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Sony's Xperia 1 packs a big screen but little else

The Xperia 10 and 10 Plus don't rev my engines much either.

Andrew Lanxon
Andrew is CNET's go-to guy for product coverage and lead photographer for Europe. When not testing the latest phones, he can normally be found with his camera in hand, behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food. Sometimes all at once.
Andrew Lanxon
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With so much fierce competition in the phone world, Sony needed to step up and do something special this MWC. Instead, it launched the Xperia 1, which has a vibrant screen, but little else to get excited about.

It's not that it's a bad phone, it's just that it's entirely forgettable. That's a serious problem when Sony's rivals are experimenting with folding phones and 5G.

The Xperia 1 has a 6.5-inch display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, three rear cameras and 6GB of RAM. Pricing and availability is yet to be confirmed.

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The display is a 4K, HDR OLED affair which looks vibrant and sharp.  

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From the back, it's not exactly exciting to look at.

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It's slim and sleek all round.

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The triple camera array features a standard zoom lens, a telephoto zoom and a super wide-angle mode. It's a setup we've seen already on phones such as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus.

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There's a single 8-megapixel camera on the front for selfies.

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A skinny body.

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The fingerprint scanner remains on the side -- there's no fancy in-screen scanning offered here.

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The Xperia 1 is joined by a midrange cousin in the form of the Xperia 10. It has a 6-inch display.

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The Xperia 10 also has a dual-camera setup.

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It uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor and has a 2,870-mAh battery.

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Again, the fingerprint scanner is found on the side.

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Its bigger sibling, the Xperia 10 Plus has a 6.5-inch display.  

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You'll find a dual-camera setup on the back.

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The screen stretches right to the bottom but there's still a bezel at the top as Sony evidently is not a fan of the "notch."

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The design is reminiscent of many recent Xperia phones.

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