- What's up, guys?
Saf here on SuperSaf TV,
and here is the brand new Sony Xperia 1 IV.
One of the first videos with this in the world
so a thumbs up for your boy will be appreciated.
This has some brand new features,
some of which I'm very excited about
so let's go ahead, get this unboxed
and see what it has to offer.
So the first thing you'll notice
is that the box is now quite slim
and I'm sure you can guess why that is.
So inside the box, you get the Sony Xperia 1 IV
and that's it, like there's literally nothing else. (laughs)
Now you might get some paperwork or something,
depending on your region, but to most manufacturers
that have stopped including the charger out of the box,
still give you a USB type C cable
or a lightning cable for Apple but Sony's kind of been like,
"Hey, Apple, hold my charger and my cable,
we're not including either of these."
Now, apparently, this is to reduce on carbon emissions
which is what pretty much every other manufacturer says
and the box size is now reduced by about 50%,
although because it's literally just the device itself,
I mean, I think it could have been even smaller.
But anyway, let me know how you guys feel
about Sony not including a charger or a cable.
One of the first not to include a cable.
Looks like they might start a trend.
Anyway, let's go ahead and remove the screen protector
which is now paper instead of plastic.
And here it is, the Sony Xperia 1 IV.
It does look a lot like the Xperia 1 III
with some subtle changes around the frame
and the shutter button.
Now I don't have the Xperia 1 III with me anymore
so I can't do a side by side comparison
but as far as I'm aware,
the dimensions are almost exactly the same
as well as the weight.
We've got Gorilla Glass Victus, both on the front and back.
We do have water and dust resistance,
and this is the black color which has this matte finish.
It's also available in a white as well as a purple.
I do quite like this black, obviously,
but having this matte finish just means
that it's not going to attract as many fingerprints.
Now moving over onto the front,
again, the design is pretty much the same
as what we had on the Xperia 1 III.
So we do have a 6.5-inch display
with small top and bottom bezels,
so we don't have any interruptions
on the display like a punch out or a notch.
This is a 4K HDR 120Hz display,
but the biggest improvement that we've got this year
is the fact that it's now 50% brighter.
The Sony Xperia 1 III had an excellent display
with its 4K resolution and the high refresh rate.
However, one of the things that I did complain about
was the brightness, especially outdoors.
And if you're like me and wearing sunglasses,
then it just wasn't bright enough.
The Xperia 1 IV now has 1,000 nits of peak brightness
so although that's not as high
as some of the other competitors,
that is still pretty high especially considering the fact
that this has a 4K resolution with the 120Hz refresh rates.
So you're getting one of the sharpest displays
if not the sharpest display in the market
as well as that very smooth 120Hz refresh rate.
And now it's actually bright enough as well
so thumbs up from me, Sony.
The 21:9 aspect ratio also makes this quite narrow compared
to lots of other devices,
and that means you can easily reach to the other side,
and if we do compare it to, say, the iPhone 13 Pro Max,
which has kind of a similar height,
you can, however, really see the difference
in terms of the width.
With the iPhone 13 Pro Max, it's a lot harder to reach
to the other side compared to the Xperia 1 IV.
Now, before we continue,
just a quick reminder if you haven't already,
then maybe consider subscribing to the channel.
We've got lots more content coming up here in May,
and you're not going to want to miss it.
Now we can't unbox a Sony smartphone
without having a deeper dive into the camera
so we do have a triple rear-facing camera set up
like we had on the III last year
but there's some significant changes.
So firstly, all three cameras are 12 megapixels
in resolution, so we do have that consistency there.
There's an ultra-wide camera
which has the equivalent focal length
of around 16 millimeters like we had last year.
And we also have a 24-millimeter equivalent primary camera,
but the periscope zoom camera has been changed,
and this is something that I'm really impressed with.
This is actually the world's first
true variable optical zoom camera on a smartphone.
What does that mean?
Well, you've actually got two focal lengths.
You've got 85 millimeters all the way up to 125 millimeters.
Now the Xperia 1 III had between 75 and 105 millimeters,
but you could only select one
of those two focal lengths for optical zoom.
If you went anywhere in between,
then that would be digital zoom.
Other smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
have a three times zoom as well as a 10 times zoom
but there's nothing in between
so if you are at say seven times or eight times,
then it's actually using digital zoom.
With the Xperia 1 IV, you can actually zoom smoothly
between those focal lengths and actually get optical zoom
at say 100 millimeters as well.
Now from a hardware perspective,
this is a first, and it's very, very impressive.
Now it doesn't stop there
because all of the cameras have real-time Eye AF.
They have real-time tracking, but more importantly,
all of the cameras can now shoot
at 20 frames per second with a burst mode
so you can just tap down on the shutter button
and get 20 frames of images every second.
And all of the cameras
also have a 4K 120 frames per second readout,
which means that you can get 120 frames per second at 4K
from all the cameras, which I believe,
again, is a first on any smartphone.
Lots of other smartphones do shoot 4K 120 frames per second
but that is normally just from the primary camera.
On the Sony Xperia 1 IV,
you can do it from all of the cameras.
So Sony has really gone all out
in terms of the camera hardware
and it doesn't stop there because one improvement
that I'm personally very excited about
is with the front-facing camera.
This now has a much larger sensor size
and it is now 12 megapixels and can finally shoot at 4K.
If you've been watching any of my previous coverage
of the Sony Xperia 1 series; the I, the II, or the III,
my biggest complaint, one of the biggest complaint
has been that the front-facing camera just shoots at 1080p.
Now I'm sure that's okay for most situations
but if you are somebody who's going to be streaming
and especially at the price that these devices are at,
you expect 4K from the front-facing camera.
So I'm super happy that Sony has been listening
to my feedback as well as others
and included a 4K resolution for the front-facing camera.
Now, as always, Sony's focus seems to be on the hardware
and the photography side of things using that hardware
rather than relying on software.
So, for example, you still don't have a dedicated night mode
and the portrait mode,
there isn't a dedicated portrait mode.
Sony kind of wants you to use the zoom camera
and then kind of step away to get that true portrait effect.
Now, personally speaking, as always,
I would like to have those software features
as well as the hardware features, but hey, that's me.
We again also have all of the pro apps
to be able to manually take advantage
of all of the different settings on your cameras,
such as Photography Pro, Video Pro as well as Cinema Pro.
And I know a lot of people, especially Xperia fans,
like to have all of these features built-in,
straight from the get-go
rather than having to get a third-party app.
So lots of improvements here for the cameras.
Now, if you do want me
to do a SuperSaf style camera comparison
of this versus the competition, do let me know.
It really depends on how much demand there is.
And if there is enough demand, I'll try to squeeze it in.
Although me is very, very busy.
Internally, this is powered
by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset
with 12 gigabytes of RAM, so right up there
with the competition and performance will not be an issue
and it comes with 256 gigabytes of storage.
This is the only storage version available.
However, that's not a problem because, guess what?
We do have a micro SD card slot.
I mean, you're not really seeing micro SD card slots
under the smartphones these days.
This is included here at the bottom,
and in traditional Sony fashion, you can just slot this out.
You're not going to need a SIM card tool or anything.
You also have space here for a SIM card.
There's a USB type C port here at the bottom.
We've got nothing on the left-hand side.
On the right-hand side, there's the volume rocker.
There's a power button which doubles up
as a fingerprint scanner.
And then we've got that dedicated shutter button
with a bit of a texture.
I really do like this.
You can just hold down
and get that 20 frames per second burst.
And on the top, we have something else
which you're not going to see on many of the smartphones
and that is a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack.
I know there's a lot of you guys out there
who still appreciate a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack,
and you'll be glad to see this here on the Xperia 1 IV.
And if you are on audio file,
then you'll be further impressed with the fact
that we've got dual stereo front-firing speakers.
Now these sound really good.
We do have a new speaker driver, so they're also improved.
And one more thing that you're not going to find
on many of the devices that the Xperia 1 IV has
is an LED notification light
so this is still here, and I for one,
absolutely love having an LED notification light.
For software, we do have Android 12 out of the box
and alongside some of the pro apps that do come built-in.
We do have an emphasis on streaming now
so on the Video Pro app,
you will be able to live stream directly from there.
And with game enhancer,
you'll be able to live stream your games
and both the voice as well as the in-game audio
can be sent to a PC as well.
Now, if you are streaming,
you're not going to be able to activate the front-facing camera
like you have on dedicated gaming smartphones
but it is nice to see some of these improvements here.
There's also going to be the Music Pro app
which will allow you to record directly onto the Xperia 1 IV
as well as a subscription-based cloud processing service
which will be able to process your audio
to make it sound like it's from a condenser mic.
I can't test this right now
because I don't have access to those features as yet.
Now, as well as that, the Xperia 1 IV does bring some
of the Pro-I features, so you're going to be able to use this
as an external monitor for one of your Sony Alpha cameras.
I'm currently shooting on a Sony Alpha camera here
so you'll be able to plug this in
and then use this as a viewfinder
which is going to be larger than the built-in display.
And there's also going to be a vlog monitor available
which you're going to be able to attach
on the back of the Xperia 1 IV, and that way,
you'll be able to vlog using the rear-facing cameras
and get that additional quality.
Right, battery, so this actually
has a larger battery compared to the III.
It's a 5,000 mAh battery up from 4,500 mAhs.
And this is quite impressive because the overall dimensions
and weight of the device are roughly about the same
so it's nice to see that they've managed
to include a larger battery size.
We do have Qi wireless charging available
as well as 30 watt fast charging
which will give you around 50% charge in 30 minutes.
However, as you saw from the start of this video,
that charger is not included out of the box,
neither is the cable, so those are things
that you're going to have to buy separately.
And buying those separately, if you don't really have them,
may be a tough pill to swallow because of the price of this.
This is coming in at 1,300 pounds or around $1,500 in the US
which is higher compared to the Xperia 1 III
which is already pretty high.
And it is higher compared to some of the competition
such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
or the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
It's really going towards that foldable territory.
And sure, you are getting some exclusive features
such as the 4K 120Hz brighter display,
the variable optical zoom cameras,
4K 120 frames per second from all of the cameras,
as well as features which you're not really going to find
on many of the smartphones
such as the micro SD card expansion
and the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack.
Is that all worth this price for you?
Definitely let me know in the comments below.
I hope you enjoyed this video and found it useful.
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Thanks for watching.
This is Saf on SuperSaf TV, and I'll see you next time.