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00:00All right, this is the brand new Sony Xperia 1 Mark V, it's the 1-5, the fifth one.
00:11This is a $1,400 pure enthusiast phone from Sony.
00:15I've been using it, it came out a couple of weeks ago, actually it was announced a couple
00:19of weeks ago, but it's not out yet, but I've been really loving it so far.
00:23And just like a lot of their other previous phones, there's some incredible tech here.
00:28But I've had to take a step back and realize that these phones are an endangered species,
00:34for a reason.
00:35Like Sony phones were already a rare breed to start with, I've talked about this before
00:38in past videos, where I've reviewed the Sony Xperia 5 Mark II, and the Xperia 1 Mark III,
00:45and the 1 Mark IV, and the Pro-I, etc.
00:48All these phones, and this one, are loaded with features and manual controls and technology,
00:54but they also all have like the smallest target demographic, like the narrowest band
00:59of people who will actually appreciate everything that they do.
01:03And that's fine, there's nothing wrong with a product like that existing, but that also
01:07has me kind of worried.
01:09See, we lost HTC, we lost LG, this is just in the past couple of years, and YouTube commenters
01:16would probably have you believing that it was just the negative videos about the smartphones
01:20that single-handedly took them down, even though there was huge corporations behind
01:23them, and that's clearly not true.
01:25But I would like to try something a little bit different today, because I actually think
01:28Sony right now looks almost exactly like where Porsche, the car company, used to be.
01:36So if we're being generous, Sony smartphones today are like Porsche cars 20 years ago.
01:43So Porsche was toiling away making expensive enthusiast sports cars for years, and they
01:48were sick, they were really fun cars.
01:50But also their sales numbers were anemic, and the business itself was actually in danger.
01:55So the strategy, to oversimplify, was just give the people what they want.
02:00Crossover SUVs are starting to blow up, they're taking off in sales, and they're becoming
02:03the most popular best-selling vehicle.
02:05So they took a bit of a risk as a sports car company, and built a Porsche crossover SUV.
02:12That was the Porsche Cayenne.
02:14That thing went on to become their best-selling vehicle ever by a mile, and propped up the
02:18whole rest of the business well enough to keep everything else afloat, so they could
02:22afford to also keep making the expensive enthusiast sports cars.
02:26It was kind of sacrilegious at the time for Porsche to make an SUV, but if you ask any
02:31Porsche fan today, they're all glad that the Cayenne exists, because it enables them to
02:37keep making the 911s and the GT3s and everything else that they love so much.
02:41So hear me out, Sony, give the people what they want.
02:46Now, importantly, what I'm not saying is for them to stop making these super high-end
02:50enthusiast phones, but what I am saying is they need some sort of mass-market, appealing
02:56phone that people like me can actually recommend to everyone, so that they can afford to keep
03:00making phones like this.
03:02So I'm thinking something in the $600 to $800 range, which isn't totally foreign to them.
03:07They can do this.
03:08And it needs to keep, of course, all of the character that makes a Sony phone a Sony phone.
03:13Not just another generic $700 phone, but really think hard about this.
03:17So here's three things I would do or would recommend for Sony to make a Sony character
03:23mass-market phone, the same way that Porsche made a Porsche character mass-market vehicle.
03:30So number one, with the phone itself, you got to smartly, slightly cut down those specs.
03:35So this new Sony Xperia 1 Mark V I've been talking about, it has a 6.5 inch, 21 by 9,
03:41120 hertz, 4K, HDR OLED display.
03:45It's kind of ridiculous.
03:46It's one of the most technically impressive parts of any phone, just like the last Sony
03:51phone and the one before that.
03:53It's literally 643 pixels per inch.
03:55It's the sharpest thing you'll see on a mobile device.
03:57Sony is the only company I see right now putting 4K displays in their smartphones, and there's
04:03a reason for it.
04:04So for the mass-market phone, 1080p.
04:08And I know it sounds sacrilegious because this Tony thing is always a 4K display, but
04:12they did have the Xperia 5 Mark III, which is also a 1080p display.
04:17And you keep all of the Sony character around the display.
04:20Because it's not just the 4K resolution that makes this a Sony thing, but there are also
04:25one of very few to be doing the tall 21 by 9 aspect ratio that makes it easier to hold,
04:31and the flat panel with no curves around the edges and no hole punch.
04:35And it's surrounded by large front-facing speakers because they don't mind a little
04:38bit of bezel.
04:39They should keep all of that.
04:40Now, some of you might also be thinking right now about the Xperia 10 series, which is Sony's
04:45line of more budget-oriented 400-ish dollar phones.
04:49Those phones have 60 hertz, 1080p displays.
04:52I think this should be right in the sweet spot in the middle.
04:54Just do a premium mid-range, 120 hertz, 1080p.
04:58And I'd also like to make it a bit smaller.
05:00This is a six and a half inch display, which like I said, is on the larger side.
05:04And while Sony's doing what they can to make it more reachable with 21 by 9, it's still
05:09going to be tough for people to reach the top without some hand gymnastics, mostly
05:13because the fingerprint reader slash power button is here.
05:16And so if you unlock the phone while holding it like this, it's unlikely that you can
05:20also reach the top with your thumb.
05:21So I'm thinking getting it down to roughly a six inch phone, maybe a little less, 1080p
05:27display with Sony character around it all.
05:29That's really the biggest spec to cut down.
05:31Really, the only other thing you end up missing out on if you make a smaller phone is a slightly
05:34smaller battery, but then you're going from a 5,000 milliampere battery and a 4k display
05:40to a 1080p display with a 4,600 milliampere battery.
05:44So then number two, and this is a big one, a better automatic camera.
05:49Now it's specifically, specifically automatic cameras.
05:54So what you've probably heard me talk about in the past is do not get it twisted.
05:58These are some of the absolute best cameras in any smartphone, but they are, because they
06:03are so manually controllable and customizable, that's why the enthusiasts like me love these
06:08things and why so many people in that crowd will buy them.
06:13But it's just a different world being in full auto.
06:15So these have a lot of parallels to shooting with like the Sony alpha cameras.
06:19And then this Xperia 1 Mark V has some interesting new stuff.
06:22They've moved up to a 52 megapixel sensor, which is not a number you see very often,
06:27but that's really just binning down to 12 megapixels with some extra room for stabilization.
06:32And it is a 1.7 times larger sensor than the last gen with some new optimizations surrounding
06:38the sensor tech itself.
06:40It's insane.
06:41You see, by decoupling the photo diode and transistor from being housed in the same space,
06:46they basically free up room to have a larger photo diode in the same area.
06:50And that also lets them increase the size and overall performance of the transistor
06:54in its own layer.
06:55All of this results in better light sensitivity on each sensitive area and larger pixels on
07:01their own substrate layers, which results in massively lower noise and improved low
07:06light sensitivity, if you know how to use it.
07:09So what's frustrating about reviewing these Sony phones is I can say all that and the
07:13enthusiasts will appreciate it, but I still can't recommend a $1,400 phone to the masses
07:21that still has a slightly confusing, slightly subpar full auto camera mode.
07:26Like if you want to dig in and navigate your way around, you can get incredible footage
07:30and photos out of these cameras in the more manual modes.
07:33But on a Sony phone, first of all, there are three camera apps, Cinema Pro, Video Pro,
07:39and Photo Pro.
07:40And even in the most basic mode of Photo Pro that launches when you just hit that sweet
07:44dedicated shutter button, it's a little more complex than most people are used to.
07:48There's just a few extra unlabeled buttons.
07:51There's just a few weird quirks, like the photo modes are hidden under more, but also
07:57night mode and portrait mode are down here at the bottom.
08:01It's also weird that the shutter button doesn't blink at all when you take a photo.
08:04I know it's just a tiny thing, but regular people expect the viewfinder to blink when
08:09they take a picture because every other smartphone does.
08:12And for some reason, Sony's doesn't.
08:14It seems unnecessary, but this auto mode, it just has to be simplified even more than
08:19it already has.
08:20Of course, right behind the dumbed down auto modes is a ton of other way more powerful
08:25modes.
08:26All the manual modes, all the Sony character is still there, but for the masses, I promise
08:31you, they just want to like pull the phone out of their pocket, launch the camera real
08:33quick and take a picture of their friend or their kid, their pet doing something silly.
08:39Something happened right in front of them.
08:40They just want to take a quick snap and they want that to be the best picture possible.
08:43Just that quick auto one shot, boom.
08:46And I even get a little bit bummed out by the quality of shots from Sony's straight
08:51auto mode because I know all of the technology that goes into these cameras.
08:55Also, Sony literally makes all of these sensors, so they should have the best vertical integration
09:00pipeline in the world, but yet they still get blown out the water by a pixel or a Samsung
09:05phone in these basic point and shoot situations.
09:08Sony tends to overexpose a little bit.
09:10They don't do HDR scenes as well as the others.
09:13They were consistently near dead last in the blind smartphone camera test that I ran last
09:18year where you all voted on the best looking pictures without knowing which camera took
09:22which photo.
09:23So Sony's full blown auto mode, despite having all this awesome tech, can still be pretty
09:28rough and fixing that would make a massive difference to making it for the masses.
09:33So then number three, last but not least, treat it like a flagship Sony.
09:38It would be great if you could copy the other's homework a little bit on this one here.
09:44I'm not even going to get into the naming of the phones, but you have to put out the
09:48phone a week, maybe two weeks max after you announce it like that.
09:53I don't know how else to say it.
09:54Like I know there's a lot that goes into launching a phone and of course getting it into carrier
09:58stores in certain markets and international markets and getting everything to work.
10:02But I think you really need to do as much as possible behind the scenes so that when
10:06you reveal the phone, as soon as that hype wave starts to crest, people can buy it.
10:12One to two weeks later, tops.
10:13Now Sony, believe it or not, is making some progress on this.
10:17It used to be six months of a gap between announcing the phone and it going on sale.
10:22Can you imagine that?
10:24It's like a phone gets announced in April and you can't actually buy it until like October.
10:30It's absurd.
10:31But then they got it down to five.
10:33They got it down to four.
10:35This phone was announced May 11th, but B&H has it estimated for July 28th.
10:41That would be still almost three months after the initial unveiling, which is better
10:46than it used to be.
10:47But that's still, trust me, that's enough time for people to forget about it and find
10:52something else to do with their 1400 bucks.
10:54So Sony's got to get this window down to be much, much shorter.
10:59So to summarize, there is clearly nothing wrong with Sony making these incredibly high-end
11:06impressive enthusiast phones, just like there is nothing wrong with Porsche making their
11:09awesome high-end enthusiast sports cars.
11:12But Porsche needed that cayenne to survive.
11:16And I think Sony is going to need some type of mass appeal, obvious for the masses type
11:23phone that still has the character of all the stuff that makes a Sony phone special.
11:28I think it'll be a bit smaller version of this.
11:30I don't think it gets a 4K screen.
11:31I think it's 1080p.
11:33It's a much better auto camera mode because that's what most people just want in a phone.
11:39It's got to come out a day to two weeks after it's announced and maybe change the name.
11:44But still keep the design, the headphone jack, the SIM card tray and micro SD card slot
11:50that both pop out without needing any ejector tool, yet somehow keep IP68 water resistance.
11:56Definitely keep that.
11:57Keep the taller, more reachable aspect ratio and the square sides and the fast fingerprint
12:01reader that's comboed with the power button and the dedicated shutter button.
12:06Definitely keep that.
12:07Keep the flat screen with no hole punch cut out, the stereo front-facing speaker pair.
12:12All of that would be so killer with some fast Android updates.
12:16Until then, these will continue to be some of the most underrated phones on the planet.
12:21But will the rest of the planet even know they exist?
12:25Thanks for watching.
12:26Catch you in the next one.
12:28Peace.