Sony Xperia 1 II review: Pro photo and video control in your pocket

This is the Sony Xperia one mark two. It's designed for creative types who are really into photography and videography. So to test it out, I made a film with it. [MUSIC] When I tell someone about the Sony Xperia one mark two, their reaction is usually Sony still makes phones Yeah, now granted, this isn't aimed at the masses. It's designed to give you more control so you can get the absolute best photos and videos and play them back on the absolute best display. Then Sony comes pretty close on all those accounts. With experience one mark two, I can use it more like this A Sony mirrorless camera. Now look there is a lot to talk about with this phone. But I want to focus on three areas the cameras, the screen, and then a Jeopardy like popery round hitting some of the other big details on the phone. When we think of phone cameras, the iPhone 11 Pro and the Google Pixel four stick out because They could take a moment and use processing to make a photo that looks as best as it can. All you do is tap the shutter button and the phone's computational cops does the rest. So why would you want anything else? Well, there's a lot of people like me out there who want to take more creative control over the way my photos and videos look as well as how I captured them. And that's why the Sony Xperia one mark two is a real damn treat because it lets me do both. There are three cameras on the back, a wide angle main camera, an ultra wide angle camera and a telephoto camera, all of which have a 12 megapixel resolution. Now the telephoto camera has a lens that is equivalent to a 70 millimetre on a full frame camera, meaning that the telephoto camera is actually a telephoto camera. There are three apps that take advantage. Vantage of these cameras. There's the default experia Android app, as well as the photo pro and cinema pro apps, which give you detailed control over every aspect of photo and video capture. If you own a Sony Alpha mirror less camera, then the photo pro app is going to look very familiar. That's because it mimics the same controls found on the camera. I could control exposure compensation focus I can control metering, I can dial in my shutter speed and ISO, there's even a histogram and an on screen horizon level. I can even turn on and off perhaps one of the best features on the camera I autofocus with this is identify as a face in your scene and then locks in on your subjects eyeball. It is jaw dropping to see how this thing works. And what makes it more fun is it also works on animals. Now I was not able to get the little green box to lock in on chat or the cat's eyeball, but I'm working with Sony to figure out why it's not working on my review unit. Photos for the experience are great. There's lots of detail and wonderful colors. Even photos taken indoors in medium and low light situations are pretty good with low image noise. Then there's the cinema pro app which I thought the best way to test that was just to make a movie with it. So I wrote a short film and filmed all the footage on the exterior one mark two with the cinema pro app. [INAUDIBLE] is not the first act to bring video centric controls to a [INAUDIBLE] but I like the way this app is laid out, it makes it easy to change ISO and shutter angle, to do manual focus, as well as to automate a manual focus pull between two subjects which is really cool. For making my film the shutter button was an essential tool, especially since I was filming myself a lot of the time, and I couldn't see the screen but I was pretty confident when I push the shutter button. And here's the time that my performance was being recorded. Another thing I like about the phone is compared to a mirrorless camera, it's a lot smaller. So that meant I could put the phone in different locations to find a unique angle or a different perspective. Also the left side of the phone doesn't have buttons and is relatively flat. So sometimes it's able to stand it up on its own to capture a scene. Now sometimes it also fell over. In the app Sony provides a number of film books which are pretty fun to experiment with. For my film, I stuck with one book the Venice CS look That made post production really easy especially when it comes to adjusting color, white balance and exposure to get the clips to match each other. I should note that videos are recorded in an H 265 codec with 10 bit color. I had an absolute blast filming with the experience at one mark 2 the 4k out of the app. Is really sharp. That said I should note that the app tops out resolution and framerate wise at 4k 60 frames per second or HD at 120 frames per second. Also, I wish the cinema pro app had a little more pro in it. For example, I wish I could punch in on the viewfinder when I'm manual focusing. I wish there was a flat color profile. I mean, S log mobile has a really nice ring to it Sony. Also if you're filming outdoors, you're going to need a neutral density filter. And that's because phone has a fixed aperture least this one does. And that means I'm really controlling my exposure with the shutter angle and ISO. And at some point, they both bought them out and a lot of times My screen is still overexposed. I also wish I could have access to the metadata for the clips I film even if it's kept in the cinema pro app. That way if I have to redo a scene or redo a shot, I can find those settings and recreate it quickly. a histogram like the one found in the photo pro app would be great. Waveform would be even better. Also focus peaking and zebras would be really nice. And I realized my wish list is starting to sound like the feature list of the third party app. Filmic Pro. Fundamentally, Filmic Pro and cinema pro are very different apps. Part of what I like about the cinema pro app is its light, pro touch. Don't mean that to sound like a knock, young, scrappy filmmaker Patrick would be overwhelmed with an app like Filmic Pro, whereas the cinema pro app would be a fun place to get my feet wet and get the ideas I have in my hand and actually capture them on camera. Ultimately, the cinema pro and photo pro apps are tools That make filmmaking and photography on a phone feel legitimate, more so than the LG V60 s even more so than the iPhone 11 Pro. So let's talk about the 6.5 inch OLED screen on the Xperia. It is one of the best displays I've ever seen on a phone. It has 4k resolution. It has HDR colors look amazing photos and videos are so sharp. And also it has a 21 to nine aspect ratio so it's really tall and thin. And that's great for like scrolling apps like Instagram and Twitter. watching Netflix on the screen is an excellent experience because most films are shot in a wide aspect ratio so they fill the screen rather well. That said the Netflix mobile app does not support 4k streaming at this time, which is a big bummer. Then there's YouTube which most videos there are 16 by nine, aka there's big black bars on the left or right side of anything you're watching. You can zoom in but you do risk maybe cutting off someone's head, which is kind of rude. Something we see on other flagship phones that this screen lacks is a high refresh rate. Now the way Sony explains it is a screen of the size of this quality that has 4k resolution and a high refresh rate. Well, they just don't make them. But you gotta wonder how amazing that screen would be right? Instead there's a 90 hertz rate software equivalency aka, it just basically reduces motion blur. It works okay, but I think Sony made the right choice by going with the 4k resolution instead of going for the lower resolution with a higher refresh rate screen. And now we get to my Jeopardy like poker resection where I can hit a lot of the features on this phone really quick than this let you know my thoughts, the first being that this has a Snapdragon 865 processor it might testing it scored on par with all the other phones that have a Snapdragon 865 processor. It has 5G just not in the United States. The fingerprint reader is built into the power button inside the phone, which is a great location. It works okay, but sometimes there's a Slight millisecond of of lag. It runs Android 10 and Sony hasn't added much software wise to the phone, which is fantastic. There's a feature called side sense which I'll be honest I found it quite aggravating to use and I just turned it off. Is got wireless charging. Yeah, it has decent stereo speakers. Yeah, it has a headphone jack and it comes with headphones, double yeah, yeah, yeah. The selfie camera isn't great but there is that shutter button with combined with ionic focus. Would allow you to take a pretty decent selfie with the rear camera. You just can't see yourself. It has a 4000 milliamp hour battery and in my use which I was filming a lot with this phone. It made it to the end the day but there wasn't much left in the tank. That said I'm still running tests with the batteries and check out my full review on cnet.com. For any updates. And that brings me to price in the US the Xperia one mark two cost 1200 dollars. Now if you're already in the Sony Alpha mirrorless camera ecosystem, and you're looking for a new film Phone. This could be a really good fit, especially if you have the budget. But for me, I'm a journalist and a scrappy, short filmmaker and the price is just too high. Now the original experience one last year cost $1,000. And if this new one cost the same price, I would have no hesitancy recommending it for filmmakers and phone photo enthusiasts. Sony does have a pretty sweet preorder deal where when you buy the phone it will come bundled with a pair of wf 1000 x m three wireless headphones that normally costs $230 It doesn't drop the price at all, but you get a little something more for the price. So if you're gunning for this phone, I definitely recommend doing that pre order deal. And now here's my short film that I shot with the exterior one mark two using the cinema pro app. It's called I Rather enjoy [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]. [BLANK_AUDIO] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [SOUND] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]. So that's all I have for these Sony Xperia 1 II review. I want to know what you guys think about this phone. What do you think of the video and the photo tech? What do you think of the price? Is this something you're considering? Is it too high? Is it reasonable that is costs $1,200? Throw your thoughts in the comments.