Hey guys, Adam Lobo here from Adam Lobo TV. Since I have promised you all to unbox and review the Sony Xperia 1 II as soon as I get it, here it is!
(article continues after the video)
Unboxing
Let’s first unbox the phone. Now like the Xperia 10 II it comes in a white box with Xperia and 1 Mark 2 in the middle and Sony down below.
Then at the back, you will find some of the specs below as well. Then opening the box, you will immediately find the phone itself. Underneath there is the product info leaflet. Then at the back, there is a Sony headphone. A USB-C to USB-C cable and of course, the charging brick.
Specs
Going over the phone’s specs, the Sony Xperia 1 II comes with the Snapdragon 865 chipset, with the Adreno 650 GPU.
It comes with either 8 or 12 gigs of ram with 256 gigs of storage.
It comes shipped with Android 10 with the Xperia UI which as mentioned before looks and feels like stock Android.
And it is IP 65 / 68 dust and water-resistant as well.
Built Quality
Starting from the Design and built, the phone did feel quite light with an even longer form factor compared Xperia 10 II, and of course to other smartphones out right now, due to its screen aspect ratio, which I will talk about more later.
It has a glossy aluminium frame at the sides, which does make the phone look and feel premium and front, and the back is made of Corning Gorilla Glass 6.
Then the rear cameras are placed towards the left with a thin camera bump, but it does wobble a bit when you place the phone on a surface while typing.
As for the ports and buttons, looking down below, there is the USB-C port, and you won’t find the speaker grills over there because of the stereo speakers are placed towards the bottom chin of the phone and on the earpiece area.
On the right, there are the volume rockers and the power button, which doubles up as the side fingerprint sensor, not the fastest out there but it was quite decent.
On the left, there is the SIM and MicroSD slot which I love how you can easily open it with your fingernails instead of using a SIM ejector pin.
Then on top, you will find the almost extinct headphones jack… Ahhhh! Yeap, still love them!
Â
Display
So the display on the phone is AGAIN one of the unique selling points of the phone, once again it honestly feels like it has shrunk their 4K OLED Screen into the device, where it comes with a 6.5 inch OLED screen, with a longer aspect ratio of 21:9 wide. And yes, as mentioned, it has a 4K UHD resolution of 3840 by 1644 pixels, making this the best smartphone display I have ever seen, especially with its HDR-BT 2020 technology.
The refresh rate was maintained at 60 hertz, as Sony went for the screen quality rather than the refresh rate and watching videos on the phone was truly amazing especially with the wider screen format.
There is the Creator Mode for the screen which gives it the most colour accurate screen, which was really nice, as that makes me get the most accurate colour when watching videos, but also when it comes to photo editing to make sure that I get the best colour possible through its 10-bit colour depth.
Camera Specs Back / Front Image Quality
As for the phone’s cameras, there are 3 cameras which are Zeiss optic lenses:
- Main camera 12-megapixel f/1.7, 24mm (wide) lens,
- A 12 MP, f/2.4, 70mm (telephoto) lens, and
- A 12 MP, f/2.2, 124Ëš 16mm (ultrawide) lens.
Shot on the main lens were quite impressive, with great colours and dynamic range, their images turned out really nice during bright daylight and even when it’s cloudy as well.
Now it’s nice to know that the colour shift issues that I had with the Sony Xperia 10 II have been fixed over here, where the overall images look great with a nice focal length, no barrel distortion at the edge and amazing colour reproduction.
And there is also the 3 times optical zoom since there is a dedicated 70mm telephoto lens.
There is no dedicated Night Mode on the phone, but the camera software will adapt to the scene accordingly so expect some in consistency during lowlight situations, but when you do get the shot, it looks decent as well.
As for the front camera, it has an 8 megapixel with an f 2.0 aperture 24mm wide lens. The regular selfie shots were good, with nice skin tones and not soft or neither it was too sharp like some phones tends to do
Then as for the portrait selfie, it did turn out great but sometimes the edge detection can be a hit or miss, but overall it was nice.
Camera Video Back / Front Quality, Image Stabilisation
As for the phone’s video-taking capabilities, it records up to 4K 2160p up to 30 frames per second and you can take HDR Videos as well where the video footage looked great with a very pleasing and great detail.
Image Stabilization was great as well for all of the ultrawide and the main lens.
Then as for the front, it records also up to 1080p up to 30 frames per second was also great stabilization, but I kind of wish that it had front 4k recording since it has a high-end processor, and of course with a 4k screen but the overall dynamic range for the front camera was pretty amazing too.
Now, what’s new on the phone is the preloaded software such as the Photo Pro and Cinema Pro to get that Sony Mirrorless or DSLR Camera experience on the phone where you can dive in deeper into the adjustments of photo and video on a more professional level.
Â
Sound Quality
As for the phone’s sound quality, it has the front-facing stereo speakers, and surely one of the best smartphones speakers that I have reviewed.
In terms of Codec Options, there is Dolby Atmos and DSEEE Ultimate for an uncompressed sound and paired with the Sony WH1000XM4, you will get an amazing sound experience through the phone, where the overall volume seems to output louder than other smartphones too.
On top of that, there is the Dynamic Vibration, which gives vibrated when a low-end sound, which was a great experience, making me want to just watching more videos on the phone, and it does have the same effect on music with a speaker output volume of 88.6 dB. And here is a quick sound test.
Software
In terms of the software, it is shipped with Android 10 with the Xperia UI which as mentioned, feels really close to stock android. And there were no issues during my usage when it comes to opening a bunch of apps and scrolling and navigating as well. And although I never talk about Haptic Vibrations in my reviews, but I have to give it to Sony for having nice Haptics on the phone.
Like the Xperia 10 II, there is Side Sense and the One-Handed Mode as well, which is surely a great plus when using a phone with a longer form factor and the split-screen mode was also a great addition to the phone as well.
Battery Life
Now on to the phone’s battery, the phone comes with 4,000 milliamps of battery, and since I did get a good amount of battery on the Xperia 10 II, I knew I would get a good battery life on this. Based on my usage, I got a rough total of 5 hours and 35 minutes of screen on time when I was at ten per cent which to me was REALLY good since the phone has a 4k resolution screen.
And the phone has fast charging up to 21 watts and fast wireless charging up to 11 watts.
Gaming
In terms of gaming, again because of its OLED screen and of course the front-facing speakers, it was a great smartphone to play games on. There is also the Game Enhancer Mode to give you more customized option during gameplay as well.
Playing games like Asphalt 9 was amazing and in PUBG Mobile it ran great with graphics at HDR and frame rate set at High, where the phone did heat up just a bit during long gameplay, but it didn’t affect the gaming performance at all.
Â
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, I have to say that the Sony Xperia 1 II is a huge improvement compared to the previous generation. Firstly, the biggest improvement is the phone’s camera compared with the Xperia 10 II. The battery life is really great and if you are the kind of person who consumes LOTS of videos on your phone, you will surely appreciate the 4k colour accurate HDR screen and the overall audio experience of the phone.
With that, I may even consider making this my daily driver smartphone but do let me know what you guys think of the phone at the comment section below.
As for the phone’s price, here in Malaysia, is it going for RM4,999. I will leave a link at the description below for you to get yourself one.
