Sony's Xperia 1 IV smartphone boasts "the world's first true optical zoom lens"

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: Sony's new Xperia 1 IV smartphone was designed with photography enthusiasts in mind. The flagship features a trio of rear-facing lenses suitable for most any occasion and includes a groundbreaking periscope-style, true optical zoom lens with decent reach.

The Xperia 1 IV's crown jewel is the rear camera array consisting of a 16mm ultra-wide f/2.2 aperture lens with a 124 degree field of view, a 24mm wide-angle f/1.7 aperture lens with 82 degree field of view and an 85-125mm f/2.3-2.8 aperture telephoto lens with a field of view between 28 degrees and 20 degrees (85mm and 125mm, respectively).

The telephoto is a true optical zoom lens, the first of its kind in a smartphone.

All three rear lenses utilize a 12MP Exmor RS sensor and can record at up to 4K 120fps.

Other noteworthy features include a 6.5-inch 4K HDR OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate that is coated in Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 1 mobile platform alongside 12GB of RAM and 512GB of UFS. A microSDXC slot supports cards up to 1TB in capacity for expanded storage.

The Xperia 1 IV additionally packs a 5,000mAh battery with wireless charging and quick charge capabilities, supplying up to a 50 percent charge in just 30 minutes. It also carries IP65 and IP68 ratings, and will ship with Android 12.

Naturally, the Xperia 1 IV is compatible with the latest 5G bands as well as Wi-Fi 6E.

Sony's Xperia 1 IV is available to pre-order from today starting at $1,600. It'll ship on September 1 in your choice of black or purple color schemes.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/94552-sony-xperia-1-iv-smartphone-boasts-world-first.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I miss their old z series compact phones. Great devices.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I guess 1.5x is better than no zoom but really, just an 85mm equiv with some minor cropping does the same job with little loss in sharpness.

Put another way: How often will the small extra sharpness that an optical zoom at 125mm gets over cropped 85mm actually make a difference in a photo almost always viewed on a small screen or uploaded to social media?

My answer is: so close to almost never that you might as well round up to 'never'.

A 3x optical zoom would be a true everyday-use compelling feature.

 

[hahahanoobs]

For $1600 it better have the best camera at least two years in a row!

Meanwhile I'll stick with my ~$400 mid-rangers.

 

[Morphine Child]

*Starts* at $1600... jesus. That escalated quickly.

 

[Superconductor]

*Starts* at $1600... jesus. That escalated quickly.

LGB

 

[Toju Mikie]

I did not expect the price to be this much. I was expecting $1200-$1400. If you care about taking pictures, it would be better to get a cheap dedicated camera ($300-$400) and get 60x optical zoom, and use a smartphone for other tasks. It's what I'm considering.
I have the Xperia 1 III and it's a great phone, but I will wait for a price decrease or see if any other companies release a phone with headphone jack and SD card.

 

[AMDGeForceRX4090]

That's rubbish. Just have a periscope camera like my Reno 5g has, it's equivalent to the main cam zoomed to 5x. Also 4k on a screen that size is dumb and pointless. Why have resolution you can't see? And the drain of having to render in that res too.

 

[Aceseven]

Why wont you just buy a camera?

 

[Fearghast]

Sadly, "first" does not mean good. Sample taken with zoom lens look pretty much terrible, especially when you compare them to main or ultrawide sensor.

 

[Toju Mikie]

Also 4k on a screen that size is dumb and pointless. Why have resolution you can't see? And the drain of having to render in that res too.

It was mostly noticeable for me when viewing text, but I went from a 1080p phone to this one. I guess if you already own a phone with like a 1440p screen, then it's not as noticeable. The phone is also very tall, so the extra pixels help. My xperia 1 III still has full day battery life with the resolution, but it will render at either 4K 60fps regularly or 1080p 120fps for games. It's no problem for the snapdragon processor in the phone. It doesn't do 4k and 120fps at the same time though, probably because of battery drain issue.

If not for the 4K, then at least for the 100% dci-p3 coverage, which looks really nice when viewing movies.

 

[MasterMace]

Article left out the WF1000XM4 Noise Cancelling Ear Buds you can get for free with the phone atm.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Luckily in Australia the Sony cowards pulled out of the market. Sony sell about as many smartphones in a year as Samsung does in a few days. They have ~1% of the market, enough said.

 

[Fearghast]

Article left out the WF1000XM4 Noise Cancelling Ear Buds you can get for free with the phone atm.

That's because it's market dependant.

 

[Puiu]

I guess 1.5x is better than no zoom but really, just an 85mm equiv with some minor cropping does the same job with little loss in sharpness.

Put another way: How often will the small extra sharpness that an optical zoom at 125mm gets over cropped 85mm actually make a difference in a photo almost always viewed on a small screen or uploaded to social media?

My answer is: so close to almost never that you might as well round up to 'never'.

A 3x optical zoom would be a true everyday-use compelling feature.

It helps a lot if you plan on doing some zoom in and cropping. You will always notice the video become "softer" if you do a zoom in during a scene that looks crisp (many youtubers like doing things like this).

 

[ChrisH1]

What was the Nokia N93, chopped liver? It had a 3x optical zoom. It was a flipphone and it was in the hinge, but it was a smartphone nonetheless.