Textured matte finish

Review: Sony Xperia 1 VIII - A renewed visionary

The new Xperia 1 is Sony's flagship, with an entirely new design and telephoto camera while carrying on Sony's distinctive legacy.

Erik Mörner Erik Mörner

Published 24 September 2026 - 11:38

The first thing you notice is the new design. I am testing the Xperia 1 VIII in black, but it will also be available in silver, gold and red. The camera array on the back now sits in a slim square bump, and the rear has a rough, textured finish, which both makes the phone easy to grip and gives the impression that it has been carved from a single piece of raw material.

It has been a long time since Sony could boast any particularly high market share in our part of the world, but its focus remains, and its target audience is said to be largely creators – in other words, something of the opposite journey to that taken by Apple. The iPhone and Apple have gone from being niche to being relevant to everyone, while Sony is doing the opposite.

Heritage from other areas

To convince potential customers, Sony relies on other products in which it has enjoyed success and built expertise: Bravia TVs for the display, Walkman for audio and Sony's Alpha cameras for the camera app. I wonder how relevant this really is today; for example, it has been a long time since the Walkman was relevant, and most people have long since replaced Sony's own music player app, which comes with the phone, with Spotify.

The display is good in any case. Sony has given it a fast refresh rate and a range of customisation options for how images and films are displayed, so you can choose for yourself. The display also supports Always on Display, so you can see the clock, notifications and similar information even when it is locked, without any significant drain on battery capacity.

In many areas, Sony takes an entirely different path. There is a 3.5 mm headphone jack in the top-left corner, there is a memory card slot, and Sony still does not place the selfie camera in a hole in the screen, instead positioning the lens in the frame just above the display.

Custom toolbar, few customisations

What then fills the uninterrupted screen is Sony's refreshingly clean interface; in fact, it does not even have a name, which is unusual when looking at the competition. Sony simply does a great deal in its own way. Sony customises functionality and appearance through a small number of its own apps. There is a music player, a game mode and a video editing app. Otherwise, Xperia relies on Google's apps, and Google Photos, for example, serves as the default photo gallery app. Sony naturally also puts a great deal of effort into the camera app, as photography is a clear focus for the phone, which we will return to. Always accessible on the Xperia 1 VIII is the Side Sense dashboard, which we recognise from previous models. It is a toolbar that you can customise and swipe in from the edge to quickly find settings, launch selected favourite apps or directly launch two apps you have chosen in split-screen mode.

The software is, of course, based on Android 16, and Sony promises four years of Android updates and six years of security updates, less than many competitors.

The phone's performance relies on the latest flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, and together with Sony's successful optimisations, this makes the phone feel fast at all times. Today, the development of components and, for that matter, software is heavily focused on AI, and although the phone, like other Android devices, has Google's Gemini and Circle to Search, Sony takes its own approach here too, which brings us to the main subject: the cameras.

It is mainly in the cameras that Sony says it has used AI. In the camera app, focus can easily be locked onto an object, helping us take sharp pictures even in challenging situations. Although the Xperia 1 VIII does not surpass the most capable competitors in areas such as sensor size or zoom capabilities, it uses what it can from compact cameras to improve the photography experience and give me a sense of professional control.

Natural colours

Fundamentally, the camera delivers natural colours and dynamic range with clear contrast, so that shadows really become dark. In the camera app, alternative interpretations are immediately presented as soon as you point at a subject. This may mean added background blur, cooler colours or other effects. By clicking on these previews that pop up, you can directly change the image's look. Because this is so intrusive, I easily end up using the suggestions. Sony itself says these are AI suggestions, but they feel rather random and only weakly linked to the subject. Still, they are sometimes suitable, and they undeniably push me to think more creatively when taking pictures. The feature can be turned off if you want.

With the Xperia 1 VIII, Sony has moved away from its previous variable zoom solution and now uses a traditional solution, but with a significantly larger sensor than its predecessor. The result is usable images at up to just under 10x zoom, and the camera app's zoom control only goes up to 17.5x. While many competitors offer zoom up to 100x and beyond, Sony is once again going its own way.

Questions and answers

How does the fingerprint reader work?

Reasonably well. Despite registering my fingerprint several times, it occasionally says “Fingerprint not recognised”, and I have to try again to unlock it. This is particularly problematic because the phone has no facial recognition at all, so fingerprint or PIN are the only options.

How are the speakers?

They deliver good sound, with no excessively high volume capability, but they are well balanced. This is because Sony uses identical speaker units at both the top and bottom, which is unusual.

What else does Sony do in its own unique way?

Yes, in addition to having no facial recognition, retaining the 3.5 mm jack, keeping the selfie camera in the frame rather than in the screen, and placing the fingerprint sensor on the side rather than in the display, it also retains a physical camera button, so you can press it halfway to focus and fully to take the picture.

An alternative

Xiaomi 17 Ultra, Samsung S26 Ultra and iPhone 17 Pro are all slightly better as camera phones.

Camera examples

Fine, natural colour reproduction and creative ways to customise images, but neither the zoom capabilities nor sensor size can compete with the leading models.