Sony Xperia 1 VI review: For the premium phone connoisseur

Note: This review was first published on 21 January 2025.

Even though Sony’s Xperia phones aren’t as commonplace as iPhones or Samsung’s Galaxy S series phones these days, they've always had a certain appeal. If you’re a photo-taking purist or someone who holds wired audio in high regard, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. 

The Sony Xperia 1 VI retains many nice hardware features that are rare in high-end smartphones today. These include a 3.5mm headphone port for high-quality wired listening that's free from wireless bandwidth and connectivity limitations, a dedicated camera hard button, and expandable memory via a microSD card.

Sure, some premium phones have one or two of these features (like the camera buttons on iPhone 16 Pro series and the OPPO Find X8 Pro). However, Sony still has all the above consistently for many generations and not just recent additions.

The TL;DR version:



It's a pricey phone, but worth the investment if you're an audiophile or a mobile photography enthusiast.



Find it at the Sony Online Store.

Performance is also essential for a flagship device, so Sony has is banking on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor (which was the best option when the phone launched), along with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage.

Its previously iconic 21:9 display aspect ratio has altered, and it's now a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. Xperia 1 VI is closer to a regular smartphone, granting a slightly better in-hand experience.

A full review is of clear interest to our readers since our hands-on with the phone at a launch event in Tokyo made our list of the top 10 most-read feature articles in 2024.

So, how does the phone measure up to other 2024 flagship phones? Is it worth the hefty S$1,989 it asks for? We’ll run through what we think through the following segments:-

Elegant, Exquisite, Xperia

Although the display aspect ratio has been adjusted for the better, the Sony Xperia 1 VI retains the long, slender silhouette we associate with Sony's flagship phones. The company offers four different colourways, but only Black and Green are available in Singapore.

If you’re fond of Red (like I was), you’ll probably have to look at getting a set from another market.

The Sony Xperia 1 VI is encased in two slabs of glass, but Sony has opted for an embossed, textured back, which makes the phone's rear more visually interesting. Unlike other slippery glass handsets, it also offers a better grip.

The sides are aluminium, and vertical grooves add to its unique look and we really think it adds to the phone's personality. Given these aesthetic traits, getting smudgy fingerprints or an oily sheen is quite impossible, other than the glass front itself.

Despite the materials used, the phone is very lightweight, at just 192g, making it easy to hold for long periods, whether watching videos or playing games. 

A crucial addition to an audiophile's kit

Sony has abandoned 4K resolution in favour of a host of advanced display technologies to hone the Xperia 1 VI's premium hard sell.

It has a new 6.5-inch 1080p FHD+ LTPO panel (2,340 x 1,080 pixels resolution), which offers an adaptive refresh rate from 1 to 120Hz. 

Sony doesn’t offer much information on the new display's brightness levels, except that it’s "50% brighter than the Xperia 1 V." Our testing found that it reached around 1,500 nits, which is still usable under bright sunlight.

The loss of 4K might be felt, but in our experience, 4K drains the battery faster for not much more quality on a tiny screen. That said, Sony could've topped the charts with a 1440p display to help justify its high price tag and still offer higher, visible fidelity. Perhaps that's an opportunity for another time, but as it stands now, the phone's display output is one of the most compelling we've seen from a colour vibrancy and accuracy point of view.

The phone's display colours are excellent. The new Powered by Bravia feature replicates colours similarly to Sony’s Bravia TVs, resulting in vibrant colours and excellent contrast.

The speakers have also been upgraded to full-stage stereo, with better bass and treble performance. Despite that, we still encourage using proper earphones or earbuds for music enjoyment. Thanks to the phone's 3.5mm headphone port, audio purists can still experiment with their wired audio rigs and use the phone's media streaming and storage for playback.

Building on its approach to catering to audio and video enthusiasts/professionals, the company has improved the Xperia 1 VI’s audio performance with a new high-performance audio IC chip inside, which results in 50% less inter-channel crosstalk. Playing audio through wired earphones is a joy, judging by my listening binge with high-res audio tracks via Apple Music and Tidal on my Noble K10 CIEMs (custom in-ear monitors). 

This could make the Sony Xperia 1 VI a valid smartphone choice for audiophiles who might be on a tighter budget and can't justify spending on a flagship smartphone and a dedicated digital audio player (DAP). DAPs can be affordable, but at the lower end, it's debatable whether you're getting your money's worth. Most budget DAPs usually run on older Snapdragon processors and outdated Android versions, which don't provide a great user experience.

With the inclusion of the 3.5mm headphone port and upgraded audio IC chip, the Xperia 1 VI provides a solid option for audiophiles to build on by using the savings from not buying a separate DAP to, instead, opt for perhaps a better pair of wired earphones or a different external DAC/amp setup as an upgrade.

The Xperia 1 VI has IP65 / IP68 water-and-dust resistance (see what it means here), although you’ll have to make sure removable parts like the SIM card tray are properly inserted to ensure there's a good seal all the time.

What AI?

If you’re not yet a fan of gimmicky artificial intelligence, you’ll love the Xperia 1 VI.

Running on Sony’s Xperia UI skin of Android 14, the operating system is clean and well-polished, with no bloatware or bugs.

Unlike other big phone brands, which focus heavily on front-facing AI-powered features, the Xperia 1 VI's AI works behind the scenes to improve the user experience. 

For example, the phone uses AI to enhance the display’s colours and contrast and Sony’s DSEE Ultimate upscaling for audio playback. Sony is also using a new AI Tracking technology to allow the rear cameras to recognise human skeletal structures (such as arms, torso, legs, etc.), estimate human poses, and provide more accurate tracking even if the subject is partially obscured. 

Even though it uses an AI-competent processor, there’s no big push to get you to use Gemini or ChatGPT (both of which are easy add-ons from the Google Play Store for individual needs).

While there are Magic Eraser and Unblur tools in its default photos app, it's just serviceable and not as impressive as what Google or Apple has. You could also download the Google Photos app for the Magic Eraser tool if you so wish, so the option is still open.

Imaging performance

We covered most of the imaging features in our hands-on and shootout.

To recap and add on, the Sony Xperia 1 VI uses a triple camera array on the rear: a 48MP main camera, a 12MP telephoto camera with continuous optical zoom, and a 12MP ultrawide camera.

The “Exmor T for Mobile” sensor is used here, but it’s not new since it was previously featured on the Xperia 1 V too.

The system's highlight is the telephoto camera, which offers optical zoom from 3.5x to 7.1x, or 85mm to 170mm. This also enables the Telephoto Macro feature, fixed at 120mm and offers a 2x macro magnification with a focusing distance of as short as 4cm.

There’s also a physical shutter button, which can open the camera app from anywhere as long as it is held down. This button also acts as a shutter actuation button, auto-focusing when half-pressed, and has no other capacitative soft-touch function.

Let’s get straight into the photos.

The main camera takes decent shots, with a lot of sharpness and detail.

Colours are accurate but can feel subdued if you're used to higher contrast, vibrant images. It’s easy enough to edit while post-processing. If you’re interested in buying an Xperia phone, you’re most likely comfortable with simple photo edits to help boost saturation and colour.

The zoom performance is good across the entire optical zoom range as long as you’re shooting with good lighting. However, quality falters once it exceeds the maximum 7.1x range. We recommend sticking to 7.1x and not pushing it further, as evidenced in the last shot above. 

The ultrawide camera is competent in well-lit situations, with nice colours and dynamic range. Images from this camera have good detail without signs of being overly sharpened, and there’s little distortion.

Night mode works decently unless you have moving subjects like cars or humans, but this is an issue faced by all smartphones, not just the Xperia 1 VI. There’s a good amount of scene brightening, and the colours are accurate, with good detail and minimal noise.

If you want to know how it held up against other 2024 phone shooters, check my shootout here.

Benchmark performance

The Sony Xperia 1 VI uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which is on par with most flagship devices launched in 2024. We will be pitting it against other SD8G3 flagship rivals.

Putting it to the test

To find out how the competitors line up specs and price-wise, check them out in this link.

To find out more about the tests we conduct and what they relate to, we've jotted them down here.

Benchmark Performance remarks

Sony Xperia 1 VI performed brilliantly in most tests but shone in the Jetstream 2 benchmark. It beat competitors and kept up with a similarly priced rival, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

The Xperia 1 VI performed better than other phones using the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, and its day-to-day performance is excellent. The phone has good thermal management, with temperatures only rising to around 40 degrees during intensive benchmarking or when multiple apps and games are open and running concurrently.

Battery Life

Our battery benchmark uses PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test to determine a modern Android-based smartphone's battery uptime in minutes. This controlled benchmark simulates real-world usage with a combination of both web and social media browsing, video and photo editing, parsing data with various file formats, writing (on documents), and more. 

With a mere 5,000mAh, Xperia 1 VI's battery life test results were jaw-dropping - at first looks. The outcome is mostly because of the phone's 1080p display whilst all of its rivals sported 1440p equivalent resolution screens, thus drawing more processing power.

Regardless, the phone can power on for a day and a half with moderate use. If you’re not constantly using it at max brightness or playing games for long periods, it might last a little under two days, which is what Sony promised. 

However, charging speeds are disappointing for a flagship device costing this much. Wired charging is limited to 30W, and wireless charging is just 15W. It took about 94 minutes to charge from 0 to 100% and about 36 minutes to get the phone to 50% from empty.

Conclusion

There are plenty of reasons to want the Sony Xperia 1 VI, but there are also quite a few reasons not to. 

If you’re a photographer who wants to control the tiny details of your shooting experience, you will love the phone's features, such as manual focusing, focus peaking, step-less optical zoom, and more. While a third-party app can be gotten for any Android device to mimic these traits, Sony does this quite nicely out of the box.

If you love watching content and movies on your phone and want the ability to plug in wired earphones, the Xperia 1 VI is brilliant, with gorgeous colours that are vividly rendered onscreen. 

And if you want hardware like expandable memory and long-lasting battery life, it’s hard to find a flagship device in Singapore that offers both. To top it off, the phone has a lovely build, giving off a premium vibe.

At the same time, its high pricetag diminishes its competitiveness. At S$1,989, the Xperia 1 VI is one of the most expensive Android flagship phones money can buy.

You can get the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, which performs slightly better, has an S Pen (and a whole host of features for it), a larger display that performs better under bright sunlight, and a bigger bunch of AI features like Circle to Search or Live Translate that is better suited for the average user or office worker.

It might be worth getting the Sony Xperia 1 VI at a discount or through a bundled deal. But at full price, it’s hard to recommend it to most people who don't have luxurious portable audio equipment or a keen eye for photography, and both are already expensive hobbies. 

If you are someone who can afford both hobbies, then the Sony Xperia 1 VI's asking price wouldn't even put a dent in your wallet. Heck, it might not even be the only phone you'd carry.

The Sony Xperia 1 VI starts at S$1,989 and can be found on the Sony Online Store.