ISSUE 72 • ANDROID ADVISOR 53wireless charging, and even puts the headphone
jack back on a Sony flagship for the first time since
2017’s Xperia XZ1.
The fact the Xperia 1 lacked wireless charging when
the Xperia XZ2 and XZ3 before it had, it does well to
sum up Sony’s blunderbuss approach to hardware
decision-making.
But as I read up on the Xperia 1 II, all the warm
fuzzy feelings I still have about Sony as a brand
bubbled to the surface. The phone division of the
company has spent the years since its divorce from
Ericsson as the nearly-man of smartphone hardware,
its declining sales almost unbelievable for the
company that so succeeds with PlayStation and TVs.
Sony, yet so far
Sony’s phones have always taken an unfair pasting in
reviews in my opinion, but I’ll accept the company
does tend to shoot itself in the foot.
For every svelte affordable Xperia Z5 Compact
there has been a chonking expensive Xperia XZ2
Premium. Missteps like the Xperia X and the fact Sony’s
top phones are superseded every six months don’t
help for appealing to the casual smartphone buyer.
Yet the Xperia 1 II has seemingly addressed
everything I didn’t like about the Xperia 1. It has put
wireless charging back, and a headphone jack. It has
refined the slippery curved design to have smarter flat
edges, and it has put the fingerprint sensor back in the
power button. There’s even a 4,000mAh battery up
from the 3,300mAh which couldn’t keep the Xperia 1
alive as long as its rivals.