foreign
this is the brand new Sony Xperia one
Mark V it's the one five the fifth one
uh this is a fourteen hundred dollar
pure Enthusiast phone from Sony uh I've
been using it came out a couple weeks
ago actually it was announced a couple
weeks ago but it's not out yet but I've
been really loving it so far and just
like a lot of their other previous
phones there's some incredible Tech here
but I've had to take a step back and
realize that these phones are endangered
species for a reason like Sony phones
were already a rare breed to start with
I've talked about this before in past
videos where I've reviewed the Sony
Xperia 5 Mark II and the Xperia 1 Mark
III and the one mark IV and the pro I
Etc all these phones and this one are
loaded with features and manual controls
and Technology
but they also all have like the smallest
Target demographic like the narrowest
band of people who will actually
appreciate everything that they do and
that's fine there's nothing wrong with a
product like that existing but that also
has me kind of worried see we lost HTC
we lost LG this this is just in the past
couple of years uh and YouTube
commenters would probably have you
believing that it was just the negative
videos about the smartphones that
single-handedly took them down even
though there was huge corporations
behind them and that's clearly not true
but I would like to try something a
little bit different today because I
actually think Sony right now looks
almost exactly like where Porsche the
car company used to be so if we're being
generous Sony smartphones today are like
Porsche cars 20 years ago so Porsche was
toiling away making expensive Enthusiast
sports cars for years and they were sick
they were really fun cars but also their
sales numbers were anemic and the
business itself was actually in danger
so the strategy to oversimplify was just
give the people what they want crossover
SUVs are starting to blow up they're
taking off in sales and they're becoming
the most popular best-selling vehicle so
they took a bit of a risk as a sports
car company and built a Porsche
crossover SUV that was a Porsche Cayenne
that thing went on to become their
best-selling vehicle ever by a mile and
propped up the whole rest of the
business well enough to keep everything
else afloat so they could afford to also
keep making the expensive and sports
cars it was kind of sacrilegious at the
time for Porsche to make an SUV but if
you ask any Porsche fan today they're
all glad that the Cayenne exists because
it enables them to keep making the 911s
and the gt3s and everything else that
they love so much so hear me out Sony
give the people what they want now
importantly what I'm not saying is for
them to stop making these super high-end
Enthusiast phones but what I am saying
is they need some sort of like Mass
Market appealing phone that people like
me can actually recommend to everyone so
that they can afford to keep making
phones like this so I'm thinking
something in the six to eight hundred
dollar range which isn't totally foreign
to them they can do this and it needs to
keep of course all the character that
makes a Sony phone a Sony phone not just
another generic 700 phone but really
think hard about this so here's three
things I would do or would recommend for
Sony to make a Sony character Mass
market phone the same way that Porsche
made a Porsche character mass-market
vehicle so number one with the phone
itself you got a smartly slightly cut
down those specs so this new Sony Xperia
1 Mark 5 I've been talking about it has
a 6.5 inch 21x9 120 hertz 4K
HDR OLED display it's kind of ridiculous
it's one of the most technically
impressive parts of any phone just like
the last Sony phone and the one before
that it's literally 643 pixels per inch
it's the sharpest thing you'll see on a
mobile device Sony is the only company I
see right now putting 4K displays in
their smartphones
and there's a reason for it so for the
mass market phone
1080p
and I know it sounds sacrilegious
because this Tony thing is always a 4K
display but they did have the Xperia 5
Mark III which is also 1080p display and
you keep all the Sony character around
the display because it's not just the 4K
resolution that makes this a Sony thing
but there are also one of very few to be
doing the tall 21x9 aspect ratio that
makes it easier to hold and the flat
panel with no curves around the edges
and no hole punch and it's surrounded by
large front-facing speakers because I
don't mind a little bit of bezel they
should keep all of that now some of you
might also be thinking right now about
the Xperia 10 series which is Sony's
line of like more budget oriented
400-ish dollar phones those phones have
60hz 1080p displays I think this should
be right in this sweet spot in the
middle just do a premium mid-range 120
hertz 1080P and I'd also like to make it
a bit smaller this is a six and a half
inch display which like I said is on the
larger side and while Sony's doing what
they can to make it more reachable with
21 by nine it's still going to be tough
for people to reach the top without some
hand gymnastics mostly because the
fingerprint reader power button is here
and so if you unlock the phone while
holding it like this it's unlikely that
you can also reach the top with your
thumb so I'm thinking getting it down to
roughly a six inch phone maybe a little
less 1080p display with Sony character
around it all that's really the biggest
spec to cut down really the only other
thing you end up missing out on if you
make a smaller phone is a slightly
smaller battery but then you're going
from a 5 000 milliamp hour battery and a
4K display to a 1080p display with a 4
600 milliamp hour battery so then number
two and this is a big one a better
automatic camera now it's specifically
specifically
automatic cameras so what you've
probably heard me talk about in the past
is do not get it twisted these are some
of the absolute best cameras in any
smartphone but they are because they are
so manually controllable and
customizable that's why the enthusiasts
like me love these things and why so
many people in that crowd will buy them
but it's just a different world being in
full auto so these have a lot of
parallels to shooting with like the Sony
Alpha cameras and then this Xperia 1
Mark 5 has some interesting new stuff
they've moved up to a 52 megapixel
sensor which is not a number you see
very often but that's really just
binning down to 12 megapixels with some
extra room for stabilization and it is a
1.7 times larger sensor than the last
gen with some new optimizations
surrounding the sensor Tech itself it's
insane you see by decoupling the photo
diode and transistor from being housed
in the same space they basically free up
room to have a larger photo diode in the
same area and that also lets them
increase the size and overall
performance of the transistor in its own
layer all this results in better light
sensitivity on each sensitive area and
larger pixels on their own substrate
layers which results in massively lower
noise and improved low light sensitivity
if you know how to use it so what's
frustrating about reviewing these Sony
phones is I can say all that and the
enthusiasts will appreciate it but I
still can't recommend a fourteen hundred
dollar phone to the masses that still
has a slightly confusing slightly subpar
full auto camera mode like if you want
to dig in and navigate your way around
you can get incredible footage and
photos out of these cameras in the more
manual modes but on a Sony phone first
of all there are three camera apps
Cinema pro video Pro and Photo Pro and
even in the most basic mode of Photo Pro
that launches when you just hit that
sweet dedicated shutter button it's a
little more complex than most people are
used to there's just a few extra
unlabeled buttons there's just a few
weird quirks like the photo modes are
hidden under more but also night mode
and portrait mode are down here at the
bottom it's also weird that the shutter
button doesn't blink at all when you
take a photo I know it's just a tiny
thing but regular people expect the
viewfinder to Blink when they take a
picture because every other smartphone
does and for some reason Sony's doesn't
it seems unnecessary but this auto mode
it just has to be simplified even more
than it already has of course right
behind the dumb down Auto modes is a ton
of other way more powerful modes all the
manual modes all the Sony character is
still there but for the masses I promise
you they just want to like pull the
phone out their pocket launch the camera
real quick and take a picture of their
friend or their kid their pet doing
something silly there's something
happened right in front of them they
just want to take a quick snap and they
want that to be the best picture
possible just that Quick Auto One Shot
boom and I even get a little bit bummed
out by the quality of shots from Sony's
straight auto mode because I know all
the technology that goes into these
cameras also Sony literally makes all
these sensors so they should have the
best vertical integration pipeline in
the world but yet they still get blown
out the Water by a pixel or a Samsung
phone in these basic point-and-shoot
situation Sony tends to overexpose a
little bit they don't do HDR scenes as
well as the others they were
consistently near dead last in the blind
smartphone camera test that I ran last
year where you all voted on the best
looking pictures without knowing which
camera took which photo so Sony's
full-blown auto mode despite having all
this awesome Tech can still be pretty
rough and fixing that would make a
massive difference to making it for the
masses so then number three last but not
least
treat it like a flagship Sony it would
be great if you could copy the other's
homework a little bit on this one here
I'm not even going to get into the
naming of the phones but you have to put
out the phone a week maybe two weeks Max
after you announce it like that I don't
know how else to say it like I know
there's a lot that goes into launching a
phone and of course getting it into
carrier stores in certain markets and
international markets and getting
everything to work but you I think you
really need to do as much as possible
behind the scenes so that when you
reveal the phone as soon as that hype
wave starts to Crest people can buy it
one to two weeks later tops now Sony
believe it or not is making some
progress on this it used to be six
months of a gap between announcing the
phone and it going on sale can you
imagine that it's like a phone gets
announced in April
and you can't actually buy it until like
October it's absurd but then they got it
down to five they got it down to four
this phone was announced May 11th but B
H has it estimated for July 28th that
would be still almost three months after
the initial unveiling which is better
than it used to be but that's still
trust me that's enough time for people
to forget about it and find something
else to do with their 1400 bucks so
Sony's got to get this window down to be
much much shorter so to summarize
there's clearly nothing wrong with Sony
making these incredibly high-end
impressive Enthusiast phones just like
there's nothing wrong with Porsche
making their awesome high-end Enthusiast
sports cars but Porsha needed that
Cayenne to survive and I think Sony is
going to need some type of Mass Appeal
obvious for the masses type phone that
still has the character of all the stuff
that makes a Sony phone special I think
it'll be a bit smaller version of this I
don't think it gets a 4K screen I think
it's 1080p it's a much better Auto
camera mode because that's what most
people just want in a phone it's got to
come out a day to two weeks after it's
announced and maybe change the name but
still keep the design the headphone jack
the SIM card tray and micro SD card slot
that both pop out without needing any
ejector tool yet somehow keep ip68 water
resistance definitely keep that keep the
taller and more reachable aspect ratio
and the square sides and the fast
fingerprint reader that's comboed with
the power button and the dedicated
shutter button definitely keep that the
flat screen with no hole punch cut out
the stereo front-facing speaker pair all
that would be so killer with some fast
Android updates until then these will
continue to be some of the most
underrated phones on the planet but
while the rest of the planet even though
they exist
thanks for watching catch you in the
next one peace
[Music]
thank you