Sony Xperia 1 VIII refresh leaves flagship appeal narrow
The new Sony flagship adds a redesign and stronger telephoto camera, but The Verge found its price, battery and performance limit its reach.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
3 min read
Sony’s Xperia 1 VIII brings the company’s flagship phone line a new design and a changed camera system, but early testing suggests it remains a niche device. The Verge’s Dominic Preston said the phone improves in some areas while falling short of rival Android flagships at its high European price.
The Xperia 1 VIII is not launching in the United States, according to The Verge. In the UK and Europe, it starts at £1,399 / €1,499, or about $1,850, and rises to £1,849 / €1,999, or about $2,450, for the version with 1TB of storage.
A changed design, familiar Sony priorities
The Verge reported that Sony has moved away from the long-running Xperia look with a blockier camera island and a textured finish across the body. The phone still keeps several features that have become rare on premium phones, including a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot, front-facing stereo speakers and a two-stage camera shutter button.
Preston praised the appearance and feel of the new design, but found some hardware choices weaker. He said the recessed power button, which also serves as the fingerprint sensor, failed roughly a third of the time in his use.
The display also marks a shift from older Xperia models. The Verge said Sony no longer uses the distinctive 21:9 4K screens that once set the line apart; the Xperia 1 VIII instead has a 6.5-inch 1080p 120Hz OLED in a more conventional phone shape. The screen has no notch or camera cutout, but that means thicker bezels above and below the panel.
Camera gains come with an AI misstep
The biggest technical change is in the rear camera system. The Verge said Sony dropped the continuous optical zoom telephoto used in recent Xperia generations and replaced it with a 2.9x, 70mm-equivalent telephoto camera built around a 48-megapixel, 1/1.56-inch-type sensor.
Preston called it Sony’s best phone camera to date, citing the telephoto and ultrawide cameras as strengths. The Verge said the main camera, ultrawide camera and 12-megapixel selfie camera are carried over from last year’s model, while the telephoto upgrade helps the phone compete better on image quality.
One new camera feature drew heavy criticism. The Verge said Sony’s AI Camera Assistant shows suggested edits before a rear-camera shot is taken, often applying strong filters or other changes. Preston said the suggestions he saw were worse than the default camera output and that the pop-up made the camera experience more distracting, though the feature can be disabled.
Price and performance weigh against it
The phone uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, paired with either 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage or 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, according to The Verge. Preston said the device generally ran smoothly but showed repeated stutters and slowdowns, especially in the camera app and while switching apps, and became hot during a press-event recording with real-time AI transcription.
Battery life also disappointed in testing. Sony claims two days from the 5,000mAh battery, but The Verge said the phone more realistically needs daily charging, with a 30W maximum charging speed that trails many competitors.
The Verge gave the Xperia 1 VIII a score of 6 out of 10. Preston said the phone’s headphone jack, expandable storage, speakers, design and cameras will appeal to Sony loyalists, but its battery life, performance issues, software quirks, four promised Android OS updates and steep pricing make it difficult to recommend broadly.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.