At the beginning of the year, Sony released the Sony Xperia1 III, which made me think that this should be the flagship of the year of Sony Xperia in 2021, and it was obligated to rush its national bank premiere at the first time. However, I didn’t expect that at the end of the year, Sony’s new micro-single phone XperiaPRO-I made a surprise appearance.
It has to be said that from the recent cooperation with Meizu Flyme’s system to the launch of the more hardcore XperiaPRO-I in terms of image, it shows that Sony really wants to make some innovations and changes in the smartphone market to attract more consumers. So what kind of surprise will this Sony XperiaPRO-I with the same one-inch bottom of the black card give us? Let’s take a look together.
Appearance: Japanese design with a little tough temperament
For me, who has been using the Sony Xperia1 III for a while, the design language of the XperiaPRO-I’s exterior is actually very similar to the Sony Xperia1 III.
It is still a square body with a matte feel, and the 4K120Hz screen with a slender ratio of 21:9 is also the DNA of Sony’s mobile phone design.
Of course, if you want to talk about changes, this time Sony XperiaPRO-I uses a vertical texture treatment method on the bezel, which improves the friction when holding, and secondly, this texture is visually tougher and more professional. The frosted glass and metal middle frame material make this phone look very textured in the hand.
Black card RX0 appearance GIF diagram
Of course, readers familiar with Sony products must not be unfamiliar with this design, this design first appeared on Sony’s first generation black card RX0, the same metal matte vertical grain to improve the durability of the camera body and grip feel, which is the same as the design language of Sony XperiaPRO-I.
The custom button and the shutter key have also been redesigned this time, the custom key adopts a circular design, and the size of the shutter key compared to the Sony Xperia1 III can be said to be several turns, which is of course the advantage of being visible to the naked eye is that when taking pictures, the shutter button will be easier to press. Of course, the extremely advanced 3.5mm headphone jack is still retained, which is touching.
In terms of color matching, Sony XperiaPRO-I only has a matte black that represents a professional feel, which is quite good-looking. Of course, the texture of the whole machine is also more professional. So speaking of professionalism, let’s talk about the biggest highlight of the Sony XperiaPRO-I this time, images.
Imaging system: An inch-inch image raptor hidden under your phone
OK, a large-size 1-inch sensor developed and debugged for the XperiaPRO-I based on the Black Card 7 sensor. I believe that for users interested in mobile photography, this is undoubtedly a juice shock. Unexpectedly, the sensor on the black card 7 was really transplanted to Sony’s mobile phone, which is the biggest difference between XperiaPRO-I and Xperia1 III.
Compared with the pixel pitch of 1.8μm of conventional sensors, the advantages of XperiaPRO-I’s 1-inch sensor can be reflected in the hardware, and the pixel pitch of 2.4μm ensures high sensitivity of the sensor, thereby restoring more detailed texture. The larger sensor also allows photos, especially night shots, to have a purer picture, richer details, and less noise in the shadows, bringing a more natural optical bokeh effect. And more importantly, the main camera of XperiaPRO-I supports F2.0 and F4.0 two variable apertures, and still has the blessing of Zeiss optics.
For users who like to shoot portraits and scenery with their mobile phones, these two apertures undoubtedly give them more room to play. And thanks to the 12 bit RAW, XperiaPRO-I photos have more post-production space. The other two cameras are a 12-megapixel 16mm ultra-wide-angle lens and a 12-megapixel 50mm telephoto lens.
So having said that, what about the actual photo sample of this XperiaPRO-I? Of course, we also found a Sony black card 3 that also has a 1-inch sensor to see what kind of samples they have taken.
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PRO-I daytime main sample shot
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Ultra-wide-angle sample
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Daytime sample
Although one is a mobile phone and the other is a camera, because both have a 1-inch outsole, I still compared the samples of the two of them. In my opinion, the samples taken by both machines are very good-looking, the color reproduction is real, and the bokeh effect is also very natural, and the blessing of the 1-inch image sensor is really unusual.
After so many years, the photos taken by Sony’s mobile phone are really the style that a camera should have. Don’t do too much embellishment, and present the scene as original as possible. So we can also see that the color of the XperiaPRO-I and the black card 3 is relatively realistic, and thanks to the XperiaPRO-I main camera with F2.0 and F4.0 two variable apertures, we can easily take shallow depth of field photos when shooting close-up objects in the sample, and the bokeh outside the focus is very beautiful and natural. However, if shooting landscapes, I personally recommend shooting with an F4.0 aperture, which will preserve more detail in the picture.
One of the advantages of a larger sensor is that on the night scene, a larger sensor can make the night scene more pure and less noise. Moreover, the aperture of F2.0 can also increase the amount of light entering the picture. So the hardware is in place, what about the actual night scene performance?
PRO-I night scene main photo sample
In my brief review, the XperiaPRO-I’s night samples are really clean in terms of image quality, with almost no noise. From the sample shots, we can see that even in scenes with complex light sources, the night scene of XperiaPRO-I can still display the correct color without color casting, and it is relatively close to the real thing. The rendering in the sky is purer black, and even when zoomed in, it is difficult to see noise. This point is really very powerful, and the advantage of the big bottom and large aperture is brought into play.
Camera performance: Xperia is always dripping God
Talking about taking photos of Sony phones, especially flagship phones, camera performance is always an impossible point to bypass. Especially in the continuous shooting of follow-up, it is basically the strongest ceiling in the industry, and there is no one. This excellent focusing performance system derived from the Sony α9 has been learned on the Xperia1 III before.
Photography master high-speed continuous shooting of GIFs
Photography master eye control focus GIF
With 315 AF points, it basically covers the entire viewfinder from the beginning of focus, and basically as long as the XperiaPRO-I is in focus, the focus will be firmly locked. It also has the blessing of human eyes and animal eye tracking, which is a great weapon for users who like to capture animals and children every day. I also tested the XperiaPRO-I for continuous focus shooting.
Photography master interface GIF diagram
As you can see, even if I go to focus on a bus or battery car that is moving at high speed, the XperiaPRO-I can still accurately focus on the subject, and this focusing system can be very reliable. With a continuous shooting speed of up to 20 frames per second under the main camera, it is completely possible to take pictures first and select pictures later. It’s a bit of a waste of memory, but it’s guaranteed not to miss the precious moments you want to keep.
Video shooting: In addition to the movie master, this time there is another video master?
If there’s one thing I was surprised by when I opened the XperiaPRO-I this time, it’s that the interface has an unfamiliar video master. This is also a new built-in program launched in response to the needs of more and more users to take vlogs with mobile phones.
After using it, I feel that the interface is more intuitive, and the operation logic is more friendly to ordinary users than the movie master.
Video master operation interface GIF diagram
Although it is facing more white users, the functions of Video Master are still very rich, you can choose what parameters are not adjusted directly fully automatic, you can also choose to adjust the shutter aperture ISO white balance as you want to achieve the picture effect you want. In terms of focus chasing, Video Master also supports eye focus and real-time focus in video for the first time, which greatly improves the ease of use of Video Master.
In addition, there are manual focus and focal length adjustment levers, and the same video master also supports up to 4KHDR120fps video format recording, which can fully meet the needs of ordinary users and even vloggers.
Demo of Sony’s official Vlog kit
At the conference, Sony also released a vlog kit designed for XperiaPRO-I, which uses a more convenient Vlog display and clearer reception, allowing XperiaPRO-I’s Vlog capabilities to the extreme. I believe that it is another powerful tool for video recording life.
Video master sample GIF image
Three Master Apps, Trinity
At this point, the image function of XperiaPRO-I already has three master apps, photography master, film master, and this new video master, which can fully cover the different needs of photography enthusiasts.
System: The iron tree blossomed and began to pay attention to localization
Before the release of the XperiaPRO-I, I believe that the biggest news about the Xperia phone was that Sony had reached a partnership with the Meizu Flyme system. Even I, the sophony, was shocked.
The PRO-I comes pre-installed with Flyme
OS applications
But for now, we see that the built-in apps of XperiaPRO-I only come pre-installed with FlymeOS’s app store, weather, email and information.
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Of course, this is also because of the cooperation between Sony and FlymeOS, and I believe that the two will be more deeply and multi-faceted. We can also see Sony’s determination to localize and attach importance to domestic user groups. In the future, you can even boldly imagine that the domestic Xperia mobile phone will run FlymeOS perfectly. But before that, let this bullet fly for a while.
Summary: A more hardcore and down-to-earth Xperia
Unconsciously came to the summary part, writing Sony’s flagship mobile phone is never an easy task, because there are too many highlights, but the balance of space can only pick a few points that I think are the most important to explain.
In my opinion, more professional body design, more attractive screen specifications, richer video recording options, and more local systems are the selling points of this phone, but the core highlight of this XperiaPRO-I is the use of a 1-inch image sensor on the basis of ensuring that the fuselage is thin and light enough, so that the main camera is closer to the card machine like the black card in the picture quality performance of the photo, and then further increases the upper limit of the smartphone in terms of hardware specifications. We can even look forward to the next 2 years or even 1 year later, each flagship main camera may really use a 1-inch sensor, and XperiaPRO-I is undoubtedly a precedent.
We also expect Sony to continue to achieve technological breakthroughs, launch amazing works in the industry, and deeply understand the concept of “micro-single mobile phone” that belongs only to Sony’s name.
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PRO-I night scene main photo sample
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