The big picture: Sony has significantly scaled down its smartphone business in recent years, but the company continues to launch a few handsets every year. The availability of these devices, however, is largely restricted to Japan, the US, and a handful of countries in Europe. It has now unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia 1 V, with a number of features not often seen at the premium end of the market.
The Xperia 1 V is the successor to last year's Xperia 1 IV and comes with the best hardware the market has to offer. It features a 6.5-inch 21:9 4K OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate, and HDR support. The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, and has 12GB of RAM along with 256GB of built-in storage.
Interestingly, the phone has a microSD card slot, missing in almost all modern flagship phones from Samsung, Google, OnePlus, and Apple. Another notable feature in the latest Sony flagship is a 3.5mm headphone socket, which has also gone the way of the dodo in premium smartphones, even though they remain part and parcel of most mid-range and entry-level devices.
Imaging options in the new Sony flagship include a triple-camera setup at the rear, led by a 52MP main sensor with an f/1.9 aperture and Hybrid OIS/EIS support. There's also a 12MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture and a 12MP telephoto camera with 3.5-5x optical zoom and 15.6X hybrid zoom. On the front, the device has a 12MP camera for selfies and video chat.
With the Xperia 1 V, Sony is debuting a new image sensor design called Exmor T for mobile. It's a stacked CMOS sensor where the photodiode and the transistor layers are separated, which Sony claims will reduce noise in low-light scenes. The phone also comes with many manual controls from Sony's Alpha cameras, including high-speed burst shooting, real-time eye autofocus, and more.
The Sony Xperia 1 V sports a 5,000mAh battery with 30W (USB PD) fast charging and runs Android 13 out of the box. It measures 165 x 71 x 8.3 mm and weighs 187g. It is priced at $1,399 in the US and £1,299 in the UK, making it an expensive purchase by any yardstick. It is currently available for pre-order on the official Sony website , with first customer deliveries expected by July 28. The phone is available in Black and Khaki Green color options, with the latter available exclusively at Sony.com.