Sony Xperia 1 VII brings Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, larger sensor for ultrawide camera

The Sony Xperia 1 VII is here, and it looks very much like its predecessor. It comes in two new colors, so it's easier to tell apart though - Moss Green and Orchid Purple.

Sony kept the blueprint unchanged - the Xperia 1 VII has the same 6.5-inch display diagonal, the same 5,000mAh battery, and a triple camera system on the back, but it's still bringing key improvements.

The main shooter and the continuous optical zoom are the same as before - you get a 24mm f/1.9 wide angle camera with a 1/1.35-inch Exmor T sensor, OIS, and PDAF. The telephoto has an 85mm-170mm f/2.3-f3.5 lens with a smallish 1/3.5-inch Exmor RS imager. The zoom still has telemacro abilities - you get a 4cm minimum focusing distance at 120mm.

What's new this year is the ultrawide camera - it's still a 16mm lens but with a brighter f/2.0 aperture (vs f/2.2) and a 1/1.56-inch Exmor RS sensor - 2.1x larger than the previous one.

The camera system has a healthy helping of AI-infused Alpha smarts - Sony's real-time eye AF is there for both humans and animals, there's AI main subject recognition, AI white balance, AI exposure, and AI depth. There's also Ultra HDR support, so your images will pop on any supported HDR screen. Sony has also kept the physical two-stage camera button, but it's ever-so-slightly wider and more comfortable this year.

A new, bigger ultrawide angle sensor

While on the topic of what's kept this year, the Xperia 1 VII has a 3.5mm audio jack. It now uses a higher-quality solder with added gold, which thoroughly minimizes transmission loss. Inside, the phone has a premium-grade Audio Integrated Circuit, as before.

There's also a built-in microSD card slot, meaning you can greatly expand the phone's 256GB built-in storage.

The phone is IP68 water and dust tight, and has Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and GG Victus on the back.

The Xperia 1 VII has the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC with a vapor chamber to help keep it cool. It's paired to 12GB of RAM. There's also Wi-Fi 7 and twice the Bluetooth transmission throughput of the Xperia 1 VI.

The display is a 10-bit 6.5-inch 1080x2340px Bravia 120Hz OLED panel - nearly identical to the panel on the previous Xperia 1, though this one is 20% brighter.

Sony has integrated two illuminance sensors (one on the front, one on the back), which help with precise brightness adjustment. There's also automatic color adjustment in different lighting, increasing both the brightness and the saturation in strong light.

The front-facing full-stage stereo speakers have 10% richer bass and mid-bass and were tuned in collaboration with Sony Music Entertainment.

The Xperia 1 VII has retained the 5,000mAh battery with 30W charging, neither of which is exactly groundbreaking these days. However, Sony says you can expect 2 full days of endurance, including 36 hours of continuous video playback from the power pack.

Sony has a set of battery-safety features - Xperia Adaptive Charging and Battery Care - that ensure you get 4 years of battery health. Sony says its battery will lose less than 20% of its capacity after 48 months of use.

Finally, the Xperia 1 VII ships with Android 15 out of the box and Sony pledges at least 4 OS version updates, and 6 years of security fixes.

The Sony Xperia 1 VII comes in three colors - Slate Black, Moss Green, and Orchid Purple - and in a single 12/256GB configuration (there will be a 512GB model for Asia). It is available for order in Europe and the UK, and it will start shipping in June. Price is set at £1,399/€1,499.