4444 OCTOBER 2019|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE 380
IFTHERE’SONEthing to take awayfrom
2019’s long list of smartphone launches,
it’s that displays are becoming amajor
battleground. Foldable screens are on the
horizon and HDR support is spreading, as
manufacturers search fornew ways to make
their expensive glass slabs stand out.
Sony’s Xperia 1isaperfect example.Ithas
ahuge 6.5in screen, running at 4K resolution
and adopting a21:9 aspect ratio,sowhen held
horizontally,it’s in ultrawide territory.
NEW HEIGHTS
This has the knock-on effect of making the
Xperia 1incredibly tall, which can make it
awkward to use at first. It’s areal stretch
simply to expand Android’s notifications bar
with your thumb,although the Side Sense
feature –which opens aspecial app traywhen
you tap either the leftorright edge of the
phone –helps with one-handed use.
Mercifully,there are hardly any side
bezels adding to the dimensions. It’s avery
finely crafted handset in general: it’s water-
and dust-prooftothe IP68 standard, has
nicely curved, comfortable edges, and a
conveniently positioned fingerprint reader
on the right side.Wefound this could unlock
the Xperia 1with more natural hand
movements than arear-mounted
or in-displaysensor.
There’s agood reason for
the ambitious aspect ratio,too.
Films are generally shot natively
in the same format, and Netflix,
Amazon Prime Video and
Google Playall have such 21:9
versions of their respective
content available to watch.
This could make the Xperia 1
perfect forbinge-watching,
as long as the display’s quality
is sufficiently high.
In fact, it’s much better than
sufficient. The 3,840x1,644
OLED panel delivers aperfect
infinity:1 contrast ratio,99.7%
sRGB colour gamut coverage
and even 96.2% coverage of
the much wider DCI-P3 gamut.
The high resolution also keeps
things looking razor-sharp,even
with the sprawling displaysize.
The only real weakness is the
Standard mode’s peak
brightness, arelatively
humdrum 315.3cd/m^2 ,soyou
SONY Xperia1
★★★★★
£849•From http://www.amazon.co.uk
VERDICT
It’sthefirstmaʱorsmartphonewithaι1ȁ˰sǧreen,andthe
Ůperia1hasmanѻmorë́ualitѻfeaturesbeneaththesurfaǧe
ANDROID 9.0 SMARTPHONE
won’t be viewing HDR10+
content in all its glory.
We were also
disappointed by Creator
mode,which targets the
BT.2020 (also known as
Rec. 2020) colour gamut
often used in 4K HDR
content. Despite
certification from
CineAlta, this made
some scenes look fartoo
dark forustowant to use
it regularly,although it did
push peak brightness up
to 386.1cd/m^2.
The Xperia 1,
unsurprisingly,isfittedwith the Snapdragon
855, Qualcomm’s latest processor specifically
forflagship phones. Since this is the same
chip as used by the OnePlus 7(page 42) and
OnePlus 7Pro (Shopper379), general
performance is practically identical, and
there’s not much of anotable difference in
the Xperia 1’s Geekbench scores: 3,538 in the
single-core test and 11,325 in the multicore
test. It’s worth pointing out that both the
Samsung Galaxy S10 and S10e (Shopper379)
have superior single-core muscle,thanks to
their shared Samsung Exynos
9820 chip.This comes at the
cost of slightly lower multicore
performance,however.
ADDITIONAL CHARGES
Youcan’t tell the difference in
gaming. The Xperia 1maxed out
its refresh rateinthe GFXBench
Manhattan onscreen test,
scoring afull 60fps, while its
102fps in the offscreen test is
actually alittle higher than the
Galaxy S10’s 96fps.
Unfortunately,the Xperia 1’s
battery lifeputs it farmore firmly
in alosing position. As nice as
the 4K displayis, that resolution
helped force its time in our video
loop benchmark down to just
12h 29m. That’s not an abysmal
result, but it means the Xperia 1
will need charging more often
than most flagships.
The rear camera array
consists of three lenses, as is
the fashion. All three are
12-megapixel sensors: one is a
standard RGB lens, one
is awide-angle lens and
one is a2xtelephoto
zoom lens. Sony’s Alpha
camera team has also
complemented this
hardware with improved
Raw noise-reduction
filtering tech, as well as
10fps burst shooting.
The Xperia 1isalso
the first smartphone
to introduce eye
autofocus tracking.
That all adds up to an
impeccable smartphone
photography experience.
The interface is easy to use,scene recognition
works well and, most importantly,final shots
look superb.The Xperia 1was even better
than the iPhone XS in picking up fine details
in our test photos, and the 2x telephoto
zoom and wide-angle sensors are abig help
fortrickier shots. There’s minimal noise in
low-light photos, too.
VIEWING PLATFORM
We only wish there were more options for
shooting video: 4K resolution recording is
restricted to 30fps and 24fps, and you can’t
enable HDR at 4K or 1080p 60fps. And, while
the image quality is superb,footage appears
to suffer from an annoying juddering effect
when panning across ascene,anapparent
issue with the electronic stabilisation.
Nonetheless, the Xperia 1bolsters Sony’s
recent smartphone success. There’s enough
innovative tech here to make it stand out,
even among better-value handsets such as the
OnePlus 7and Galaxy S10e.It’s particularly
suitable,asSony always intended, forfilm
and TV watching, although keep in mind
that this comes at the cost of battery life.
NathanSpendelow
BaΞerѻlife
0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100
Seepage90forperformancedetails
PROCESSOROcta-core2.8GHzQualcommSnapdragon855•
SCREENSIƂE6.5in•SCREENRESOLUTION3,840x1,644•
REARCAMERAS12megapixels,12megapixels,12megapixels•
STORAGE64GB•WIRELESSDATA4G•NFCYes•
DIMENSIONS167x72x8.2mm•WEIGHT180g•OPERATING
SYSTEMAndroid9.0•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•
DETAILSwww.sonymobile.com•PARTCODE1319-5404
SPECIFICATIONS
1ιhι˰m
