Sony provides Xperia 1 successor with 3.5mm jack and improved cameras

Sony announces the Xperia 1 II, a successor to last year’s top model. The new device again has a 21:9 OLED screen with a 4k resolution. The 3.5mm jack returns and Sony improves the cameras with, among other things, a larger sensor.

Sony now uses the same naming convention for its Xperia smartphones as it does for cameras. That is, there are series with a number; the version number is displayed behind it with Roman numerals. The successor to the Xperia 1 is the Xperia 1 II.

Like last year’s Xperia 1, the second version has a 6.5″ OLED screen measuring 15.2 × 6.5 cm with a 21:9 ratio without a notch or hole. The front camera is incorporated in a bezel above the screen. The screen has a maximum resolution of 3840×1644 pixels and the refresh rate is 60Hz, but Sony says it has added software motion blur reduction.

The device again has three 12-megapixel cameras on the back, but the primary camera now has a larger 43mm² sensor. With the predecessor, that was a 24mm² sensor. The telephoto camera has more optical zoom: 70mm in full-frame equivalent. That equates to 3x optical zoom compared to the primary camera. Sony has also added a fourth camera sensor: a time-of-flight sensor to measure depth.

According to Sony, the device shoots twenty frames per second in burst mode, while maintaining autofocus and automatic exposure. Focus and exposure are measured sixty times per second. The shooting speed has doubled compared to the predecessor and Sony also claims that the autofocus is better and there is support for eye autofocus in humans and animals.

Sony’s smartphone team is now working closely with the team that makes cameras. The Xperia 1 II gets a pro mode in which the camera interface looks the same as on the brand’s Alpha cameras. There is also a Cinema Pro mode for filmmakers. All three cameras shoot 4k HDR videos in 21:9 ratio at 24, 25, 30 or 60fps.

The Xperia XZ1 was Sony’s last top model with a 3.5mm jack. In the Xperia 1 II, the audio jack returns. The housing contains a Snapdragon 865-soc and an X55 modem for 5g. The devices sold in Europe do not get mmwave antennas, so only 5G on sub-6GHz networks is possible. The phone has a 4000mAh battery, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of flash storage. The fingerprint scanner is integrated in the power button on the side of the housing.

Sony Xperia 10 II

At the same time as the new top model, Sony presents a successor to the Xperia 10. Like its predecessor, the Xperia 10 II has a 6″ screen with 21:9 ratio and a resolution of 2560×1080 pixels, but this time it is an OLED panel; the predecessor had an LCD.

Sony puts a Snapdragon 665 soc in the Xperia 10 II. That is an octacore with four powerful and four economical cores that Qualcomm released last year. The housing is equipped with Gorilla Glass 6 on the front and back and the battery has a capacity of 3600mAh, considerably more than the predecessor. The new model also has more RAM and flash storage: 4GB and 128GB.

The Xperia 10 II has three cameras on the back, one more than the predecessor. These are cameras with focal lengths of 16, 24 and 52mm. The primary camera has a 12-megapixel sensor and the other two have an 8-megapixel sensor.

Just like the more expensive version, the midrange model has a 3.5 mm connection and is now also equipped with a dust- and waterproof housing with IP65/68 certification. The fingerprint scanner is also incorporated in the side of the housing in the on-off button.

Sony will release the Xperia 1 II and 10 II in the second quarter of this year. The top model has a suggested retail price of 1199 euros and the cheaper version has a suggested retail price of 369 euros. Last week, Sony already announced the Xperia L4: a budget model of 199 euros.