistance, and since this phone is basically all about the camera experience, there is a physical two-stage shutter button that sits low on the experience right side, I really mean that by the way after over a week of use, it's easy to feel like Sony wanted to build a camera that does phone stuff instead of the other way around. When it comes to performance, though, the experience is every inch, a flagship device, that's all thanks to the snapdragon 865 chipsets and eight gigs of ram, which has been more than enough to play through my usual workday, multitasking and beautiful, but somewhat embarrassing rounds of Call of Duty mobile. In theory. It might not be as future-proof or handle certain memory, intensive tasks, as well as devices like the OnePlus 8 pro or the galaxy s 20, both of which are available without the 12 gigs of ram. I'm not convinced.

That's a deal-breaker, though. If there's something you need to do on an experience you are going to have more than enough power to handle it. It doesn't hurt that Sony has a light touch when it comes to software either. The Xperia runs a mostly clean version of Android 10, and the few extra apps that Sony did add here were almost universally helpful. In addition to the two pro-grade cam apps, we'll get to you another time there is the PlayStation app or streaming games from there console and at that lets you remotely control a Sony, alpha camera and Call of Duty just for fun.

I guess really. The only stinker here is Sonia's homemade new sweet app, which is itbeing just bad. It looks like it was designed ten years ago. It slips ads into its newsfeed, and it frequently offers stories from news outlets. I want nothing to do it.

If I was interested in what the son thought about Kanye's presidential run, I would go exactly where the son belongs, a grocery store, checkout line and I would read it there and I wouldn't pay for it. A few other additions were designed to help you get the most out of the experience of the proportions screen. One offers quick access to apps. You can run in split screen mode in case you wanted to edit photos in Lightroom, while looking at a tutorial at Chrome. At the same time, this isn't really new but having an app I kind of just tap and get split screen mode.

Going is a lot cleaner that some of the approaches we've seen over the years. Another feature called side cents opens a palette of customizable app shortcuts, which seems helpful enough. In theory, I mean I will take any way to use this form more easily with one hand, but it requires a very precise Doubleday on the edge and I mean the edge of the screen and after a week, I still cannot reliably get to those shortcuts. On my first try, all things considered, though, so many did a great job here. It paired top-tier performance with thoughtful, clean software and the end result is a remarkably speedy phone for a device that feels as fast as the rest of this year's high-end craft, though the experience approach to 5g is a little weird in Europe and Japan, where the phone is already on sale.

The Xperia one mark 2 plays nice with 5g and our networks in the US. However, the Xperia lacks 5g support entirely, and I guess lakhs might not be the right word. There is no technical reason why the phone couldn't latch on to an American sub 65. Do you network, apart from Sony, not wanting to go through the hassle? If you had your heart set on a true 5g Sony phone you're, just going to have to wait for the Xperia Pro I can live with that, though, because Sony fixed one of my biggest issues with the Xperia one battery look last year's model was all rights at best. If I played my cards right, I could get a full day out of it, but more often than not, and have to rush you a charger well before that not anymore.

The mark, 2 is four thousand William hour battery, isn't as big as what we've seen in other flagship phones, but it's still enough to reliably get me through a full day with enough juice left over for a bit of abuse the following morning that works out to about six to seven hours of screen on time, mind you and those figures may still improve. That's offer up a coming after lunch, we'll pack, some battery management improvements, so we'll have to see how things shake out long-term, so solely as a smartphone. The Xperia 1 mark 2 is at least a little better than last year's model in every way, and that's already enough to get me thinking about buying one of these things if I could buy one for less than $1,200. Let's be honest, though, the idea of buying an experience, you really makes sense if you want to go super in-depth with its cameras and that's exactly what we're going to do in part 2. For now, though, thank you for taking the time out of your day to walk with us through the phone half of the Xperia 1 mark 2 I.

Don't want to spoil the next video, but this camera is absolutely wild. I, don't think I've had as much fun using a smartphone camera since I took the pixel for to a beach and tried to shoot the stars in the middle of the night. It's that good, and that also means it's that niche, so not for everyone, but I think a lot of you out. There might like it. If you have feedback about the phone itself or how we're approaching this review, we'd love to hear it, leave it in the comments below or email me at via Engadget com.

Thank you for watching we'll see you in the next video.

Source : Engadget