Sony Xperia 1 VI – One Month Later Review

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84%

84%

• Display

  9
• Design

  8
• Power

  8
• Camera

  9
• Value for Money

  8
• User Ratings (15 Votes)
  5.2

Hands up: I’m late to the party with this review. This is for two reasons – firstly, it has been a ridiculously crazy time in the world of tech. Anyone who works in this space will know exactly what I’m talking about – every brand on the planet appears to have released, updated, and teased as much as they can over the last couple of months. Keeping up with it all has been fun but exhausting.

Then, I went on holiday. So, there.

The good news is, I have had the Sony Xperia 1 VI close by my side for nearly a month now, and I’m sure there are a few of you out there who are still on the fence about buying Sony’s latest flagship.

So, in this month later review, I’m going to answer one very simple question: is the Sony Xperia 1 VI worth £1,299?

Sony Xperia 1 VI specs and pricing

The Xperia 1 VI is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen3 and has 12GB of RAM. There are no other options for the latter, and the same goes for the storage, which is fixed at 256GB. You can, however, extend that to a maximum of 1.5TB with the micro SD card slot. Which is unusual – and nice.

There’s a 5,000mAh battery nestled inside that slender frame which keeps everything chugging along, including the 6.5” redesigned OLED display which has – you guessed it – a 120Hz variable refresh rate. Because of course it does.

A relatively unfettled Android 14 runs everything, and you get three colours to choose from – Khaki Green, Platinum Silver, and black. As noted above, the Xperia 1 VI costs £1,299 in the UK and you can order it today.

Design, display, and performance

Every Sony phone I’ve tested has felt reassuringly expensive. The Sony Xperia 1 VI is no different.

I like the approach Sony takes with its flagships. There’s no polished aluminium touches and no fuss – because that stuff just isn’t needed. Instead, we get a smart textured finish in whatever colour you choose.

It’s a tough little thing, too. While on holiday in Majorca, I accidentally knocked the Xperia 1 VI from a table onto a hard ceramic floor tile. It didn’t survive completely unscathed, but the marks left are relatively minor and the screen is as good as new. And this was quite a bad fall, trust me. Sorry, Sony!

What sets the Xperia 1 VI apart from the competition is that it is clearly designed for photographers. The camera bump is prominent, if not overtly so, and there’s a proper shutter button. That’s right – the Xperia 1 VI retains the physical shutter button which can be half-pressed to obtain focus, just like a proper camera. I’m a huge fan of this and I hope Sony never does away with that button in future iterations.

The display is lovely, because of course it is. It’s also slightly wider than last year’s model, which is a welcome change – that phone always felt a bit too narrow for my liking. The Xperia 1 VI features display technology taken directly from the BRAVIA TV range, which isn’t something that’ll pop off the display immediately, but it’s nice to know it’s there if you’re travelling and miss your Sony TV at home.

Performance? It’s super fast in everyday use. The Xperia 1 VI is running the latest Snapdragon chip, and it feels like it. However, as I keep saying, aren’t all modern smartphones super fast these days?

Camera performance

The Sony Xperia 1 VI boasts a 52MP main camera which shoots 48MP images and has a focal length of 24mm. It’s joined by a 12MP zoom lens with an optical range of 85mm to 170mm, and a 12MP wide angle that shoots at 16mm.

I was invited by Sony to a very posh London restaurant last month (SOLA, in Soho, in case you’re wondering) to take some photos of Michelin star food, and a professional model – with the help of a professional photographer. If anything was going to test the might of the Xperia’s camera system, this was the setting – and the subjects.

All of the examples you see here were shot in JPEG format and are straight out of the camera, although you can of course shoot RAW if you want more control. My experience with the Xperia 1 V last year suggests these devices remain among the best when it comes to that kind of photography.

As a point and shoot, however, the Xperia 1 VI is superb. There’s just one camera app this time around, which makes things abundantly simpler and the results are impressive.

The portrait bokeh mode, in particular when using the extra reach of that zoom lens, creates lovely images which appear natural and faithfully recreate the scene.

The macro mode is also great fun – particularly if you turn on the focus peaking and use the slider to manually choose your focus point.

I snapped a few quick shots while on holiday, too, and the Xperia 1 VI coped admirably with the rather harsh lighting conditions in midday Spain.

I’ll leave the ultimate conclusion to you, because the camera performance of a smartphone remains the most subjective element of any review, but I think Sony has once again nailed it. They had to – remember, this phone has a physical shutter button.

Conclusion: is the Xperia 1 VI worth the money?

Modern smartphones aren’t cheap. In fact, the prices have been steadily and sneakily creeping up for many years now. The Sony Xperia 1 VI is priced like a flagship, so, in that respect, it doesn’t feel any more expensive than anything else you can buy with similar capabilities.

It feels like a flagship. It looks like a flagship. It performs like a flagship. More importantly, it takes photos like the best of flagships.

Is the Xperia 1 VI worth the money? By default, it absolutely is. Who is it for? Sony fans and anyone who wants to escape the normality of smartphone ownership, because the Xperia line remains a smart if peripheral choice – but that’s its charm.

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