Sony Xperia 1 IV review

11 May 2022


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  • Note9 User
  • nE$
  • 11 May 2022

Nick Tegrataker, 11 May 2022This is actually very surprising for me to see from Sony, a... moreYes, & I'm sure it'll cost them more in lost sales than any savings.
Also I'm not sure what is the guaranteed OS & Security update support on this device?

    • l
    • lolme
    • 8kd
    • 11 May 2022

    historically, gsmarena havent been very kind to sony phones but im quite pleasantly surprised that its got positive feedback for the most part. However, hopefully its not a comeback of heating issues akin of SD810.

      • N
      • Note9 User
      • nE$
      • 11 May 2022

      Kuba, 11 May 2022Nice. But spare yourself a problem and don't buy any p... moreI warned about the regular S22's battery life in the comments, as did GSMA in the review:

      "In one of Samsung's more controversial decisions this generation, the Galaxy S22+ and S22 have both lost battery capacity over last year - 300mAh each, to be exact. That has left the S22 with 3,700 mAh instead of the 4,000 mAh in the S21 5G. Samsung's hope was likely to make the difference up through its more efficient 4nm chipsets and software and specifically adaptive refresh rate tricks.

      Unfortunately, that's not exactly the case. Just like its bigger sibling, the vanilla S22 does not excel in the battery department, scoring 85 hours in our standardized test. To be fair, that's still a decent showing from the S22, especially given its battery and overall size, but not impressive by any means."

        Anonymous, 11 May 2022Possibly the first brand to omit the cable from the retail ... moreThis is actually very surprising for me to see from Sony, as they are usually the last to follow the market's (awful) trends. Removing the cable from the box is the very last thing I expected them to do, honestly.

          • s
          • skzm
          • tRf
          • 11 May 2022

          People can't seem to fathom the idea that Sony's flagships have been targeting at the niche enthusiast audience for a long time now. People keep complaining they're too expensive, but Sony doesn't give a crap because these are not the people they're targeting.

            • ?
            • Anonymous
            • i1D
            • 11 May 2022

            The display reaches not-so-amazing 680 nits only when using standard color profile and the more accurate creator mode(which the target audience of this phone will be using for the most part) brings it further down to 600 nits... Did Sony think it would be a good idea to release this in 2022? Still no fully VRR display nor LTPO either, Sony must be such a big fan of this outdated 4 year old panel.

            The overall battery life score is decent thanks to good standby time, but browsing and video playback scores are very mediocre and easily beaten by X5 Pro, S22 Ultra, Oneplus 10 Pro, and last year's iPhone 13 Pro Max. Better than Xiaomi here doesn't mean it's good. Slow charging speed doesn't help.

            Speakers sound tinny since any frequency below 50Hz is steeply cut off and sub bass isn't emphasized enough to make up for it.

            Sony UI is inconsistent as ever. Why is the navigation bar brighter than the rest of the UI? Why does Smart Backlight Control and Game Enhancer settings use the Android 11 style toggle switch while the rest uses the Android 12 stock one? Why does the notification bar leave a space right next to the battery percentage as if there's a punch hole camera?

            The CPU loses 35 percent of its performance in 5 minutes and MORE THAN HALF OF IT in 10 minutes. Sony can brag about all sorts of gaming features all they want but a heavy throttling is a definite sign that they don't care about gaming experience.

            Camera lens quality control issue continues in Mark 4, yay! The telephoto lens is so badly designed that there is almost no benefit of using 5X zoom over 3X. The ultrawide camera exhibits color fringes around the corners and heavily underexposes at night. Moving objects get blurry in low light because the camera always prioritizes low ISO and slows down SS aggressively. WDR video only recovers highlight slightly and disables stabilization(!), when Xiaomi and Oppo offer comparable features without such limitation. Why don't they try getting the basics right first before doing anything ambitious?

            With all of these flaws Xperia still deserves 4.4 because this is the first time Sony actually sent a pre production unit to anyone for the review! Sugoi!

              • l
              • lolme
              • 8kd
              • 11 May 2022

              jason, 11 May 2022£1600 almost in the UK, what an absolute joke of a phone, l... moreignore the amazon pricing. The official sony website is pricing it at £1300 (gives you the XM4 headset as "gift") which is in the same ballmark figure as the iphone 13 pro max and samsung S22 ultra.

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • gBV
                • 11 May 2022

                The zoom lens isn't revolutionary, if it just shows why other smartphone manufacturers don't use a zoom lens. The quality at the maximum zoom setting seems to be so bad that the angular resolution doesn't seem to be better than at the minimum zoom setting of the zoom lens.

                  • D
                  • AnonD-546724
                  • 8p3
                  • 11 May 2022

                  Anonymous, 11 May 2022Possibly the first brand to omit the cable from the retail ... moreWith each charger & cable bought separately causing more CO² into the atmosphere than if they were shipped inside the box to begin with.

                  Still can't believe this trend.

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • vjX
                    • 11 May 2022

                    Possibly the first brand to omit the cable from the retail box. Big clap to Sony! The cable is more fragile than most people think and breaks after a few years, causing slow charging. Now people have to buy a charger AND a cable separately, each with their own packaging. Another hypocritical brand.

                      • f
                      • fx
                      • dQT
                      • 11 May 2022

                      Kuba, 11 May 2022Nice. But spare yourself a problem and don't buy any p... morethen what to buy ? iPhone ? I'm not into ios at all

                        Big pass, this phone is just not for me, it has features that I don't care about like 4k display, but can't get 800+ nits of brightness, 21:9 is problematic to me in portrait orientation, on top of that the phone still has bezels, it's just too long.
                        The refresh rate is dropping often when in a 23°C room? This will happen even more to people who lives in warmer climates.
                        I'm not seeing the 50% bass improvements, it seems on par with the Galaxy S22 Ultra and worse than the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
                        It has a 30W charger, why it is taking longer than the Galaxy S22 Ultra even with a 25W charger? I'm not even talking about the Chinese phones with 80-120W.
                        Underwhelming performance and throttle heavily.
                        Only things interesting to me are the H.S. power control and 2 step shutter buttons.
                        But I'm not gonna buy the phone just for these, I'm even surprised it got 4.4*.
                        How many OS updates and security updates are they promising?

                          • D
                          • AnonD-546724
                          • 8p3
                          • 11 May 2022

                          Michalis, 11 May 2022I agree! But exciting doesn't guarantee quality. It�... moreI think it's priced fairly.

                          Apple & Samsung have similarly priced phones that aren't any near as innovating.

                            • c
                            • cyber
                            • S2D
                            • 11 May 2022

                            another small updade in specs and other huge in price,you get phone and THE box,iphones and samsungs way better and way ahead

                              AnonD-546724, 11 May 2022Well that's still more exciting than anything released... moreI agree! But exciting doesn't guarantee quality. It's not a bad phone by any means and obviously it doesn't try to cater to the average consumer but it's still grossly overpriced, even for a phone without true competition.

                                OK, it took them 4 generations to fix most of the issues.
                                Camera samples (main and ultrawide) look really good, battery life is adequate, the size is still ridiculous as is the price, but it at least in not such a bad deal like 1 I/II/III were.
                                Considering it's just a Sony device, it's starting to get better.

                                  • j
                                  • jason
                                  • pwh
                                  • 11 May 2022

                                  £1600 almost in the UK, what an absolute joke of a phone, literally nobody will buy this phone at that price

                                    • ?
                                    • Anonymous
                                    • gPS
                                    • 11 May 2022

                                    AnonD-1048858, 11 May 2022Why is it so expensive?Well the RAM and Storage with a 4K 120hz screen will do that. When you think about it, an S22 Ultra is not that far off from this price if you compare the 256 GB version and the screen is not as high-end as this...

                                      • D
                                      • AnonD-546724
                                      • 8p3
                                      • 11 May 2022

                                      AnonD-1048858, 11 May 2022Why is it so expensive?Well because it got nothing in common with the poor Nokias you've engineered

                                        • D
                                        • AnonD-546724
                                        • 8p3
                                        • 11 May 2022

                                        Michalis, 11 May 2022On-board innovation and features? Other than continuous zoo... moreWell that's still more exciting than anything released this year so far. If you exclude the exotics exclusive to china.