A telephoto camera lens with small components that can easily move back and forth to zoom in and out is housed inside the slim understated shell of the new Sony Xperia, 1 IV phone. This is something that no other phone can accomplish. Last year’s Xperia 1 III lens was identical, but the small lens elements were limited to one of two orientations. In usage, the Xperia 1 III’s dual-telephoto lens provided no meaningful benefit over comparable phones like the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which employs two independent telephoto cameras to achieve something similar.
The Xperia 1 IV is the first phone in the world to use a real optical zoom lens. Nonetheless, most people are astonished to find that Sony still manufactures phones. Sony and its Xperia series of phones are after your heart, creativity, and pocketbook if you’re a creative type, photographer, filmmaker, gamer, or audiophile. After all, the Sony Xperia 1 IV costs $1,600, which is roughly equivalent to £1,295 or AU$2,300, making the new phone one of the most costly available today.
Sony has been chasing an ideal with the Xperia 1 IV since 2019. The Tokyo-based firm does not want to compete with conventional phones such as the iPhone 13, Samsung Galaxy S22, or Google Pixel 6 Pro. On the other hand, Sony has carved out its own piece of the sandbox with the Xperia 1 IV, and it turns out they’re building some fantastic sandcastles.
Let us stick to the $1,600 price tag. Aside from the price, you get a phone with a cutting-edge zoom lens, a 4K high-refresh-rate display (which no other phone has except Sony), a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, a 5,000mAh battery, Gorilla Glass Victus, and beloved Android features like a headphone jack, a slot for expandable storage, and a front-facing LED notification light.
This phone is out of reach for the vast majority of consumers (including myself). I’d rather spend $1,600 on a specialized camera. The Xperia 1 mark IV, on the other hand, is waiting for you and all of your artistic interests if you can afford the price and want a phone that is both cutting edge and delightfully rooted in the delicate process of photography and filmmaking.
This Xperia will be available for presale in the United States on September 1st. Sony is now running a limited-time promotion in which you may purchase an Xperia, 1 IV and receive a free set of Sony WVF1000XM4 true wireless headphones worth $280. I wish Sony had included the Xperia 1 IV with its shooting grip/remote controller and small magnetic vlogging monitor, allowing you to video yourself using the back cameras.
Unfortunately, the new software was not yet ready for me to test. Music Pro and the cameras may be the most significant new feature on the Xperia. 1 IV.
In any sense, neither Samsung nor Google has a continuous optical zoom lens like the Xperia 1 Mark IV. While many cellphone cameras allow you to squeeze and zoom, this is digital zoom, not optical zoom. Optical zoom now outperforms digital zoom because it uses moving lenses to magnify your subject. Digital zoom is often used to focus on a wider image and depend on AI to reconstruct detail that was not captured — more like an educated guess than reality.
You may also have a telephoto lens on your smartphones, such as the 3x lens (or 77mm equivalent, in film-era terminology) on the iPhone 13 Pro or the 10x (230mm equivalent) on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. They’re also not “zoom” lenses, which means they’re fixed and don’t enable you to switch between focal lengths. The telephoto lens of the Xperia.1 IV is unique in that you may alter the focal length to 85mm, 125mm, or anyplace in between.
