Introduction:
Now, with its latest Xperia 1 flagship smartphone, Sony is metaphorically grabbing a big old pointy stick and jabbing a tiger right in its happy sack, which I’ve got to admit is kind of exciting.
Put away that Viagra, Mrs. Spurt ain’t going to need that tonight. You see, a lot of the features that define this Sony flagship, like the 21:9 4K display and that full-on DSLR style camera app, have been completely culled for this sixth iteration. But did this rather bold move actually pay off.
Table Of Contents
- Sony Xperia 1 VI DesignÂ
- Sony Xperia 1 VI Features
- Sony Xperia 1 VI Display & Audio
- Sony Xperia 1 VI Performance & Gaming
- Sony Xperia 1 VI Battery life
- Sony Xperia 1 VI CameraÂ
- Sony Xperia 1 VI Overall Thoughts
Sony Xperia 1 VI Design:
Now, the Mark 6 sports a tactile glass back and edges that absolutely do not feel like glass at all. To be honest, they feel rather plasticky, which I’m not sure is what Sony was really going for. Certainly not helped by the relatively lightweight finish, although I do adore having a flagship smartphone that doesn’t feel like a paperweight in my pants. Now, that textured ass does somewhat improve the grip and means that the Xperia 1 Mark 6 doesn’t go gliding off of the sofa arm when you slap it down and still feels relatively slender despite the change in dimension. So, it’s pretty easy to slip into a pocket and it’s still reasonably comfortable to clutch despite the mostly flat edges and optically curvy corners.
Up front, you’ve still got thickish bezels above and below the perfectly flat display. Personally, I’ve got nothing against these, but I do know some people are absolutely allergic to bezels and hit them with a furious passion as if they actually came home from work early one evening to find bezels in bed with their other half. You can grab the Xperia 1 Mark 6 in three colors: this slightly boring black effort, otherwise platinum silver, or a sexy moody green. You’ve got Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protecting that display and, around back, it’s Victus 1. Seems to be doing its job: no scratches or scuffs to speak of, although it’s still fairly early days. And with that bit of Victus, the Xperia 1 Mark 6 should be reassuringly shatter-resistant, although that’s something I haven’t tested too hard because I did kind of absolutely wreck my Xperia 1 Mark 5 sample. Cracked the entire screen and frankly, I’ve been slightly terrified of repeating that effort, so I’ve been clutching this thing like it’s a fragile box full of radioactive space spiders. You’ve got the usual dust and water resistance as well, full IP68 rated.
Sony Xperia 1 VI Features:
So, no worries there. And as usual, Sony bends convention by having an edge-mounted fingerprint sensor rather than an in-display effort, and I have absolutely no troubles with this whatsoever. Works as long as my fingers aren’t too moist or grubby. But there is still bugger all Face Unlock action here on the Xperia 1 Mark 6. I don’t know what Sony’s playing at, as it’s had plenty of time to try and sort this out. Even the Pixels have Face Unlock now. No excuse.
No real shocks or surprises on the software side, where it’s Android 14 plus Sony’s usual shenanigans slapped on top. Sony is guaranteeing you three OS updates and four years of security updates, which ain’t amazing, it ain’t CAC, it’s just kind of average. If you reckon you’ll want more than that out of your flagship blower, definitely check out the likes of Google with its Pixels and, of course, Samsung with its flagship Galaxies.
Unfortunately, it’s been a little tiny wee bit buggy this past week. A couple of times, YouTube’s locked up. Nothing a quick stop and start won’t sort right out. My Bluetooth connection’s been a bit crap as well. Occasionally, my earphones will just completely lose connection for a second or two and then regain it. So, stuff that’s a pain in the ass but nothing that’s had me actually punting this thing across the street, thankfully.
And thankfully, the Xperia 1 Mark 6 offers up 256 gigs of storage space, which can be doubled for an extra fee. Sony is one of the few manufacturers out there that still actually chucks microSD memory card support on its blowers. You certainly won’t find that in a Pixel or a sodding iPhone.
Sony Xperia 1 VI Display & Audio:
Now, Sony has slapped on a 6.5-inch OLED display powered by Bravia. It’s a Full HD Plus panel rather than 4K. As usual, it’s gone from being ridiculously over-the-top sharp to not quite as crisp as many flagship rivals in just a single generation. But to be fair, even in my side-by-side tests, the difference was subtle at most. Certainly, when you’re browsing docs with tiny text, editing photos, enjoying movies, or playing games, those visuals are still finely detailed.
While the 4K resolution has gone, the other most distinctive Sony display feature has also been axed. That long and thin 21:9 aspect ratio is no more, replaced with a more regular 19.5:9 finish. But don’t worry, cinematic video still fills that screen with only minimal cropping, and any squarer video doesn’t suffer from quite as ridiculous pillar boxing. Plus, more importantly, Sony has retained the proper full-view screen design by keeping that selfie cam wedged in the top bezel, so there’s no orifice intrusion when you’re gaming, watching flicks, etc.
You’ve got the usual Creator Mode shenanigans, which can be automatically activated in Netflix, as well as full white balance control. While us Brits haven’t exactly been blessed with much sunshine lately, it was actually a bit sunny earlier, so I sprinted outside with my Xperia 1 Mark 6 and my shades just to test it out. Thankfully, on that max screen brightness, I had no problems reading tiny text, even with my sunglasses on. And the refresh rate maxes out at 120Hz, so silky smooth when needed. So, very few complaints really with this new display.
The Xperia 1 Mark 6 sports Sony’s usual front-facing stereo speaker setup, and it seems to perform well with lows, highs, vocals—everything it spits out, really. That audio has been fine-tuned by Sony’s own in-house music team. You’ve got support for high-res audio, aptX, LDAC, all the usual shenanigans, along with Sony’s usual DSEE upscaling for any lower-res tracks you happen to have lying around. And yes, hip hip huzzah, Sony has slapped a 3.5mm headphone jack on here as usual. So, as I say, Bluetooth has been acting up a wee bit this past week, so it’s good to have that wired option, especially if you count yourself as a proper audiophile. You’ve also once again got that Music Pro app if you’re actually into making music instead of just consuming it. Especially if you love audio, then you will absolutely adore the tits off this thing.
Sony Xperia 1 VI Performance & Gaming:
Let’s talk about the performance. Well, the Xperia 1 Mark 6 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, its flagship chipset with 12 gigs of RAM all sort of stuffed in there. Android certainly runs smoothly while gaming is a good time. Genshin Impact plays flawlessly on the custom performance mode with variable refresh rate active. Got to say, I didn’t notice a single solitary drop in that performance over my game time, and even if that time stretched well over an hour at a pop, the Xperia 1 Mark 6 didn’t get too toasty. Warms up for sure, but Sony’s vapor chamber helps to shift the worst of the heat, so you just keep on gaming as merrily as you like.
And of course, Sony has stuffed its usual excellent range of gaming features on here. This toolset hasn’t really changed up much over the previous generation besides an FPS optimizer tool. You can control the touch response to this bad boy as well, but to be honest, I found the default settings perfectly respectable. And to be fair, very little tweaking was really needed because you’ve got such a cracking set of tools here. All of the main stuff you could possibly hope for is crammed in there, especially if you want to record the action or live stream it, even if you’re not kak at games like I am.
Sony Xperia 1 VI Battery life:
So, now there’s the battery life. The Xperia 1 Mark 6 is just insanely good. If it went head-to-head with the Duracell bunny, that fluffy pink bastard would be spitting teeth out of its mouth. And it’s not like the Xperia has got a particularly big battery stuffed in there either. It’s 5,000 mAh, which is pretty standard for a big old flagship phone. And yet, somehow, it’s practically impossible to kill. It’s like Bruce Willis in every movie apart from “The Sixth Sense,” I guess.
On the average day, I’ll do lots of different things. I’ll be browsing the web, messaging, streaming video, streaming audio when the phone’s hibernating, a bit of camera play, a little bit of gaming here and there, that sort of stuff. And with the Xperia 1 Mark 6, I’d make it through about 10 hours of screen-on time before that battery finally died. So, this thing can comfortably make it through a full weekend on a single charge if you don’t go nuts.
Of course, the recharging speeds aren’t as impressive here as with some rivals like Xiaomi, for instance. And the charging, again, not particularly nippy either. But on the flip side, Sony is promising four full years of pretty good battery health from this thing, helped along by some special features chucked on there just to help prevent overcharging.
Sony Xperia 1 VI Camera:
Now, the Xperia 1 Mark 6 has made big changes for the camera experience too, mostly because you just get a single camera app rather than separate Video and Photo Pro shenanigans. This is it right here. Otherwise, you can activate it by long-pressing the physical shutter button, which is ever-present and also very, very much appreciated. The app is certainly pretty straightforward compared with previous generations. You open it up, and you’re in a full auto mode. You can skip between the different focal lengths like so, and you’ve got a small variety of different camera and video modes you can flick between as well. It’s very much like a standard smartphone camera app now.
For the hardware side of things, Sony has once again partnered with those optics boffins over at Zeiss, and the 24mm and 48mm lenses sport the same Exmor T camera sensors as the previous generation, the Mark 5. And, of course, you’ve got that T-star lens coating slapped on there as well to help reduce any light-related shindiggery like lens flaring. Sony has added a dedicated 48MP mode for high-res photo capture, but the auto mode’s 12MP pics are finely detailed, so they look good when you chuck them on a telly or a laptop. And Sony has once again slapped on its creative filters if you want a different vibe, but for most of my tests, I ignored those and was happy enough with the natural-looking photos spaffed out by the Mark 6.
Now, Sony’s real-time eye autofocus and tracking are as dependable as ever, so those portrait shots and action snaps almost always come out absolutely stunning. Out of 100 or so portrait pics that I’ve shot this past week, maybe two or three were a bit borked, while the others all boasted gorgeous bokeh-style background smudging while the subject stayed pin sharp with natural-looking skin tones. HDR capture has also improved a wee bit, as has the preview image on the display before you take your shot, so what you see here is very much what you get. There’s clearly less processing going on than what you would get with a Pixel or an iPhone or a Galaxy phone, so it’s just all about capturing a natural-looking shot as quickly and cleanly as possible.
And of course, you can still fiddle with the brightness, the shutter speed, etc., in the Pro mode when needed to get the kind of shot that you want. Ambient conditions are handled pretty well. I did see a wee bit of grain sneaking into some of my indoor shots, especially the telephoto ones, and sudden motion can bork your snap with blur. And if you happen to have had maybe a couple of old fashions and your hands aren’t quite as steady as normal, well, uh, yeah, that’s not great either. In the evenings, you’ll also need a steady hand to prevent any blurring with the auto night mode active, and sometimes your snap will still look rather soft with strong contrast. But this can brighten up your pics when the light is being a bastard without completely throwing out that natural color capture.
Now, Sony may have stuck with most of the older hardware for that camera tech, but you do get a fresh extended 85 to 170mm telephoto lens slapped onto the six. And with this, you can zoom in to a rather precise 21.3 times, which is considerably less than some phones. But once you get towards the 10 times zoom level, things get rather hazy anyway. It’s a tiny disappointment for straight-up zoom shots, but the Xperia’s telephoto shooter is great for those portrait snaps, generally capturing living stuff without getting right in their facial region. And Sony’s also slapped on a telephoto macro mode with a handy bit of peaking so you know exactly when you’re in focus. It certainly works better in stronger lighting, as you’d expect, but some of the results can be proper impressive.
And as for that ultra-wide-angle shooter, well, it’s decent. Turns on to different, and it does exactly what you would expect. Now, when it comes to shooting your home movies, things have once again changed up quite considerably for the Xperia 1 Mark 6. There aren’t actually any Video Pro controls slapped on here just yet, and Sony’s expecting them to be added in an over-the-air update around Autumn 2024. Not really sure what the holdup is, why we don’t have them to begin with, but here we are.
But as usual, you can shoot up to 4K resolution footage. Quick tap here to cycle between the different resolutions, and you can also capture footage at up to 120 frames per second, even at Ultra HD level. Those Ultra HD visuals are crisp as you like, with a silky smooth finish if you boost up to 60 or 120 FPS. Just right for a bit of slow-motion action. Stabilization is cracking too—that’s an area that Sony mastered bloody ages ago. The audio can be a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes, your commentary is drowned out by other noise happening all around you, and vocals aren’t always clear, while the background sound can combine into a cacophony of distorted unpleasant bollocks. Zooming in can be a wee bit jarring as well, but you can happily skip between the lenses on the fly.
And Sony has once again added that product showcase mode. YouTube knobs like me can show off a device or whatever else without the lens constantly locking onto our face instead. Up front, you’ve got yourself a simple 12MP selfie cam, again with a good bit of autofocus to make sure that your mug is always nice and crisp. I found this is absolutely fine. Here are some more shots of my face, which I know absolutely everyone is screaming out for, so enjoy. You can again shoot 4K video using that selfie cam at up to 60 frames per second this time, and the Xperia 1 Mark 6 does a bang-up job in this department. The vocals, again, can be not exactly crystal clear if you move away a bit or there’s lots of background shenanigans.
Sony Xperia 1 VI Overall Thoughts:
Overall, it’ll work for your Skype and your Zoom and whatever. And there you have it, my lovelies. That, in a tasty wee nutshell, is the fresh new Sony Xperia 1 Mark 6. And I got to say, before I had it stashed in my pants, I wasn’t exactly sure how I would feel about it because Sony has stripped out quite a lot of the more unique elements that really make the Xperia an Xperia smartphone. It feels like it’s more conforming to smartphone standards with this generation, but there’s no denying that it’s still a solid choice for creators. Gamers will get a kick out of it as well, just anyone who just really enjoys streaming music, streaming video, etc., on their blower. Plus, with added bonuses that you’ve got the expandable storage, you’ve got the headphone jack—stuff that most of the flagship phones basically wave their willies at. But, of course, don’t forget that the Xperia is also really ruddy expensive, and for this sort of price, you can get the Xiaomi 14 Ultra or the Galaxy S24 Ultra, so you’ve got to be pretty committed to get this bad boy. So, that’s what I reckon anyway. It’d be great to hear your thoughts on the Xperia 1 Mark 6 down below, especially if you’ve been using it as your own full-time smartphone. What do you reckon? Please do plug, subscribe, ding that notifications bell for more on the latest and greatest tech, and have yourselves a bloody wonderful rest of the week. Cheers, everyone. Love you.
Now, with its latest Xperia 1 flagship smartphone, Sony is metaphorically grabbing a big old pointy stick and jabbing a tiger right in its happy sack, which I’ve got to admit is kind of exciting. Put away that Viagra, Mrs. Spurt ain’t going to need that tonight. You see, a lot of the features that define this Sony flagship, like the 21:9 4K display and that full-on DSLR style camera app, have been completely culled for this sixth iteration. But did this rather bold move actually pay off? Well, I’ve had my personal SIM card secreted inside of the Xperia 1 Mark 6 for the past week.
The Xperia 1 Mark 6 doesn’t go gliding off of the sofa arm when you slap it down and still feels relatively slender despite the change in dimensions. So, it’s pretty easy to slip into a pocket, and it’s still reasonably comfortable to clutch despite the mostly flat edges and optically curvy corners. Up front, you’ve still got thickish bezels above and below the perfectly flat display. Personally, I’ve got nothing against these, but I do know some people are absolutely allergic to bezels and hate them with a furious passion, as if they actually came home from work early one evening to find bezels in bed with their other half. You can grab the Xperia 1 Mark 6 in three colors: this slightly boring black effort, otherwise platinum silver, or a sexy moody green. You’ve got Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protecting that display, and around back it’s Victus 1. Seems to be doing its job—no scratches or scuffs to speak of, although it’s still fairly early days. And with that bit of Victus, the Xperia 1 Mark 6 should be reassuringly shatter-resistant, although that’s something I haven’t tested too hard because I did kind of absolutely destroy my Xperia 1 Mark 5 sample—cracked the entire screen, and frankly, I’ve been slightly terrified of repeating that effort, so I’ve been clutching this thing like it’s a fragile box full of radioactive space spiders. You’ve got the usual dust and water resistance as well, full IP68 rated.
So, no worries there. And, as usual, Sony bends in convention by having an edge-mounted fingerprint sensor rather than an in-display effort, and I’ve had absolutely no troubles with this whatsoever. Works as long as my fingers aren’t too moist or grubby, but there is still bugger all Face Unlock action here on the Xperia 1 Mark 6. I don’t know what Sony’s playing at; it’s had plenty of time to try and sort this out. Even the Pixels have Face Unlock now—no excuse. No real shocks or surprises on the software side, where it’s Android 14 plus Sony’s usual shenanigans slapped on top. And Sony is guaranteeing you three OS updates and four years of security updates, which ain’t amazing. It ain’t CAC; it’s just kind of average if you reckon.
That’s for today, See you on next blog..