Sony: Failure and Success, the Xperia 1 IV.

By ConsultGuru (Reviewed 23/07/2022 - 03/08/2022)

Sony is ironically one of the the most innovative, yet somehow also one of the most iterative firms of all time, with products that frequently border wacky/ crazy territory.

Which ends up making the company an underdog, a lot of the time, in many different markets. Be that in the battle of consoles- with the PS Vita, a relic now superceded by the Switch, or even the PS5 which is competing in an uphill battle against the more powerful Xbox Series X from Microsoft, the tech giant that acquired Activision Blizzard (the studio that owns Call of Duty).

Yet Sony still holds its own, despite the underwhelming display of some if it's ventures including the recent, "PlayStation Plus Extra", it's in the name.

In the TV industry, the likes of Samsung & LG are more successful than Sony, with much larger sales volumes and consumer following. But Sony still persists, and that is a common trait for Sony, they hang in there and are not afraid of a challenge. Which is how, even after the likes of Nokia, HTC and LG quit the market, Sony still survived and has just started to turn over a small profit from the mobile division.

Enter, Sony Xperia, now without the Ericsson moniker. But a new partnership has been formed with Zeiss, to get the branding on the back of new Xperia devices, with the aid of the T* Coating. Only time can tell how this evolves and brings about improvements to these devices.

So where does the Xperia 1 IV Succeed and where does it fail?

The Highlight, The Camera

It excels in offering a unique product, with a lot of customisation. Kind of where the whole Apple vs Android debate originates, the Xperia offers you control, with manual controls and a lot of technical expertise from the same Sony Alpha team that makes world class camera's.

Instead of having a device that ties you down and makes choices for you, you get to make the choices. Do you want JPEG, RAW or Both? Do you want to shoot video in HDR or SDR? Do you want 120fps video straight out the door or do you want slow motion applied to your video? What do you want your shutter speed to be, do you want a lower ISO?

With three pro apps, starting with "Photography Pro". That offers manual control over your photography. With different modes that cater to different purposes- a point & shoot Basic Mode, an entry level Auto mode which controls shutter speed automatically, a Shutter Priority Mode with more dialled in controls and finally a Manual Mode, that offers full manual control.

The Basic Mode can read QR codes and has an integration for Google Lens, allowing you to switch right into the Lens app. It also includes the option to switch across 0.7x, 1x and 3.5x - 5.2x optical zoom ranges, with everything in between 0.7x - 1x, 1x - 3.5x and 5.2x -15.6x as digital zoom. And just in case you were wondering, yes the 3.5 - 5.2x lens is the world's first true optical zoom lens in a smartphone, with everything between 3.5x and 5.2x as optical zoom through moving parts on the lens to magnify the image.

There are other functionalities in Basic Mode, such as HD Slow Motion (120fps), Panorama, Portrait Selfie, Creative Effects (Instagram like filters) and a switch to toggle on/ off Bokeh, including a slider to adjust intensity. It does allow you to shoot video as-well in 4K 30fps, across all 3 lenses and you can switch to the front/ selfie camera to take photos and videos. However, all these additional functions are locked into Basic Mode. When you switch to another mode, you lose access to these, including bokeh, video and switching to the front camera.

But although it is labelled Basic Mode, at the very least you can change the aspect ratio, toggle flash, adjust timer, switch to burst mode, adjust brightness and adjust colour temperature. The Basic Mode also has the same object/ eye tracking that is present across the other more professional modes and has HDR photography & video.

On the other side of the spectrum you have the Manual mode, which allows you to set the Shutter Speed, set a timer (3s or10s), shoot in burst mode (slow or fast upto 20fps in HDR), change the focus mode between AF-S (Single Shot), AF-C (Continous) and MF (Manual Focus), switch between a wider focus area to a centre frame focus area, change the EV, set the ISO manually or leave it to Auto, switch metering mode between Multi, Centre and Spot, toggle Flash, set white balance by choosing one of the presets, using a custom white balance or leaving it to auto, toggling in or Face/ Eye AF (in case you want to focus on wider frame or scenery), change aspect ratio, toggle HDR and choose file format (JPEG, Raw or both). You can also lock in the different settings to prevent accidental changes.

Clicking on the "Disp" on the left side of the screen will allow you to see the level and a histogram to show you the luminance level (ideally you want the graph to be more close to the centre). Clicking on the "Menu" allows you to change a few more hidden settings, under digital zoom settings turning on AI Super Resolution Zoom should improve the digital zoom quality and the ultra wide lens correction should reduce distortion on the ultra wide.

Moving on to "Cinema Pro", the OG app from the Xperia 1. This allows you to set projects, toggle on the stabilser, enable intelligent wild filter, increase dynamic range via multi frame stacking (though this only works at frame rates at or lower than 30fps) and choose baked in LUT's/ looks you can apply to your videos. The video is captured in cinema wide "21:9" aspect ratio and you can do some cool focus racking tricks with this. There is also the option to switch between 24, 25, 30, 60 and 120fps (though Sony, as wacky as they are have used the more technical numbers - 23.98, 29.97, 59.94 and 119.88). Choosing 119.88fps will shoot in 120fps native video and record audio as-well in Project FPS. The Second FPS setting is to switch to slow motion (120fps without audio). You can manually adjust Shutter Speed, ISO and White Balance (again being able to set manual white balance as-well). However you can only shoot using optical zoom (no digital zoom) and you have to stop recording and switch lens if you want to change the zoom level/ perspective.

Finally, the "Video Pro" app is an unexpected surprise (considering it launched with the Xperia Pro-I, a more premium offering) and has been ported across. This does cover the shortcomings of Cinema Pro- allowing for more casual shooting in a 16:9 aspect ratio with an auto mode and allowing digital zoom. When shooting at or lower than 4K 30fps (regardless of HDR on or off), it allows you to turn on "Seamless Zoom", which allows you to switch between all three lenses when recording video and uses digital zoom in between and to a mamimum of 15x zoom. It still has options for manual control over Shutter Speed, ISO, AE, Volume Levels, Face/ Eye AF, White Balance etc. Even though Manual Focus works, this app does not include focus racking. But unlike Cinema Pro that only works on the rear cameras, Video Pro allows shooting in 4K 30fps HDR from the selfie camera. Even when shooting in Auto mode, it displays the storage (shooting time remaining on the top left corner) and on the bottom has a level meter and indicates Shutter Speed & ISO Values.

Video Pro also lets you stream video directly to YouTube live (I believe it is streamed in 1080p, but I could be wrong). Even if you do not meet the subscriber or view number that is typically needed to allow you to stream on YouTube - it seems a deal was struck with YouTube (Google/ Alphabet) to allow this without restriction.

Here are some camera samples for your perusal:

From this it is quite clear, that the power of Moon Mode does not come installed in this device or many modes that are popular in devices nowadays such as recording at the same time video from the front & rear cameras, different portrait lighting effects, time/hyper lapse and night mode - these are all missing.

Pictures are quite good in daylight, though they do not have as much dynamic range as say the Google Pixel or an iPhone. However, on the flipside, photographs do not have that typical smartphone processed look.

For typical photography, it works as a charm, even the 3.5x and 5.2x zoom shots are actually decent for first generation tech and smaller sensor size. The 15x zoom was also surprisingly workable (the photograph of the painting), although it did make the image look flat/ very 2D with a very soft touch (not very sharp).

What the Xperia 1 IV sorely lacks is that AI/ image processing that maximises the potential of smartphones (despite their inately smaller sensor sizes). Small text is not clear at 5.2x zoom, and anything in digital zoom beyond 5.2x is unreadable. This would not be the case on say the S22 Ultra, which uses smart AI to detect text and improve readability.

I was also dissapointed from the Bokeh mode, from a camera giant like Sony I would have expected better and it does not quite achieve the same quality & seperation as other modern flagship smartphones. They seem to stick to the "optical bokeh" that occurs from larger lense sizes with a slight AI algorithm to add in extra blur, but nothing as magical as the Pixel's bokeh.

Moving on to the videography:

It is pretty decent in terms of video, the quality & stability has improved over the Xperia 1, but there is still room for improvement. And a big flaw is that the auto mode prioritises higher ISO, rather than matching Shutter Speed to reduce ISO. Which means there is a lot more noise (the small grains especially visible in the dark scenes) in the video, it might be easier on the processor or some other consideration Sony use to fashion video processing in this way.

The lack of AI/ computational prowess show again in video. When observing the room numbers you will say that the camera does not track them properly so they have some ghosting going on. There is also a bit of delay in adjusting Shutter Speed/ ISO, which does add a cinematic affect, but I can see situations where you might miss a shot or important moment (e.g. firecrackers at a wedding). Also, you might notice in this scene the most contrasting thing is the carpet, so the algorithm chooses to focus on it. What this means is when the camera swings from my movement/ walking, the phone uses electronic stabilisation to try to counter that affect on the carpet, moving it in the opposite direction of motion. So from the beginning, if you look at the carpet, it looks like someone has added the carpet as CGI without pegging/ mapping it to the corners of the floor. Since the Xperia 1, the combination of both electronic and physical stabilisation have not gone well for video.

I have seen a lot of reviewers praise the Xperia 1 IV for it's focus capabilities, which is true for optical ranges at under 4K 30fps, but the moment you switch to 4K 60 (which the average consumer would shoot with), you lose those AF/ tracking capabilities. Even at 4K 30fps, you lose a lot of the amazing AF/ tracking abilities, the moment you switch from optical zoom to digital zoom. Do note, that when I say Auto Focus abilities, I mean when the subject is a person, if you are trying to capture general video of non living objects, the AI is not smart enough to always know what needs to be in focus. This is consistent across Photography & Video (I prefer to use Manual Focus in those instances, but let's be real that is not something the average consumer would opt to do).

Speaking of 4K 30fps, a lot is restricted to below that frame rate- the ability to shoot in seamless zoom (switch across all 3 lenses, without pausing the video), the multi frame HDR (Wide Dynamic Range) options and a lot of the AF capabilities. Which does make sense for the "Cinematography" as most of that is shot in 4K 24fps or 25fps in the UK. However, for the average consumer is a bottleneck.

One area that is amazing in video is the slow motion- this is shot in Cinema Pro at 24fps playback (5x slow motion)- recorded originally in 4K 120fps. I will say that the slow motion on this does impress and turn heads.

Having said all this, this assumes normal operation. Which is the biggest downfall of the Xperia 1 IV. Fever, overheating, thermal, throttling, shuttdown - these are all words that explain the problem with the Xperia 1 IV, which means you can not record more than 5-10 minutes of 4K 60fps video, even reaching 2 minutes in summer outdoors is a miracle. The problem is not limited to actually recording video, just having either the Video Pro or Cinema Pro app open idly, without recording anything can cause the device to overheat. So you can't really have the video applications open waiting for a scene or trying to time something as by the time the event occurs the app may have kicked you out with the error message of overheating.

First you get an orange symbol appear on the top right of the viewfinder, where the battery level is displayed. Then you get an orange triangle appear on the right menu which shows overheating is occuring. Next, the camera app will disable some features to try to cool down the device. Ending with an error message/ note that kicks you out of the camera application.

Unfortunately, this overheating issue is not limited to video, this creeps up in photography as-well. But it does take longer to show up in the photo pro app and does not appear just by having the application over, however if you choose to shoot in burst then you will most likely only get 1-2 long bursts before the device overheats and prevents further operations.

What rubs salt on your wounds is the large amount of time the device takes to cool down, so if you are waiting for the device to cool down and quickly resume, you are out of luck.

Camera Summary

Pros	Cons
Manual Controls (Control over Picture)	Not for beginners, and not as good an Auto Mode as competitors.
4K 120fps, can be output as Slow Motion straight out the camera, 2x (60fps), 4x (30fps) or 5x (24fps).	No audio is recorded when recording in 4K Slow Motion. Less light hits the lens at higher frame rate, so needs to be in very good lighting conditions, has a lot of noise otherwise (due to higher ISO).
4K 120fps (Can choose to shoot in this faster frame rate and output in 120fps), audio is kept if not applied to slow motion straight out the camera.	Need to manually apply slow motion if you want to retain audio, which requires a PC setup that can render the video (no on device editing). Another downside is, at least to the best of my knowledge, no software can render and output back full fat 4K 120fps video (in case you want to do some post-editing on the HLG video).
Expertise from Sony Alpha Team	Split across 3 different apps with different audiences and purposes, too many hoops to jump through to access best video and photo applications, especially sub-modes. Can not quickly switch between the two and cannot take a picture when recording video in Video Pro.
World's first true optical zoom lens	​Not as much zoom as the S22 Ultra and quality of zoom is not as good. However, for first gen tech is not that bad.
​True to life colours and less artifical look to video and photos taken.	Lack of good Computational/ AI prowess, low bitrate in video, only HLG output (no HDR10, HDR10+ or Dolby Vision support in recording).
​20fps burst photography in HDR	Takes a lot of time for the camera to load the pictures/ process them after they are taken which prevents further photographs.
Eye/ Face AF and Object Tracking	Lose some capacity in digital zoom
Burst Mode quality is very good	No seperate gallery app, google photos does not play nice with burst photographs, very difficult to navigate. Lot of features lost in move from Gallery App to Google Photos.
Introduction to camera modes & warning messages	Phone does overheat very quickly in video & continous photography.
Upgraded Selfie Camera	Only available in Basic Mode, not able to use in professional photography modes or

Update on Camera Summary: Sony have just released an update which should improve the zoom quality (AI zoom I assume), telephoto lenses quality and have downclocked the CPU in software very slightly to help in overheating. This information has now been spread by other tech reviewers.

Otherwise, Sony's support team also echoed this sentiment, but their guide was perhaps not the best. With one of the recommendations being to record in 1080p (which I get from a technical stand point is not a bad tip), but for all purposes- someone paying flagship money would not want to record in 1080p.

Sony also need more cohesion in between the different teams. The understanding and messaging between the engineers, social media/ marketing team & support team need to be the same. If the engineering team know the device overheats very quickly, they should immediately inform social media/ support, as people will reply to/ question them in comments sections and ask about issues/ capabilities and similarly contact support for the same. There are potential sales in customers asking questions that are not being leveraged due to poor messaging & communication.

On a good note, I did get an update for my device. With wifi on, auto-rotate on, brightness set to about 60-70%, location off, bluetooth off, device refresh rate at 60Hz, display in standard mode with auto-creator & video enhancement off. Inside a room at 23.5 Celsius the device lasted in 4K 30fps video (HDR/ HLG), Wide Dynamic Range, Face/ Eye AF on and Seamless Zoom enabled for 10:18 (over double the time before the update). If you were to set the brightness to the lowest setting, have wifi off and auto-rotate off - you might be able to squeeze out 15 minutes of video recording at room temperature. Mind you, this is without the case applied. Although the recording time can only improve if you live in a colder climate, or in winter.

Score : 6/10

Lot of potential, poor execution. The use of a 12MP 1/1.7" sensor in a 2022 flagship is a 2 point penalty. The newly launched £630 Oneplus 10T has a 1/1.56" sensor (same as the standard S22), the Pixel 6 has a 1/1.31" sensor and the S22 Ultra has a 1/1.33" sensor. Another point is lost for lack of AI/ too much spread across too many apps (how easy is it to take the best quality picture from a rear camera, switch to the selfie to take video and then switch back to the rear for 4K 120fps slow motion video). The last point is lost because of the overheating issues, it should lose more points, but Sony is given the benefit of the doubt here to further improve this via software patches.

Design

The Xperia 1 IV actually has a really drop dead stunning design! The colour is very matte and does not reflect light crazily or attract fingerprints too quickly. The Sony logo seems to be overlaid, it has a glossy texture, as does the very small camera bump. Everything is very functional, the flash and RGB-IR are at the top left, sitting symetrically above the Camera Bump. The camera bump is off the left, leaving a lot of space for fingers to rest when gaming or using the device horizontally.

The only other writing is the NFC symbol, which is in the centre of the device (a preference thing - it could have also been placed in the centre of the white space between the camera bump and the right border). The Sony logo is bang centre. Then the warning to not thow in a bin, Xperia branding and model number are in small print at the bottom. The best part is they are in a colour that seems to not be too noticeable otherwise - praise where praise is due.

As a smartphone, the Xperia 1 IV is slimmer at 71mm than the S22 Plus Ultra at 77.9mm and the iPhone 13 Pro Max at 78.1mm. It is also slimmer at 8.2mm, the S22 Ultra is 8.9mm and the iPhone 13 Pro Max is 11.25mm with the biggest camera bump.

Build quality is solid, it does feel like a flagship and is comfortable to hold. The flat edged design in modern, the mics also look proper and the bottom one is no longer in a place where my pinky finger would rest when holding the smartphone vertically. That is now the location of the sim card tray - which isn't perfect. It is difficult to tell when the sim card tray is perfectly inserted - it does not always sit flush or click into place. Though I do appreciate the fact it is removable and has expandable storage, something I hope Sony keep. I do love the headphone jack as-well! Not many mainstream flagship phones hold on to that nowadays.

I also like how the buttons sit on the right side, so I can place the phone horizontally on the left side without worrying about button presses and as it's flat it does balance. My only complaint on a button being the shutter button. For starters, it feels too small and the press transition from focus to capture is not firm, it is diffult to tell what is focus and what is take picture when device is on silent and in a quick capture situation.

Score : 9/10

Highly functional design, 1 penalty point for sim tray & camera shutter button.

Everything Else (Yes including Specs)

Starting with the display, the critical component of a smartphone, the Xperia 1 IV comes with a 120Hz 4K HDR OLED display with a 50% brighter panel than the Xperia 1 III. It still has one of the most colour accurate displays in the market, with unique upscaling abilities of SDR content to HDR and upscaling of low res content to higher quality. A lot of Bravia tech is jammed in this display. The quality of the panel is something that can only be experienced in person, from my expeerience, it does have more natural looking colours in content than competitors including the iPhone 13 Pro Max and the S22 Ultra (compared to display units).

A big bonus of which is the addition of Bravia Core (previously unique to Sony Bravia TV's)- although it wasn't promoted as heavily. This was a massive surprise for Sony fans! Hopefully, Sony are able to derive more value out of this by allowing sales of tokens or ensuring long-term sustainability. But this really brings out the most for the display, streaming near bluray quality 4K content directly on to your smartphone.

The built in stereo speakers, with support for 360 Reality Audio, really add to the experience. Especially when watching content on Bravia Core with DTS surround sound. It is a mind blowing experience and that is an understatement, once you experience it normal phone speakers will no longer sound appealing.

Gaming on the device was also without any issues, I used Game Enhancer and have not run into any performance issues other than the device getting mildly warm. Somehow games handled heat better than capturing photographs & video.

The only downside to gaming is most games are not in 21:9 and Sony just cramp them in a native aspect ratio which doesn't add appeal to playing those, but major titles do support multiple aspect ratios and work just fine. The lack of collaboration between Sony divisions does come to light, with Run Sackboy Run not in 21:9 aspect ratio.

The battery life was also better than expected, with an increase to a 5000mAh battery over the 4500mAh in the Xperia 1 III, retaining the same 30W charging speed. Which is not the fastest, but does compete with the likes of the iPhone 13PM and the S22U. There is a lot of battery preservation and optimisation technology bundled in, which is part of the reason a lower charging speed is used. There is battery care for charging the device over night, making sure the device is not trickled charge killing the battery and there is HS Power Control, a pass through battery mode allowing you to power the device via mains/ plugged in when gaming.

The phone comes with a 3 months free Tidal experience, which really allows you to experience some of the 360RA tracks and the capabilities of the built in speakers and even when wired - there is a lot going with DSEE Ultimate & Dolby running in the background.

The side mounted finger-print reader is accurate and unlocks with the fingerprint registered quickly. It falls in a natural position, where it is easier to open the phone - it makes sense here, instead of reinventing the wheel and going for a more costly under display fingerprint reader.

Usability Score : 7.5/10

The display is a solid 10/10 indoors, but slightly dim outdoors (losing half a point - it is brighter than last gen and hits the 1000 nit mark that makes it practical enough). The audio is really technical - kind of like an all BA setup, but like an all BA setup lacking that DD bass. Other than lower bass, the loudness is not as high and it gets slightly distorted at the highest volume (losing another half point). 1 point is lost again because of overheating & a half point lost on how that impacts usability. Camera apps quit whilst in use, camera apps might not open all the time (get a pop up message saying need to close & reopen), glitching where you need to unlock the device twice, multi-tasking glitching out, especially with Google Chrome, stutter when scrolling YouTube or Social Media etc. The US version is set to launch on September 1, a lot may change until that date arrives and in the month following launch.

Overall Score : 7.5/10

Not the best in all areas, but it has it's niche and aims to satisfy that niche with standout features and fringe functionalities the average smartphone can not offer.

Suggestions for Sony (Expectations from future devices)

The current market does not mind the thickness of the device, you can make the device thicker if that is going to make a difference to thermals & performance, or at least offer a new variant that is thicker (which could be the Xperia Pro I Mk 2 - the thicker, more camera centric device at least 9mm thick, but the Xperia 1 IV could have been 8.4mm instead of 8.2mm thick). Another option is to make the camera bump bigger - this allows better heat dissipation. After all the competition is ahead of Sony on this front.

If throttling the CPU will prevent overheating, then that might be a good start, perhaps adding modes under settings that can switch between full CPU and standard throttled to more throttled. So if the full CPU gets you 5 mins 4K video, standard throttled gets you 10 minutes, more throttled should get at least 30 minutes. Kind of allowing down-clocking manually.

Introduce new users to all the amazing features the device has, add a tutorial- that takes users through Bravia Core (as a free multimedia service), photo pro, cinema pro, video pro, music pro, dolby atmos setup, device creator or standard mode setup, side sense setup etc. all in 10-15 minutes at most. Have a time icon at the top to say how long it will take to setup on average and if users want to come back to the tutorial later allow them to revisit it in settings or choose to go through it later.

Improve device cooling with more innovative solutions, following in the footsteps of the Asus Rog Phone 6 Pro- use of vapor chamber, graphite sheets & split batteries.

Progress sensor technologies (wider dynamic range & better quality output), a lot of rumours surround the next generation of Samsung sensors (note: rumours can be incorrect, so take with a pinch of salt) - the next sensor in the S23 Ultra is said to be a 200MP sensor with hexa square pixel binning technologies that could output 35MP, so uncropped 8K 60fps video is viable. It is also said to be an rgbw sensor, that can record more information than a traditional rgb sensor. What Sony has to combat that in advance with the Xperia Pro I Mk 2 or after the fact with the Xperia 1 V will be interesting to see.

Develop the current technologies, bottlenecked to 30fps to function well at 60fps. E.g. Seamless Zoom, Eye/ Face/ Object Tracking in Video, Wide Dynamic Range, better stabilisation etc.

Merge Basic Mode & Auto Mode into 1 easy to use mode with all the features individuals are looking for, so easy to use and stronger AI. Include in that merged mode, a night mode. No matter how manual you get, the night mode is not something you can replicate and to enter a wider market adoption, not something you can ignore. How you tweak that night mode is still in your hands. On the topic of merging modes, merge video pro and photo pro into one app, leaving cinema pro as seperate. If you do not want to merge, at least have a one tap switch between both.

Allow access to the selfie camera across all photo modes & video pro (when recording). Improve the bokeh mode, maybe look into how other competitors are achieving this and what you can do to improve.

Use a true 10-bit panel, not the 8-bit panel with 2-bit smoothing that is misleadingly labelled as 10-bit. Now that true 12-bit panels are entering the market, 8-bit is a bit too old.

Improve software, there are a lot of software bugs that crop up, iron out the kinks, work closer with google to add your own skin to it- to better optimise it for every day use.

Keep innovating, improve video bit-rate, use more creative technologies, such as experimenting with log-profiles combined with AI technologies and Multi-frame Wider Dynamic range. Have more on-device editing facilities. If you do log-video recording, have something on-device that can convert that to SDR or HDR viewable. Maybe look into HDR10+ recording or Dolby Vision. Increase zoom range, improve optical zoom tech & most importantly- continue to surprise us!