By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
TechgoonduTechgoonduTechgoondu
  • Audio-visual
  • Enterprise
    • Software
    • Cybersecurity
  • Gaming
  • Imaging
  • Internet
  • Media
  • Mobile
    • Cellphones
    • Tablets
  • PC
  • Telecom
Search
© 2023 Goondu Media Pte Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Sony Xperia 1 V review: Grippier body, same polarising aspect ratio
Share
Font ResizerAa
TechgoonduTechgoondu
Font ResizerAa
  • Audio-visual
  • Enterprise
  • Gaming
  • Imaging
  • Internet
  • Media
  • Mobile
  • PC
  • Telecom
Search
  • Audio-visual
  • Enterprise
    • Software
    • Cybersecurity
  • Gaming
  • Imaging
  • Internet
  • Media
  • Mobile
    • Cellphones
    • Tablets
  • PC
  • Telecom
Follow US
© 2023 Goondu Media Pte Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Techgoondu > Blog > Mobile > Cellphones > Sony Xperia 1 V review: Grippier body, same polarising aspect ratio
CellphonesMobile

Sony Xperia 1 V review: Grippier body, same polarising aspect ratio

Esmond Xu
Last updated: December 21, 2023 at 7:40 AM
Esmond Xu
Published: December 21, 2023
14 Min Read
The Sony Xperia 1 V. PHOTO: Esmond Xu

Sony has been at it with their smartphones for a while now – new year, new Xperia, small evolutionary design change, and the same entry-, mid- and high-end series with a different Latin alphabet.

So here I am, looking at the top-of-line Xperia 1 V, going for a stratospheric S$1,939 for 256GB storage (unchanged from Xperia 1 IV).The device gets a whole new textured body that is fingerprint resistant, yet premium and nice to hold.

Standard 2023 flagship internals apply here. You get a top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, 12GB of memory, and a Quad HD OLED display that sticks to a longish 21:9 aspect ratio.

Design

The biggest change this year is the Sony Xperia 1 V’s switch to textured sides and back. I like this a lot. The fine mesh-like pattern is grippy without looking or feeling cheap, nor does it add heft.

The device is now even more fingerprint resistant, which is a win. In fact, the rear of the Xperia 1 V is actually Gorilla Glass Victus, but does not feel that way nor brittle. The aluminium sides are also ridged.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu

Also different is the choice of packing material. The Xperia 1 V comes in a very flat-packed corrugated paper box with very little within, no doubt part of Sony’s effort for the environment. The new phone’s SIM card compartment, as with earlier Xperias, can be conveniently opened without requiring a pin.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu

For a device that packs a phablet-like screen, the Xperia 1 V is compact and light, at 165 x 71 x 8.3 mm and weighing 187 grams – nearly 20 grams less than competitors. The corner of the phone has the same shaved sides to make the grip just as comfortable as past years.

Screen

The Xperia 1 V screen sports a high 120Hz refresh rate. The 6.5-inch, 1,644 x 3,840-pixel Quad HD OLED panel comes with a 21:9 aspect ratio. Colours are, frankly, as vibrant as ever.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu

This is a solid Gorilla Glass Victus 2-reinforced display. There is nothing to fault, colours-wise. Sunlight legibility is on a par with the Xperia 1 IV last year – impressive but with not out-of-world maximum brightness.

We measured 1,250 nits from the display when manually adjusting the brightness slider to the maximum, and 1,850 nits when the device is left to automatically manage luminosity on a bright day.

Refresh rates, in my tests, remain locked at 120Hz once the high refresh rate option is activated in the settings menu. An update to the latest OS did not change this. I will keep the high refresh rate display off until the refresh rate is more dynamic.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu

It is clear Sony is using the long aspect ratio to differentiate itself, or hopes to cater to a niche audience who wants to work with a cinematic aspect ratio.

Unfortunately, I am not one of them, and do not like the letterboxing when consuming media content of most kinds. I also do not find the narrower grip very helpful for handiness, as the upper reaches of the display remain a challenge for those with smaller hands.

The Xperia 1 V will be more attractive if it loses the unique screen aspect ratio.

Performance

Like every top-range Android smartphone this season, the Sony Xperia 1 V uses a Qualcomm 8 Gen 2 processor in an eight-core arrangement.

There is one high-performance 3.2GHz Cortex-X3 core and four performance cores – a pair of 2.8 GHz Cortex-A715, and two Cortex-A710 also running at 2.8GHz. Three efficiency Cortex-A510 cores running at 2.0GHz round up the processing complement, with an Adreno 740 graphics core.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu

I used PCMark 10 for Android’s Work 3.0 Professional to simulate day-to-day performance workloads like browsing the Web, editing photos and videos, and writing and manipulating data. The score averaged 15,650, on a par with other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 devices.

To test gaming capabilities, I fired up Asphalt 9: Legends. Cutscenes were smooth and the resolution is crisp and the game is responsive.

The anti-aliasing is not perfect, but hardly noticeable when you are enjoying a smooth game. However, while the game adapted to the cinematic resolution, it still feels too wide and too short for gaming.

Testing the phone on 3DMark for Android (Wild Life Extreme), which measures the device’s handling of commonly-used game rendering engines, I got a score of 3,680. Framerates ranged from 20 to 27 frames per second.

Features and Battery

Unlike Apple and Samsung, Sony has retained on the Xperia 1 V the 3.5mm headphone jack, and microSDXC expansion support, courtesy of the second SIM card slot playing double duty. I hope Sony continues this tradition.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu

The fingerprint sensor is built into the power button. I find it accurate and quick, and positioned where one grips the device to unlock it. The button is just a little depressed, which feels great when I position my finger to use it.

The Sony Xperia 1 V is IP65- and IP68-rated for dust and water resistance respectively. There are devices that manage IP68 in both categories, but the Xperia 1 V’s rating is ample for everyday use.

The two speakerphones are to the top and bottom of its expansive widescreen, facing the user. This means the sound is more balanced and less likely to be blocked by one’s palms. The sound is loud and clear.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu

Within the audio settings menu, one is able to turn on Dolby Sound options, that enables aural enhancement features like 360 Reality Audio, 360 Upmix, among others. In my tests, speakerphone performance gets a slight boost, and the effect is most obvious with earpieces plugged in.

My very average pair of Sony earphones produced an audibly better Spotify experience with the enhancements turned on. Good enough for the layman, methinks.

Battery life from the 5,000mAh lithium polymer cell is decent if the high refresh rate is left off. I calibrated the screen to 200 nits brightness, and ran the PCMark 10 for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test with Wi-Fi running throughout.

Results averaged 13 hours and 45 minutes at 60Hz display refresh rate. With high refresh rate turned on, the score came up to a pretty ho-hum 11 hours.

The Sony Xperia 1 V supports 30W wired charging on the USB Power Delivery 3 standard, but has no bundled charger.

Cameras

The Sony Xperia 1 V packs a significant upgrade on its main wide shooter over the Xperia 1 IV. The sensor is 1.7 times larger, and uses a new sensor that arranges its transistor pixels and photodiodes on different layers instead of side by side.

The ultrawide and variable zoom telephoto cameras in the triple-lens array remain unchanged over the predecessor.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu

In use, I found the improvements in the main shooter to be most obvious, while the other cameras remain pretty similar to last year’s, including a tendency for Sony’s colour science to render some shots more washed out.

Wide: 48 MP, f/1.9, 24mm, 1/1.35″ sensor, 1.12µm pixels, Dual Pixel phase detect autofocus, optical image stabilisation

Telephoto: 12 MP, f/2.3, 85mm; f/2.8, 125mm; 1/3.5″ sensor, Dual Pixel phase detect autofocus, 3.5x-5.2x continuous optical zoom, optical image stabilisation

Ultrawide: 12 MP, f/2.2, 16mm, 1/2.5″ sensor, Dual Pixel phase detect autofocus

Selfie: 12 MP, f/2.0, 24mm, 1/2.9″ sensor, 1.25µm pixels

PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu

Clearing or Gathering – This is taken as the dark clouds rapidly gathered over sunny skies in the late afternoon, a very common occurrence this December. It may not be completely obvious from the pictures, but there was still plenty of light.

In the ultrawide shot, there is some softness in overall detail, but not much distortion. Resolved detail is perceptibly better in the wide and telephoto shots, especially among the tall grass.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu

Hideout and Mounds – The ultrawide shot here fared better in detail resolution despite similar conditions as the earlier shots. For the wide shot, you are able to make out individual strands of tall grass and pebbles comfortably, as well as the weathering on the planks of the bird hide.

For the telephoto shots, you can almost feel that the cameras’ focus is on the tall grass rather than the hide. It appears that novice shooters like myself need to be careful which part of the shot to focus on.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu

Midnight Mug – The ultrawide shot felt dark overall despite night-mode magic in play. The wide shot looked much better in comparison, with plenty of light, colours in good balance and good detail. The telephoto shots of the terracotta walls of the auditorium feels washed out, worse on the 5x telephoto shot as details feel blurrier on it than on the 3x shot.

PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu
PHOTO: Esmond Xu

Twilight Green – I thought the ultrawide did a pretty good job in detailing the lit food court seating area on the left of shot, though sharpness of the warmer corridors to the right did suffer – perhaps again highlighting the need to pick the right area of focus.

The wide shot is again a tour de force of how to get a night shot right, presenting cool and warm colour balances tastefully without losing much detail. The telephoto shots sacrifice detail for proper lighting and balance.

Conclusion

PHOTO: Esmond Xu

On the whole, the display and responsiveness of the Sony Xperia 1 V are top notch. The device feels premium to touch and comfortable to grip, in a way that recognises the ergonomics of how one holds a phone. You can almost feel (literally) the Japanese dedication to refinement.

There is also a 3.5mm audio jack and microSDXC slot, and the new Sony phone is among the lightest of its type.

At the same time, the cinematic aspect ratio remains polarising – I’d rather Sony drop it in future models. The camera improvements are also not drastic – I wish the variable zoom goes beyond the narrow 3x to 5x band. Neither is the new phone the cheapest around.

To be sure, this is a phone I can recommend if you can find it for a lot less than the sticker price. However, after trying many variants of Xperias over the years, I hope Sony will rethink some features of the line in the next model.

The Sony Xperia 1 V has gotten better – that’s for sure – and I wish it came at a good price and aspect ratio to recommend heartily to anyone opposed to the Apple-Samsung near-duopoly.

Hands on: Nikon D7500
Microsoft says hello to Skype
Samsung’s Gear S2 smartwatch in rose gold and platinum out in Singapore
DJI Mini 3 Pro review: The perfect travel drone
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sails into Singapore, dodges legal troubles elsewhere
TAGGED:reviewSingapore price and availabilitySonyXperia 1 V

Sign up for the TG newsletter

Never miss anything again. Get the latest news and analysis in your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Share This Article
Facebook Whatsapp Whatsapp LinkedIn Copy Link Print
Previous Article Lenovo Legion Glasses review: Big screen experience on the go
Next Article Lenovo Legion Go review: Innovative gaming console on the go
Leave a Comment

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Stay Connected

FacebookLike
XFollow

Latest News

Robots at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands cut labour dependency by 30 per cent
Enterprise
June 18, 2025
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Gen 10 review: Powered-packed slim laptop on a budget
PC
June 17, 2025
Sedap review: Eh, faster kill the chicken lah, I cannot cook!
Gaming
June 17, 2025
Proofpoint pitches human-centric cyber defence against AI-generated phishing
Cybersecurity Enterprise Software
June 16, 2025

Techgoondu.com is published by Goondu Media Pte Ltd, a company registered and based in Singapore.

.

Started in June 2008 by technology journalists and ex-journalists in Singapore who share a common love for all things geeky and digital, the site now includes segments on personal computing, enterprise IT and Internet culture.

banner banner
Everyday DIY
PC needs fixing? Get your hands on with the latest tech tips
READ ON
banner banner
Leaders Q&A
What tomorrow looks like to those at the leading edge today
FIND OUT
banner banner
Advertise with us
Discover unique access and impact with TG custom content
SHOW ME

 

 

POWERED BY READYSPACE
The Techgoondu website is powered by and managed by Readyspace Web Hosting.

TechgoonduTechgoondu
© 2024 Goondu Media Pte Ltd. All Rights Reserved | Privacy | Terms of Use | Advertise | About Us | Contact
Follow Us!
Never miss anything again. Get the latest news and analysis in your inbox.

Zero spam, Unsubscribe at any time.
 

Loading Comments...
 

    Welcome Back!

    Sign in to your account

    Username or Email Address
    Password

    Lost your password?