As the dust settles after the unfortunate shuttering of LG’s Mobile Business, Sony has bounced out a new trio of handsets. Besides foldables, candybar style smartphones have been getting increasingly boring as of late. While LG tried to impress with it’s Explorer program and came out with some wacky designs like the Wing, they often neglected the basics and failed to really capture the attention of the market. Sony are doubling down on some of their best compencies here, hoping and vying for your interest.
At the top end and possibly the most interesting, is the Xperia 1/5 III Models. The headline feature is a claimed world’s first in a smartphone, a variable telephoto lens paired with a dual-PD sensor, giving a 3x and 4.4x Optical Zoom. People who’ve used the Huawei P30 Pro or the S20 range will often have noticed a big detail gulf between 1x and 4.9x, then a massive improvement at 5x as the phones change to the Telephoto cam. Sony aims to alleviate this by having an ever more versatile camera with more optical image capture options, giving even more utility to telefoto mode. Also present in the Xperia 1 is the world’s first 120Hz 1B Colour 4K OLED screen. Overkill, yes. Absolute baller of a screen? Also yes.
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5nm 5G
- Screen: 6.5″ 4K(Xperia 1)/1080p (Xperia 5) OLED 120Hz with 1 Billion Colours, HDR and Corning Victus Glass
- IP Rating: IP65/IP68 Water and Dust Resistance
- Weight: 186g (Xperia 1) and 168g (Xperia 5)
- MicroSD Card Support: YES (Thank you!)
- Charge Times: 50% in 30mins with the INCLUDED 30w charger (again, thank you! Chargers are essential really)
- RAM and Storage: 12GB RAM and either 256GB/512GB of Storage (Xperia 1) or 128GB/256GB (Xperia 5)
- Rear Cameras: All 12MP, f/1.7 Wide, f/2.8/2.9 Telephoto and f/2.2 Ultrawide Sensors
- Front Camera: 8MP f/2.0 Wide Sensor
- 3.5mm Headphone Jack: YESSS! OMG SONY TAKE MAH MONEY!
- Wireless Connections: Upto WiFi 6 AX Support, AptX HD Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, GLONASS/A-GPS/QZSS/BDS/GALILEO
- Fingerprint Sensor: Yes, side mounted
- Power: 4500mah Battery, Included 30w Charger, Qi Wireless Charging and Reverse Wireless Charging, USB PD
That’s not all. Sony is also working to bring 5G, solid battery life and great cameras at more affordable prices to the market too.
The Xperia 10 III shares many of the best features of it’s more expensive 1 and 5 compatriots, including a chonkster 4500mah battery albeit at a more thoughtful 18w charge rate. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 5G runs the show, providing brilliant network speeds and enough performance to keep Android trucking along happily. A 6″ 1080p OLED 21:9 screen takes care of rendering the visuals in glorious HDR, while a new triple camera array including a Wide, Ultrawide and Telephoto lens set with improved low light performance and tracking takes care of ingesting the visuals.
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 8nm 5G
- Screen: 6.0″ 1080p OLED 60Hz with 1 Billion Colours, HDR with Corning Gorilla Glass 6
- IP Rating: IP65/IP68 Water and Dust Resistance
- Weight: 169g
- MicroSD Card Support: YES (Thank you!)
- Charge Times: Fast Charging with 18w Charger.
- RAM and Storage: 128GB Storage with 6GB RAM
- Rear Cameras: 12MP f/1.8 Wide, 8MP f/2.4 Telephoto and 8MP f/2.2 Ultrawide Sensors
- Front Camera: 8MP f/2.0 Wide Sensor
- 3.5mm Headphone Jack: You betcha!
- Wireless Connections: Upto WiFi 5 AC Support, AptX HD Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, GLONASS/A-GPS/QZSS/BDS/GALILEO
- Fingerprint Sensor: Yes, side mounted
- Power: 4500mah Battery, 18w Charger, USB PD
Pricing is TBA at the moment. Particularly with the Xperia 1 III with it’s novel variable telephoto camera, this could be a very interesting year for Sony and a return to form for the photography industry veteran. Now that LG have thrown in the towel and taken their innovation with them, looks like Sony might be a saviour from the sea of boring smartphone slabs with no headphone jacks or chargers, it’s sure nice to have options.
