Sony Xperia 1 V Review: The Camera in My Pocket
Six months with Sony’s camera phone, judged by a photographer
The verdict
The Xperia 1 V is a phone I’d trust with paid work, and I have. The camera works like a Sony mirrorless camera, the screen and sound are superb, and the battery copes with a full day of streaming without a top-up.
It charges slowly, it runs warm, and the fingerprint sensor doesn’t always read first time. None of that has made me want to swap it.
Good
A camera good enough for professional work
A bright, sharp, colourful screen
Battery life to spare, even when streaming
Clear stereo speakers, a headphone socket and a memory card slot
Not so good
Slow charging, and no charger in the box
Runs warm when filming
A slow fingerprint sensor
£1,299 to buy outright
Why I’ve got one
Before this I had the Xperia 1 IV, and I was very happy with it. My EE contract came up for an upgrade around the time the 1 V launched, and the new handset came free with the contract. So I upgraded.
I’ve had it six months now. I use it for all the usual phone things, and for photographs and video, some of them for paid work.
What you get
A 6.5-inch 4K OLED screen in a tall 21:9 shape, up to 120Hz
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, with 12GB of RAM
256GB of storage, plus a microSD slot that takes cards up to 1TB
Three rear cameras: a 16mm ultra-wide, a 24mm main camera and an 85–125mm optical zoom
A 5,000mAh battery, with 30W wired charging and wireless charging
A 3.5mm headphone socket, front-facing stereo speakers, and IP65/IP68 water and dust resistance
A two-stage shutter button on the side, like a camera’s
Build and screen
The build quality is top tier. Six months in, it still feels like new.
The screen is superb: bright, sharp and rich with colour. Because it’s tall and narrow, close to the shape of a cinema screen, widescreen films fill it almost edge to edge.
Sound
Streaming Netflix or music through the built-in speakers, the sound is clear, with proper stereo.
Most of the time I listen through Sony’s WH-1000XM4 noise-cancelling headphones, which I bought around the same time as the phone. The two work together seamlessly. I keep the Bluetooth connection set to prioritise sound quality, which uses Sony’s LDAC, and stream Amazon Music at its top quality. That’s harder on the battery, and I still get through the day.
If you’d rather plug in, there’s a headphone socket, something most flagship phones dropped years ago.
Storage
256GB is a lot of room, and there’s a microSD slot as well, which few top-end phones still have. Mine has a 512GB card in it. At home I download music and videos onto it over Wi-Fi, so they’re there to watch or listen to when I’m out and about.
The camera
The camera is smashing. There are three lenses: a 16mm ultra-wide, a 24mm main camera and a telephoto that zooms optically from 85mm to 125mm. Focusing is bang on, and face and eye tracking mean people are always in focus.
The menus and on-screen display are the same as on my Sony camera, so I knew my way around from the start. The touch screen controls make it easy to use. There’s also a two-stage shutter button on the side that works like a camera’s: half-press to focus, then press fully to take the picture. I use it sometimes, but mostly I tap the screen.
Pictures are sharp, rich and colourful. It’s good in low light, too. In a bar with the lights down and candles on the tables, it still gets the shot, and when it has to push the ISO up, there isn’t much noise.
It saves RAW files, so I can copy them to my computer and edit them in Lightroom, just as I would with any other camera.
The weak spot is the long end of the zoom. At 125mm, pictures look a little softer and slightly pale. I hardly ever need that much reach, though.
The guests who dodged my camera
I was photographing a charity summer ball at New Zealand House in London, and some of the guests had been avoiding my camera. When I approached them with it, they were camera shy.
Later I went back and asked if I could snap a quick picture on my phone instead. They were happy to.
I’m confident enough in the image quality to use what it takes for professional work. It’s like having a streamlined Sony mirrorless camera that fits in your pocket and is always with you.
Video
The video is just as good. It records 4K at up to 120 frames a second.
I film in Sony’s Video Pro app, and there are plenty of third-party video apps to choose from too. Between them, I can record flat footage to colour grade afterwards, or use one of the ready-to-go profiles when there’s no time for that. I’ve set up my own Rec.709-style profile, and that’s my go-to for filming on the fly.
Performance
It’s fast and responsive.
Gaming isn’t really my thing, but I ran a few games to test it. Call of Duty: Mobile worked well, and a racing game I tried played very well.
Battery
The battery is very good.
On a normal day (a couple of calls, a few texts, some scrolling and checking email), I take it off the charger at 100% in the morning and it’s on around 75% at bedtime. Today I’ve used some media apps and watched an episode on Netflix, and it’s on 63%.
The real test was a four-hour train journey north. I streamed top-quality music from Amazon Music to my headphones over that battery-hungry Bluetooth connection, and watched Netflix on the way. It still lasted the day, and I didn’t need my power bank.
You can set battery saver (Sony calls it STAMINA mode) to switch on at a level you choose. I’ve set mine to 30%. There are also settings that trade some performance for battery life. I’ve never run out.
What I’d change
Charging. It charges at up to 30W, which is slow for a phone at this price, and there’s no charger in the box. Sony quotes 50% in about 30 minutes with a 30W charger.
Heat. It runs warm when I’m filming in a third-party video app.
The fingerprint sensor. It’s built into the power button, and it’s slower than it should be. It doesn’t always read first time.
Should you buy it?
Buy it if:
photography matters to you and you want a proper camera in your pocket
you already shoot with a Sony camera and want the same controls
you want a battery that lasts, a headphone socket and a memory card slot
Look elsewhere if:
you want the longest zoom you can get
you want a phone that charges fast
you’re on a budget: £1,299 is a lot for a phone, though a contract spreads the cost
Six months on
It’s been a reliable piece of kit. It still works like new, it seems to have a lot of life left in it, and I can’t see any reason to upgrade.
Sony didn’t pay for this review or lend me the phone. It came as an upgrade on my EE contract, and there are no affiliate links.
