Sony Xperia 1 V
The Sony Xperia 1 V is the company’s latest flagship device, bringing a number of improvements over the Xperia 1 iV, including a new camera sensor and chip.
Sony Xperia 1 IV
The Sony Xperia 1 iV might not be the latest flagship smartphone anymore, but it’s come down quite a bit in price and has a very similar design to the newest model.
Sony announced its next generation offlagship smartphoneduring an event on 11 May in the form of the Xperia 1 V. The device succeeds the Xperia 1 iV and goes up against the likes ofGoogle’s Pixel 7 Pro, Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra andApple’s iPhone 14 Pro.
While Sony also has itsXperia Pro-I smartphone- the Xperia 1 V is the more mainstream device. If you’re wondering how it compares to last year’s model, whether you should upgrade or which you should choose, we have you covered. This is how the Sony Xperia 1 V stacks up against theXperia 1 iV. What’s changed?
Price, availability and specs
Sony has said the Xperia 1 V will be available in late June and it will cost around £1299 in the UK and $1399 in the US, though final dates, pricing and availability information hasn’t been detailed fully. We will update this feature as soon as we have the information. In terms of colours, the Sony Xperia 1 V is coming in Black, Khaki Green and Platinum Silver options.
The Sony Xperia 1 iV is available in Purple, White and Black colour options and it launched for £1299 in the UK and $1599.99 in the US. The higher price in the US was for double the storage of the base model in the UK and Europe. It is available for quite a bit cheaper now though.
The differences between the two models are perhaps not all that obvious on the surface, but there have been improvements in a couple of areas, as you’re able to see in the quick glance spec table below.
Design and build
The Sony Xperia 1 has had a similar design for all four iterations so far and the fifth iteration continues along the same lines. Not a great deal has changed and unless you were really looking for it, you’d likely be hard pressed to tell the difference between theoriginal Xperia 1and the Xperia 1 V, let alone the Xperia 1 V and Xperia 1 iV.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, as the Sony Xperia 1 does look different to its competition. It hasn’t gone down the road of huge camera systems on the rears, as you will find on theXiaomi 13 UltraandOppo Find X6, instead keeping a simple pill-shaped housing that is nice and neat.
Both the Xperia 1 V and the Xperia 1 iV that went before it offer the same OmniBalance design many have now come to expect from Sony Xperia handsets, with flat edges, a flat front and back and slightly larger than average bezels at the top and bottom of the display. There has long been a dedicated camera shutter button on the right edge, and this remains for the Xperia 1 V, which will likely please fans. The Google Assistant button was ditched for the Xperia 1 iV and this remains true for the Xperia 1 V too.
Although no longer unique to Sony even though it was once, there is anIP68 ratingon both the Xperia 1 V and the Xperia 1 iV -or IP65 and IP68 as Sony details it. Both have a glass front and rear, but the Xperia 1 iV is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on the back, while the Xperia 1 V improves this protection to Victus 2. Otherwise though, there are only subtle tweaks between these two handsets in terms of design - they even offer almost identical measurements and weights as you many have noticed from the spec table above.
Both the Sony Xperia 1 V and the Xperia 1 iV have a 6.5-inch OLED display. The two devices also have the same resolution - which is a 4K HDR resolution at 3840 x 1644 pixels, delivering a pixel density of 643ppi. Sony has never really played the Quad HD+ resolution game likeother Android manufacturers, so we saw a jump from Full HD+ to 4K a few years ago with theSony Xperia Z5 Premiumand there hasn’t been a change since.
The Xperia 1 V and Xperia 1 iV both have a120Hz refresh rate- which has started to become the norm across flagship smartphones over the last couple of years even if the majority of the time, it’s tricky to see the difference between 90Hz and 120Hz. It does offer a smoother experience, especially in the case of gaming though. Sony doesn’t offer adaptive refresh rate on its devices like theSamsung Galaxy S23 Ultrahowever, so you’re either getting 60Hz or 120Hz, depending on what you’re doing.
Elsewhere, the Xperia 1 V and the Xperia 1 iV also both have a 21:9 aspect ratio, which Sony has offered on its Xperia 1,Xperia 10andXperia 5handsets since they were initially introduced in 2019. It allows for a great movie watching experience so if that’s something you enjoy doing on your phone, then either of these devices are great for that.
While the design and display have remained virtually the same between the Sony Xperia 1 V and the Sony Xperia 1 iV, there have been some differences to what’s happening under the hood, and it’s here and the camera element below where you might consider an upgrade.
The Xperia 1 iV runs on theQualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, supported by 12GB of RAM. There’s 256GB of storage in the base model of the UK model, while the US model has 512GB of storage. Both have microSD support for storage expansion up to 1TB though, which is a much rarer feature these days. You won’t find it inSamsung’s phones, orApple’s phonesfor example.
The Xperia 1 V upgrades the chipset to theQualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, said to offer a 40 per cent improvement compared to the Xperia 1 iV. This is once again supported by 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, certainly in the UK anyway and there is microSD on board for storage expansion up to 1TB again, thankfully. Aside from the platform therefore, the rest of the specs remain the same as the 2022 model, including the 3.5mm headphone jack.
Battery is the same too, with both the Xperia 1 iV and the Xperia 1 V offering a 5000mAh cell under their hoods and support for fast charging andwireless charging, as well as Battery Share, meaning you may charge other wireless devices using your Xperia 1 iV or 1 V devices.
Sony devices have long had great battery life thanks to a number of features, including the Stamina mode so we’d expect the same from the Xperia 1 V. The Xperia 1 V is claimed to offer better heat distribution though - 60 per cent according to Sony - which is a good thing as the Xperia 1 iV did have complaints of running a little warm. There are also dedicated speaker modules on the Xperia 1 V, designed for more spacious sound compared to the Xperia 1 iV.
With the design and display remaining almost identical between the Sony Xperia 1 iV and Xperia 1 V, and many of the hardware specs also similar, something has to be different apart from the chipset right? Just like with the Xperia 1 iV and the Xperia 1 III, it’s the rear camera that sees this.
The Xperia 1 iV introduced a periscope lens overthe Xperia 1 III, and this lens remains for the Xperia 1 V, so you’ll find the same 85-125mm Optical Telephoto Zoom lens on both the Xperia 1 V and its predecessor. This has a 12-megapixel resolution and offers both autofocus and optical image stabilisation (OIS).
The main sensor has been upgraded for the Xperia 1 V though compared to the Xperia 1 iV. In place of the 12-megapixel main sensor with f/1.7 aperture and 24mm focal length, there’s a 52-megapixel main sensor - though it uses 48-megapixels for still photos, binning pixels to 12-megapixels - and the sensor is 1.7x larger than the Xperia 1 iV’s main sensor.
The new main sensor is a stacked CMOS sensor with two-layer transistor pixels. The photodiode and transistor are on separate layers compared to the same layer as you would normally find and this is designed to reduce noise levels. Sony claims the main sensor on the Xperia 1 V is two times better in low light shooting compared to the Xperia 1 iV, though we of course still need to test this.
The ultra-wide sensor is the same on the Xperia 1 V as the Xperia 1 iV, with a 12-megapixel lens offering a f/2.2 aperture and 16mm focal length. On the front, there’s a 12-megapixel sensor on both the Xperia 1 V and the Xperia 1 iV so no changes there.
Conclusion
The Sony Xperia 1 V doesn’t look all that different to the Xperia 1 iV, in fact they are pretty much identical. There are upgrades and improvements in a few areas though, including the chipset, speakers and heat distribution. It’s the camera Sony is placing the biggest focus on though, with a new main sensor on the Xperia 1 V designed for better low light photography and less noise.
We still need to review the Xperia 1 V in order to determine whether the camera improvements are a reason to upgrade if you have the Xperia 1 iV, especially given many of the other elements remain similar. If you are choosing between the Xperia 1 iV and the Xperia 1 V though, buying the newer model will future proof your device for longer and give you the best of what Sony currently has to offer.
The Xperia 1 iV is significantly cheaper than when it first launched though, meaning it will also be cheaper than the Xperia 1 V, so if you’re on a budget and a Sony phone is the one you want, the Xperia 1 iV is a great phone for those who love photography but hate AI processing, as well as if you don’t take all that many photos. It’s a powerful device with a great display and it’s a capable gaming device too.
