Hands-On: We Got to Try the Sony Xperia 1 IV and Its Zoom Lens

Speaker 1: This is the Sony Xperia one, mark four inside its spelt understated body. It's a telephoto lens that lies sideways. The lens has tiny elements that can move freely, back and forth to zoom in and out. No other phone can do this Speaker 1: First. Let me get this outta the way. Suddenly let me a pre-production sample of the exterior one, mark four, the software isn't final. And since that's the case, [00:00:30] this video is purely an in-depth first look, as opposed to a full review. Most people would be surprised to know that Sony still makes phones, but if you're a creative type, a photographer, filmmaker, gamer, or audio file Sony and its experience lines of phones are after your heart, creativity and wallet. And what's great about the exterior one. Mark four is that it got a significant redesign and is packed with features. No other phones [00:01:00] sold today have so let's talk design. Speaker 1: Now you might be looking at this phone and saying, Hey Patrick, what are you talking about? It looks exactly the same as the previous one model. Look, I admit the family resemblance is undeniable and overall it still looks like a thin black, tall rectangle, but the sides are flat reminiscent of the iPhone 13. The build feels more solid. Gone is the Google assistant button, which thank you, Sony. [00:01:30] And what's left is a power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader, a dedicated shutter button that you can use as a shortcut to open the camera and a volume rocker that doubles as a zoom rocker. The experience one mark four still retains the headphone Jack and the no SIM tool needed SIM and micro SD cart tray for expandable storage. The phone is covered in gorilla glass Vitu and has an IP 68 rating for water and dust resistance, meaning it can be submerged under a beater [00:02:00] of water for 30 minutes. Speaker 1: Oh. And in the us, it comes only in black, the lack of a flashy design or Peck, even colors shows you where Sony's priorities are, which is pretty much everything else on the phone. It has a 4k display that has 120 Hertz refresh rate. No other phone has this. Now last year's exterior one, mark three had a similar display, but I found it to be rather D especially in sunlight. The new display is 50% brighter and it's something [00:02:30] you, you just, you have to see in person because everything looks sharp and crisp and bright, and the contrast is good. And then there are the cameras Speaker 1: And all of the cameras got an upgrade this year. And I wanna start with the selfie camera, which now has a new, larger 12 megapixel sensor. And if you can get past some of the skin softening tools, which you can turn off, it takes good photos compared to [00:03:00] the iPhone 13 pro and pixel six pro the Sony gets close in terms of image quality for selfies, but the iPhone is still slightly sharper and the pixel still does a slightly better job separating the foreground and background for portrait boats, selfies. You can use the selfie camera in the video pro app to record 4k video and get access to slightly more advanced controls than basic video. On the back. There are three cameras, an ultra wide angle camera with an F 2.2 [00:03:30] 16 millimeter equivalent lens, a main wide angle camera with an F 1.7 24 millimeter equivalent lens with optical image stabilization and a telephoto camera with an F 2.3 to F 2.8 85 millimeter to 125 millimeter equivalent lens with O I S Speaker 1: And get this. All of the cameras have new sensors with faster readout speeds, meaning they can do multiple calculations [00:04:00] and processing in fractions of a second. And that's not just the main camera. You can shoot one frame per second burst of photos with auto exposure and auto focused with all of the cameras. Let's go back to the telephoto camera. Other phones have telephoto cameras and even ones that are mounted sideways inside the body like Amir with a tiny Periscope last year, the Xperia one, mark three had a dual zoom lens on the [00:04:30] telephoto camera where the lens element would physically move between two positions this year. It's not limited to two focal links between 85 millimeters and 125 millimeters or 3.5 times to 5.2 times. Magnification. It's all optical zoom all the time. There isn't any digital zooming or cropping happening, and it's truly remarkable. Speaker 1: Of course, having an optical zoom between 3.5 times [00:05:00] 5.2 times. Magnification allows you to have the absolute best image quality. This phone can output without any degradation that comes with digital zoom and combine that with Sony's eye auto focus all comes in handy for isolating your subject and keeping them in focus like this photo of a dog. It also affords you a great number of options for recording video so that you're not seeing a radical change in image quality while you zoom in and out, by the way, you can digitally zoom [00:05:30] past 5.2 times modification up to 15.6 times or the equivalent of 375 millimeters. Obviously image quality takes a hit, especially in medium and low light shots. Now take a look at some of my favorite photos and videos that I shot with the Xperia one, mark four, Speaker 1: [00:06:30] That 4k 120 frame per second video you're watching, I think is really impressive, especially when you shoot in good lighting, but how does all this compare to two of the best songs you can buy that also have excellent cameras. I took a number of photos with the exterior one, mark four, the pixel six pro, and the iPhone 13 pro to get an idea. The biggest takeaway is that in good light, even medium light, like these photos of Aase of flowers [00:07:00] that I took indoors photos from all three phones look good. The photo from the pixel looks the sharpest, but I love the way the Sony renders the colors. Here are some shots of a bunch of motorcycles that I took outdoors. The photos from the iPhone and Sony are very similar, but the pixel boost the shadows more than the other two, but it's when things get dark is where we start to see the biggest difference between the phones, the experi one, mark four doesn't have a night load. Speaker 1: It can take an okay lowlight photo [00:07:30] like this shot of a cocktail in a Deb bar, but take a look at these photos of a street that I shot handheld the photos from the iPhone and pixel, which both use night mode looks so much better. The Sony's photo looks soft and muddled. Check out all the noise reduction going on in the telephone Watchers. I'll leave you one last comparison. These are some videos I shot outdoors on a Sunday morning. All three videos look good. The pixel has some Moray also known as screen door effect going on with the bricks and telephone [00:08:00] wires. The iPhones video looks good, but the colors are slightly exaggerated from what they were in real life. Like that sky was not that shade of blue and the Stony video looked best in my eyes. All this to say is that the experience one mark four is impressive, but Google and Apple's strides in computational photography. Speaker 1: Still give them an edge in terms of image quality. The experience one mark four has three apps focused on photos of videos. There's [00:08:30] photo pro video pro and cinema pro video pro is starting to become one of my favorite ways to capture video on a phone. I can get into my new details, customized settings easily, or just enable an auto mode to override everything. While image quality is extremely important. I do think these apps help Sony stand out compared to the iPhone and pixel or even the galaxy S 22 ultra after about a week with the phone, I'm impressed with the cameras. So far, one quirk of this software is that [00:09:00] it has trouble focusing at 5.2 times magnification. I didn't notice it too much, but Sony has a fix in the works for its final version. Let's talk about performance. The experience has a Qualcomm Snapdragon, eight gen one ship with 12 gigabytes of Ram and comes with 128 gigabytes of storage. It has 5g and supports millimeter wave sub six and C band one upside to all that power. And the 4k display is that gaming is [00:09:30] a blast on the experience. Gaming enhancer lets be customized controls and settings for each game though, there is a downside. Speaker 1: Let's talk about the battery combine all that power 5g and that brighter 4k display with 120 Hertz for refresh rate. And this phone is varied. Its phone is very thirsty in terms of power. Luckily Sony included a larger 5,000 million amp hour battery. And so far battery life [00:10:00] feels improved over last year's experience one mark three, but it's still shy of other flagship phones. Now I look forward to testing the phone more in depth. Once we get final software. But when I was filming this video, I spent about 30 minutes playing games like pub mobile Alto's Odyssey and taking photos and recording videos with the phone while connected to wifi and the phone felt hot to the touch. I don't know if this is because of the software not being final, but it dampen my enthusiasm. [00:10:30] Nonetheless, another wrinkle I experienced is with the music pro app. Now this is a new app from Sony, which can provide studio tuning for vocals in the video that Sony shared with me, a singer records, her vocal track on a Wendy beach and a Wendy rooftop music pro essentially applies a combination of noise reduction D reverb and studio mic simulations to her track in the demo that they showed me. It's pretty impressive. Tick a listen. Speaker 2: [00:11:00] Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, [00:11:30] oh Speaker 1: Sadly. The new music app. Wasn't ready for me to try honestly, next to the cameras music pro could be the biggest new feature on this phone. Last let's talk about price. The Xperia one mark four is $1,600. Yes, yes, yes. That's $300 more expensive than the $1,300 exterior one mark three and [00:12:00] the exterior one, mark four doesn't even come with a USBC cable or a power adapter in the box. Now in some ways the innovations of technology inside this phone, I feel justify the $1,600 price. But for the majority of people, myself included $1,600 for phone is just outta my budget. I'm more likely to buy a dedicated camera, but for people who can afford the price, [00:12:30] the experie one, mark four is filled with technical innovations and software that caters to creative people who like to customize Sony is running a pre-order deal where you can buy the Imperial one, mark four and get a free pair of Sony. Speaker 1: WVF 1000 XM four true wireless earbuds, which have about a $280 value. Personally, instead of the headphones, I wish Tony had offered a bundle that included the shooting grip and remote control [00:13:00] and tiny magnetic external monitor that lets you use the rear cameras like a selfie camera. So that's all I've got. If you wanna pre-order the exterior one, mark four, or learn more about it. Check out the links in the description. But now I want to hear from you guys. What do you think about the exterior one? Mark four. Does the specs and features justify the price? And are you considering getting one, throw your thoughts in the comments.