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00:00Hey, what's up, MKBHD here, and this, this is the Sony Xperia 1 Mark II.
00:09Snapdragon 865, 8 gigs of RAM, a 21 by 9 widescreen display, triple cameras, a 4000 mAh battery,
00:17an all glass and aluminum frame, expandable storage, water resistance, wireless charging,
00:23Android 10, a high quality haptic motor, fingerprint reader and the power button, a revolutionary
00:28technology, thin bezels, no hole punch or notch, and just a clean, minimal, modern form
00:35factor.
00:36Flagship stuff, right?
00:37And that's fine, but, you know, technically, anybody can build that.
00:41But the thing is, this phone also has a bunch of other stuff, unique, really useful stuff
00:46that I haven't seen in any other phone.
00:48But all of this stuff leads to one question, which is, why don't more people buy these?
00:54Like Sony's had a roughly 0% market share in smartphones for the past couple of years
00:59in a row, and I think I have an answer.
01:02But first, let me show you what is actually so good about these.
01:05So the biggest one for me is this display.
01:08So I've mentioned this is a 21 by 9 aspect ratio, which we've seen a bit more now, you
01:11know, it keeps it a bit narrower and more comfortable on the hand, more reachable.
01:16And I mentioned the thin bezels, they're not concerned with going all the way to the edges
01:19and ending up with a notch or a hole punch or something.
01:22And that actually lets them keep the front facing speakers.
01:24So that's awesome.
01:26But this screen is also 4k.
01:29So it is a six and a half inch 4k screen in your pocket, which is crazy.
01:34I remember that the first 4k phone I ever reviewed, which was back in college, was also
01:38a Sony phone.
01:39But yeah, now even in 2020, there's something wild about seeing that 2160p option on a YouTube
01:45video and toggling it and it legit looking about as good as any other smartphone screen
01:50I've seen.
01:51Also, pro tip, definitely go into display settings and switch to creator mode if you
01:55have this phone, which will give you the most accurate color, the best looking videos and
01:59photos.
02:00And yeah, everything just looks really good.
02:03Now here's something else.
02:04It may seem minor, but this phone has a tool list, micro SD card and SIM card tray just
02:11comes out just like that.
02:13Now expandable storage is already awesome, but to go the extra mile on a phone where
02:16people may also take a lot of photos and videos and to engineer this lever where you
02:21can pull the tray out quickly and swap cards whenever you want all while maintaining water
02:26resistance is actually super impressive.
02:29This phone also keeps that headphone jack so they didn't have to do that and we all
02:32know they didn't have to do that because Sony clearly already sells some of the best wireless
02:37earbuds and wireless headphones on the market, but they kept that headphone jack anyway.
02:42Good guy Sony.
02:43Speaking of headphones, if you do order this phone, there's a bunch of bundles floating
02:47around where they will bundle in their world-class $350 Mark 4 headphones for free.
02:56For free.
02:57This phone has a lot of really nice software features too.
03:00Like I said, it's got Android 10 with Sony's overlay, which is actually pretty close to
03:04stock, which may surprise a lot of people.
03:06It's a clean launcher with the Google Explorer page next to the side, quick Google search
03:10box at the bottom.
03:12Not a whole lot of pre-installed apps either, but some nice added stuff here.
03:15The always on display when it's enabled will show you the icons for your most recent apps
03:19to give you notifications and they'll actually pulse to let you know which one is your most
03:24recent notification and why it's buzzing.
03:26There's also easy multitasking on this tall display and it is smooth and works really
03:31well.
03:32So check this out.
03:33When you hit the button in the middle, it brings you to a multitasker for both panels
03:37where you can switch to a different app or you can launch different app groups.
03:41So two at a time or quit out of it entirely.
03:44It is really well thought out.
03:45One of the best multitasking UIs I've used on Android and I'll actually want to use.
03:50This phone also has a pretty unique feature with the speakers that I talked about where
03:54it will vibrate the chassis to act as extra bass.
03:59So it's kind of cheesy, but it also is kind of cool.
04:02You turn it up and it literally adds bass from the vibration motor for those lower frequencies
04:08So in songs with a baseline, the phone is literally buzzing in your hand with every
04:12bass kick.
04:13It's kind of wild.
04:14You might want to turn it on or off depending on what you're doing, but that's also not
04:16something I've really seen done on any other phone before.
04:19And this phone also even has an LED notification light up top, which is rare these days and
04:24an extra customizable button at the bottom that can be used to launch apps or use as
04:29a shutter button for the camera.
04:31And then speaking of the cameras, this is another area where you'd expect maybe people
04:35would want to flock to a phone like this, because think about it for as good as the
04:39best smartphone cameras are, the pixel cameras, the Samsung cameras of the world, Sony makes
04:46all of the sensors for all of those cameras.
04:49And then on top of that, Sony also happens to make their alpha line of cameras, their
04:53mirrorless stuff, including the A7S3, which has been pretty much universally praised as
04:58a technical masterpiece and potentially just straight up best camera of the year for 2020.
05:03So Sony, Sony's got camera tech and sure enough, what do you see?
05:07Sony is in fact bringing a lot of the tech from their alpha camera line down into these
05:11cameras on the phone, mainly the incredible autofocus.
05:14And that's what I like the most, but also a lot of manual control.
05:18So first of all, if you just take photos and videos in the automatic mode in the standard
05:21app, like most people will, you'll get a lot of good stuff.
05:24There's three 12 megapixel cameras, the primary, the telephoto, and then a truly wide ultra
05:30wide, which is awesome.
05:31And photos are pretty good, very neutral, you know, very, very good dynamic range.
05:35Colors are good.
05:36Sharpness is okay.
05:38And focus is fast, but then there's also the included pro level photo and video apps called
05:44photo pro and cinema pro photo pro basically shrinks the viewfinder and gives you full
05:50on camera modes and manual levels of control, just like a Sony alpha camera.
05:55It's actually so much control that it requires a bit of a learning curve to get used to shooting
05:59it on an entirely touchscreen interface, but there's a lot of stuff here.
06:03It's pretty awesome.
06:04And it gives you world-class autofocus object and eye tracking, your histograms, your exposure
06:09conversation, metering modes, all of that.
06:12And then the cinema pro app is even crazier to me.
06:15You get wide dynamic range, 4k video with profiles with adjustable manual controls,
06:21ISO control, Venice color science, manual focus, and even focus racking.
06:27So you can set two different focus points, A and B, and then have the camera smoothly
06:32rack between them without hunting because yeah, you're, you're totally making a movie
06:37on your phone with this thing.
06:38This is next level dedication to enthusiasts, but I think that actually kind of partially
06:45answers the question we're considering in the first place, which is why don't more people
06:50buy these?
06:51Why don't more people buy and flock to these awesome phones with tons of enthusiast level
06:56features?
06:57And part of the answer is because enthusiasts really only make up a very, very small percentage
07:04of the overall market of anything, but especially if smartphones now don't get me wrong.
07:09Enthusiast features do sell things sometimes, but if you want that true high level volume
07:17of sales, you need to appeal to everybody.
07:21And these kind of don't like for all those awesome camera features I just talked about
07:24and manual controls and Venice color science.
07:28This phone also just straight up doesn't have a simple night mode.
07:31Like people want to just quickly take a great low light photo, like pixels night sight.
07:34This doesn't have that.
07:36The front facing camera is only 1080 P 30 and we all know a growing mass of people care
07:41about the front facing camera just as much, if not more than the back ones.
07:44It's also a 4k 60 Hertz display.
07:47And I bet you could hand this phone to a thousand people and not tell them it has a 4k display
07:51and ask them what they think.
07:53And you'd probably never get a single person asking if it's a 4k screen.
07:57And also most people who already know how to use and take the most advantage of and
08:03really like this super high end manual control on the cameras.
08:08Most of those people already own and use their own main mirrorless camera or something like
08:13that.
08:14So don't get me wrong.
08:15This is good for those people.
08:17It's an added feature, but this isn't a feature that's going to sell new people.
08:20Take a look at this chart.
08:22This is Sony's volume of smartphone sales for the past few years.
08:26Now obviously this is a concerning trend falling from nearly 40 million smartphones a year
08:30for two years in a row, all the way down to just six and a half million sold in 2018.
08:35For perspective, that's about as many iPhones as Apple sells in a week in a strong fourth
08:40quarter.
08:41So to get back in the game, Sony needs a strong 2019, right?
08:45They need to pull out a few more smartphones, get a little bit more variety in there, start
08:48appealing to more people.
08:50Really good phones like the Xperia 1 Mark II, and that should put them back on the map
08:53for...
08:54Oh, oh, that is not good at all.
08:59And that's because there's one more reason that people don't buy these, even though they're
09:02clearly pretty cool and they're pretty good, and maybe they should, and that's because
09:07they don't know about these.
09:08And if you think about it, that's kind of crazy that the company that makes all these
09:12popular mirrorless cameras and this technical masterpiece, oh, and also the PlayStation
09:18and all these TVs and everything, that that company can't leverage anything to get over
09:240% in smartphone market share.
09:27And from my perspective as a reviewer, it's frustrating because it seems like Sony's kind
09:32of suffering from some of the same stuff LG has lately anyway, which is their inability
09:36to properly launch a phone to the masses.
09:40Like take Apple, for example, we talk about them a lot, but they're notoriously very good
09:44at launching a phone.
09:45You have an event, then a week later, you can pre-order, and then a week later, they're
09:50in the streets.
09:51It doesn't take very long.
09:52The hype doesn't die.
09:53And you know, OnePlus does this too, Samsung does this too.
09:56The good launches go that way.
09:59This phone was unveiled in May, May.
10:05So that's six months ago when it first started showing up and I just got it last week.
10:09So May, June, July, August, September, October.
10:13That's a long time for the hype to die and for a very poorly thought out launch strategy.
10:18And you know, whether it is poorly thought out or poorly executed, it just doesn't look
10:23good, period.
10:24And it just doesn't look like a priority for your company when it takes that long.
10:27Matter of fact, it's taken so long for this phone to come out that it's basically successor
10:32has already launched.
10:34It's already been announced.
10:35It's called the Xperia 5 Mark II for some reason.
10:41Everyone is terrible with names and we won't even get into that.
10:44But you know, that's a slightly smaller version of this with 120 Hertz display and a little
10:48bit of a lower price.
10:50And when I go to B&H to try to get my hands on that, well, it's not available till December.
10:56So of course, people don't want to deal with that, especially when you're dealing with
10:59expensive phones.
11:01You don't want to have your phone arrive the day the sequel is announced.
11:05And that's actually bad for reviewers too.
11:08Reviewers want to know that when they review a phone, they have all the most updated information.
11:12And if you didn't get one in May or June when they were first getting seeded, like I didn't,
11:16and you get one now, and the Xperia 5 Mark II just came out, why would I even want to
11:21review this phone anyway?
11:22People aren't even going to buy it.
11:23So that's the frustrating thing.
11:25It's crazy that Sony can make such a great, such an interesting, compelling little phone
11:30and there would just be absolutely no desire to share it or buy it or anything.
11:35But here's the thing, here's the thing.
11:38I'm still rooting for Sony because I don't want to see this kind of stuff die.
11:42Let's not forget, the more competition in any field, the better the products get.
11:47And so while that downward curve sort of makes it look like Sony's mobile division is on
11:52life support, and we've seen what that looks like in others before, I don't want it to
11:56die for both of us.
11:58Either way, that's been it.
12:00Let me know what you think in the comments below.
12:02Thanks for watching.
12:03And I'll catch you guys in the next one.
12:05Peace.