[Sony Xperia 1 Questions & Answers] EliasAlucard:
Yeah I would say so. Depends of course which device you have to begin with. As far as I'm concerned, the Xperia Z2 is Sony's best smartphone ever, and design-wise, the Xperia 1 is a downgrade from the Xperia Z2, although to be fair to the Xperia 1, it looks better than the entire Xperia X series, and is somewhat of a return to form for Sony, starting to resemble the classical OmniBalance design of the early Xperia Z series, and Sony made that clear by using glas for its back (and finally getting the NFC chip located on the back side again) and also releasing the Xperia 1 in the Xperia Z colors, black, white and purple (a long time ago we saw a purple Xperia flagship!). The Xperia 1 still has some of that soap bar design Sony introduced in the XZ2 though, but it's kept at a minimum here, thank God. And while I do prefer the stylish edges of the Z/Z1/Z2, I think the aluminium frame of the 1 looks quite okay. And the classical round power button of the Xperia Z should have been brought back too; the current generic pill designed power button, only works for camera and volume; Sony's power button was unique and really cool looking, and also much easier to press too.

But other than that, the Xperia 1 is an improvement in most ways over the early Xperia Z series (I'm no fan of the Z3, Z3+ and Z5; the Xperia Z series began going downhill with these devices, and that downhill continued with the Xperia X series), although there are some other drawbacks compared to the Z2, but that's mostly due to the downgrade known as Android 9 Pie, and not with the actual hardware. The 21:9 screen may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's an acquired taste, and personally I really like it at this point. The lack of wireless charging doesn't bother me as I'd never use it anyway, although perhaps it should have been added for keeping the USB port in a more mint condition. And I imagine wireless charging doesn't work that well with Sony's excellent battery care, which learns how long you charge the device, and adapts after that. Of course the battery could have been more powerful, like at the very least, 4,000 mAh, but you can get a lot of extra juice out of the 3,330 mAh battery by using black wallpaper, dark theme and so on in everything.

Personally, I think Sony's change in direction to OLED, is a mixed bag. Yeah, OLED looks great, and is very useful for saving battery life if you use completely black wallpaper and dark theme and so on, but the problem with OLED is that it wears out much faster than LCD, and it's also more sensitive to burn-ins and so on, so for that reason, I wish Sony would have kept using LCD screens. I mean after 6 years, my Xperia Z still has the exact same screen quality as it did when it was brand new; I know that won't be the case with my Xperia 1 when it turns 6.

The two main issues with the Xperia 1 right now, is that Sony has yet to add it on their Open Devices list, and that Sony still hasn't updated Xperia Transfer Mobile to work with the Xperia 1 and the Xperia 10 (I imagine this is an Android Pie issue more than anything). These two issues I'm sure will be resolved in the coming months, but it bothers me that it wasn't done at launch.

Perhaps the best thing about the Xperia 1, is that it has no ugly notches. While Sony has complied with the popularity of what I call, bezels autism, which has given us these ugly and disturbing notched smartphones, fortunately Sony didn't go all the way with the bezels autism trend, and so the Xperia 1 has a full screen, as it's supposed to be.