Sony Xperia 1 VI review

Low-light photo quality

Main camera

The photos taken with the main camera are quite good - they are rich in detail, some of the sharpest we've seen, and the noise is impressively low. The color saturation is great too, and the dynamic range has worked out well for the approach Sony has taken.

Main camera, 12MP Auto Night View

Last year, the Xperia's low-light photography got a massive boost with the addition of the Night View mode. Now, with this year's Xperia 1 VI, we don't see the same progress in this respect because the camera sensor is essentially the same and so is the camera processing. The Night View mode still works like sort of an HDR enhancement by offering better highlight retention but not much in shadow brightening - an approach some prefer.

One thing we do appreciate, however, is the better rendition of the HDR effect in the viewfinder, which makes it a much better preview of the actual photos, which the camera will take. Also taking night time photos with the main cam is much faster now.

Main camera: Xperia 1 VI • Xperia 1 V

Ultrawide camera

Moving on to the ultrawide camera, the night time photos look great - they are well-exposed, with good detail level, adequate sharpness and wide enough dynamic range. The color saturation is great, too.

Ultrawide camera, 12MP Auto Night View

Compared to last year's Xperia 1 V, the photos seem to be the same in terms of detail, contrast, colors and dynamic range.

Ultrawide camera: Xperia 1 VI • Xperia 1 V

Telephoto camera

The 3.5x zoomed photos from the telephoto camera are good. There is enough detail and good exposure, excellent color saturation, and a good dynamic range overall. The noise reduction is gentle - hence the retained detail and good sharpness - and we don't find the visible noise that intrusive.

Tele cam 3.5x zoom, Auto Night View

Zooming further than 3.5x quickly degrades the quality. Getting sharp handheld shots gets increasingly harder as the stabilization has to work double time. Sony has mentioned this will further be improved on the final retail units.

As they are, the 5.2x zoomed photos are still passable they are a bit noisy and dark, and have less level than the competition.

Tele cam 5.2x zoom, Auto Night View

Finally, we have the 7.1x zoom camera. At the furthest end of the zoom, the small aperture and the long focal length had us struggling to take sharp and well exposed photos handheld so we'd rather stick to the shorter end of the zoom after dark.

Tele cam 7.1x zoom, Auto Night View

Video recording

The Xperia 1 V records video up to 4K@120fps. With the new unified camera app, this year, you no longer have to switch to another app (be it Video Pro or Cinema Pro) to get all available resolutions and modes.

Of course, the move to the new app has led to quite a few video-related features missing, but Sony is promising that the pro-level video mode will come as an update later this year - most likely as part of the Android 15 in the Fall.

You can enable Intelligent Wind Reduction, a real-time filter that eliminates wind noise if present. And all clips we shot have outstanding audio quality with rich and deep sound.

The 4K footage from all cameras has a video bit rate of about 56Mbps, while audio is captured stereo with 156 kbps bit rate.

SteadyShot stabilization is available for all cameras, and it is a combination of optical (where available) and electronic stabilization. It can be set to High Quality, Standard Quality, and OFF and the High Quality option works really well on the main cameras. It's not bad on the telephoto camera though we wish it performed better there.

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples. Our quality assessment continues further below.

Main camera

The 4K daylight videos from the main camera are good - the noise is kept low, the colors are realistic, and the dynamic range is wide.

The output is virtually identical to the one by the Xperia 1 V. The resolved detail is enough, though you can see areas of smeared foliage or other random detail. But, once again, we like Sony's natural processing in both photos and videos.

Main cam video screengrabs: Xperia 1 VI • Xperia 1 V

As for video quality in low light, the 4K videos by the main camera have improved from last year. You get better definition and higher color saturation now. The overall detail rendition is alright, the noise is tolerable, but the dynamic range is still narrow.

The night time videos are quite okay but nothing impressive for the segment really. The competition offers low-light videos with brighter exposure, less clipped highlights and better definition.

Main cam video screengrabs: Xperia 1 VI • Xperia 1 V

Recording in 4K@120fps is easily done and feels natural thanks to the layout of the new unified camera app. It's the full-res 16:9 UHD type of 4K (3840x2160px). A small caveat is that it's played back in slow-mo both on the phone and on a computer. But that's fine as that's probably the intended purpose of using this framerate anyway.

Ultrawide camera

The 4K videos from the ultrawide camera are superb - they are plenty detailed even in the corners, with great noise reduction, and notably wide dynamic range. The colors are quite nice.

The footage is pleasantly natural and balanced, and the ultrawide camera definitely provides flagship-worthy videos in good light.

In good light, the output is, again, virtually identical to the one by the Xperia 1 V.

Ultrawide cam video screengrabs: Xperia 1 VI • Xperia 1 V

Telephoto camera

We are glad to see that the dynamic range of the 3.5x zoomed videos from the telephoto camera has improved compared to the Xperia 1 V. The rendition comes through natural and the colors are accurate and lively.

The level of detail has not been improved compared to the Xperia 1 V. There is still only an okay amount of resolved detail and very soft contrast, with the latter being our main gripe with the footage taken at any focal length.

Zoom cam video screengrabs: Xperia 1 VI • Xperia 1 V

Zooming to 5.2x leads to a further drop in sharpness and contrast. The Xperia 1 V seems to provide better detail rendition.

At 7.1x, the footage doesn't improve at all in detail or contrast. The videos are also a bit shaky too so image stabilization could be improved too.

Selfie video

The selfie camera shoots excellent 4K videos, and the SteadyShot stabilization does a great job, too.

The footage is detailed and sharp, with natural rendition, accurate colors, and high contrast, and the subject's face is always well exposed. The dynamic range could be better but it's fine as it is.