[Sony Xperia 1 Real Life Review] cynk42:
I've been using this phone for over 2 months now and I feel I'm ready to share my opinion over this device.

After 9 years of using android phones, mostly Samsung, after considering my options I took the decision to buy this phone. The main decisional factor was that is has no notch, punch holes or any other thing in the display. Other reasons were the display both the aspect ratio and the technology used, and the last but not the least was the camera.

I'm going to share my experience over the main 3 points of my decision, was I expected, what I actually encountered.

Form Factor

I remember the day when Samsung came with the 18.5 displays and everyone were like the doom day is on and what not... The first day I had my note 8 I was stunned to see how much of a difference is there is content when reading and article or a book. When I got the Xperia 1 and boot it up, took the first look of the screen felt exactly the same. It's ideal for content.

The phone sits very well in the hand it has an ergonomic feeling, materials are premium. I had no issues with the grip of the phone and I have big hands... I could hold the note in hand but it's not the same, 1 hand operation on the xperia is more easier than on the note.

Another thing over the Samsung phones I would give a plus for not having curved displays. They look good but the first time I dropped the note on the ground it broke in the corners, the second time the same.... I dropped the Xperia 1 over 5 times on the ground and I could see the dent on the frame, but the display has no issue.... Kudos for this

For the form factor I would give 5 stars with no second look over it

Display

It's an immerse viewing experience.

Some say that the 4K over 2K resolution displays the human eye cannot see the difference. From my point of view this is not the truth, I moved my sd card from the note8 into the Xperia, I looked at the same photos on the note and on the Xperia, the look minimum twice as sharp, and this looking over the photos taken with the note8.

Colour reproduction is good, I took the white balance settings found on the anandtech review and went along with it.

Brightness is also ok, I didn't had a situation when I found myself unable to look at the phone in direct sunlight.

For the display I would give 5 stars also

Camera

Here is where I mostly disappointed with this device... It has a ton of features and everything, it has engines worked with professional teams, eye focus, burst shots, super slowmo, what ever else... Sony sensor’s are found in half of the phones around the world... You would say that the camera should be the strongest point of this phone... Also their marketing campaign is based on the cinematic capabilities of this phone..

I take around 1000 pictures with the phone in a month, I like taking pictures, I like playing with the camera of the most as much as I can. For me the camera is main feature of any mobile phone.

With the Xperia 1, the most annoying thing is the touch focus... I like playing with the focus, focusing on objects that are not in centre of the sensor, with the Xperia 1 this is almost impossible. I touch the screen on the object, the focus circle turns green the image is still in a blur... Try this 10 times, maybe one works.

Another issue with the camera is the burning of highlights due to the HDR failure... In sunny conditions I have to take 2-3 photos for maybe one to be good and not burned, or to go to manual mode...

The telephoto camera is some of a joke... The images look better on a regular phone with 2x digital zoom.

Now these are all mainly software issues but they are a part of the whole phone experience and sadly it makes this a very bad one... I know that if you study a scene and find the best spot and the best settings you can take very nice pictures but this should not be the case.. it's not a professional camera for the experienced ones only to use... The auto mode should do the job for a regular user but it doesn't

For the video camera I cannot give many thoughts because I do not use it, occasionally I record something but not that much

Overall I would give 2 stars for this, maybe with luck over the future someone will fix these in a future software update

Others

Battery life

is another thing that could have been done better... It takes me from day to day but that's not something that's meant to be praised. I have the same battery life as my 2 year old Note8

Speakers

sound really good in my opinion.

Software updates / Community of developers

, sadly I have to say that the updates are just security updates, the first update had some fixes but the rest were mainly security updates... This not something ok from my point of view. As for the community of developers, sincerely I hadn't seen one, there is a lack of people who would actually develop something for this phone.

Fingerprint sensor

is working 30% of the time

Final thoughts

Overall I like this phone, I will continue to use it, I like the display and the form factor more than I hate the camera.

I just hope that someone from Sony will give me something for the 900e that I payed for this phone and fix the issues with the camera