[Sony Xperia 1 Real Life Review] Timaustin2000:
Here was my reply in the comments of that video and I stand by it:

"This is a very odd review. It seems both one of the most detailed and yet it's quite patchy.

For example: You say that the low light is too dark,.. and yet there's an exposure slider in the auto viewfinder. It's right there, man. Right there. Have you never adjusted your exposure on a regular camera before? Never? Of course you have. I've tried it, to check that it'll fix the issue you present: it does (though I've never found low light images to be too dim - they've always seemed very accurate to me).

Same with White Balance in Auto - the White Balance on this thing is generally very good indeed but it sometimes does go a little cold. But again, there's a slider to adjust the warmth of the WB right there on the screen, if you need to fine-tune it. It's not hard to find.

Are you going to say that other phone cameras never get the WB wrong? They do,... and most of them don't allow fine tuning in auto mode. I'm not saying jump into manual - these sliders are in Auto.

So there's that.

But you don't talk about noise reduction at all in low light or in good: an area where it's particularly well balanced compared to much of the competition. It produces far less noise than a Pixel 3 or an LG, for example - in both good and night light. It also produces less noise in reasonably lit night scenarios than an S10.

You point out the artifacts - and they're there if you pixel peep, sure, but you don't praise other aspects of the processing. You mention how the WB is natural but then criticise that as being "dull". Accuracy is what photography is about: you should be striving for an accurate result that you can then touch up later. You can't take an image that is over-saturated in the camera and reliably reduce it to natural - not unless you've carried a DSLR around for reference. Natural colour and exposure are the preffered default.

You make no mention of the extremely fast shutter speed - class leading in good light. I took a picture of a flower the other day, not noticing a bee that had flown out from behind it. Not only had the camera noticed the bee, it had ramped the shutter speed and focused on it. The bee - IN FLIGHT - was perfectly sharp and in focus, without any hint of motion blur. It's a result I simply don't think another smartphone camera can reproduce.

And returning to the night shots: it does have a dedicated night mode but it auto-activates. Wait until the moon symbol appears: it's in night mode. If you keep your hands still it'll go into moon and tripod - to show that it detects a steady hand at night - and the exposure time will go up to 1 second, with OIS stabilising the lens. It's extremely easy to do and produces very good results,... and yet night performance gets only a perfunctory discussion. It has one of the better night shooting performances on a mobile phone - only beaten, IMHO, by the P30 Pro.

If by "Night Mode" you mean "Blows everything up to stupid, so that you can see everything" - that's not what a camera should be doing automatically. It's not realistic.

As it happens, you actually can tell it to do this: Go into manual and select HDR. It works identically to the S10 and Pixel 3 when you do this at night - I've tried (Video on my channel).

But I don't do it, day to day, because that's not realistic.

I'm at a bit of a loss with this review. I really appreciate the effort and your opinions, and I respect them both, but it seems somewhat perfunctory. As a point and shoot, if you just want to share online or on instagram, there are easier phones to get okay shots from. But as a camera for people who want to take good shots, this is genuinely one of the best options. Indeed, even with its foibles - and yes I think there should be an HDR toggle in Auto - I'd place the actual quality of its images above everything bar the P30 Pro. I genuinely, genuinely would: You just need to work with it.

The only problem I've found with it is the 4K stabilisation. I can well expect Sony to correct this - the .278 update improved it a tiny bit already but right now, you're right: it's not up to scratch. But the 1080p footage is class leading so,.... I also agree RE the selfie camera but I barely use it.

Overall I think you're being way too harsh saying that the camera isn't flagship-quality. Bar 4k video, it absolutely is. Far, far better with processing and night shots than an S10, say. It's detailed, clarity of the image is good, dynamic range is good and can be made better if you choose to do so, colour accuracy is extremely good, shutter speed is extraordinary, quality of the wide angle lens - an area where the competition isn't actually very good - is very decent (you say so yourself) and night images are clean, well coloured, detailed and very sharp. 1080p footage is extremely well stabilised and DR for it is good, 4k quality is high, even with the stabilisation. You make many of these points yourself and yet,... somehow it's not flagship quality? C'mon, man.

There is some over-sharpening and its auto DR isn't as thorough as the always-on HDR of some others. But the P30 Pro is over sharpened: absolutely it is. The S10's telephoto lens is also crap (and, indeed, the 5 times digital zoom on the S10 is far worse than the X1s). The Pixel doesn't even have other lenses to use.

The Bokeh is a pattern you don't like (It's not fake - there aren't the separation halos you get when it's faked: I've double checked my own samples - it's an actual lens Bokeh) but the S10's noise reduction produces plastic, colour-block images at pixel level without any fine detail at all. Swings and roundabouts. You nitpick - that's your channel - but let's not put the competition on a pedastal so much higher than the X1 when they too have their problems - it suggests a bias that is beneath you."

I'm gonna be honest: he did seem a bit biased. He overlooked a lot of the real benefits of the X1s camera and highlighted what he saw as pitfalls - a few of which were just him not using the thing properly: or not choosing to.