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Sony's new flagship Xperia 1 is a skyscraper of a phone. Thanks to the 21:9 screen aspect ratio, the Xperia 1 seems like it towers over other phones. In truth it's not much taller than many of its rivals, but because it's so narrow it ends up looking even taller.
The Xperia 1 is Sony's attempt to reboot the Xperia line, something the company seems to do every few years. This time the focus in on not just movie watchers, but movie makers. Unfortunately for Sony, I'm not sure phone-wielding movie makers is quite the demographic Sony thinks it is. Even if by some chance it is, I'm pretty sure the Xperia 1 isn't the movie making device they're going to want.
## The Long and Thin of it
The Xperia 1 is a smooth, waterproof, nearly fingerprint-proof slab of glass just over 8mm thick. At the base you'll find a USB-C port, and running down the right side from top to bottom are the volume rocker, fingerprint sensor, power button and camera button.
The first thing that hits you when you pick it up is how long and thin it is. The tall thin body reflects Sony's notion that this phone is a great way to watch movies. David Lynch of course, [would disagree](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0), but at times a movie on your phone can be nice. Perhaps you're stuck on a long plane flight, or unlucky enough to have a commute that's summer blockbuster length. In these scenarios a movie sounds good, but do you want the phone you use every day to be optimized for situations you're in only occasionally?
Sony's definition of "movie" is also preposterously narrow. In the Xperia 1's world a movie is anything in 21:9 format. While roughly two-thirds of Netflix content is formatted 21:9, and it looks great on this phone, all of YouTube, nearly every television show ever made, and most Android games, all end up with black bars on the Xperia 1. In fact, you've got a statistically better chance of seeing black bars alongside your video content on the Xperia 1 than on a traditional phone.
What you end up with is a very long screen that's both useful at times—you can do a split view to multitask a little easier—and less useful at other times. Gmail with fifteen messages showing somehow just seemed more overwhelming, ditto notifications.
The Xperia 1 is not as awkward to use one handed as I assumed it would be. It can be hard at times, but there's a one-handed mode you can activate to make it easier. There's also a side-activated menu that makes it easy to get to your most popular apps without contorting your fingers like a metal guitarist.
In the end, while it's not as cumbersome to use as it looks, the longer thin screen offers no real advantage for all the things you do on your phone that aren't watching or making movies.
## Your Movie Awaits
If you do end up making movies with this you can at least rest easy knowing that the speedy Snapdragon 855 chipset with its 8-core processor is up to the task. There's no lag, and Sony's lightly customized Android 9.0 Pie is very snappy. The phone does heat up considerably shooting 4K video, especially if you're out in the heat, but it never froze up or stopped recording on me.
As with other Sony phones we've looked at recently, there’s no notch for the front camera. Instead the Xperia 1 has the usual bezel with a notification light, front facing camera and speaker.
The 3,330mAh battery is, frankly, a little disappointing for a phone that seems geared toward some movie binge watching. In my testing, streaming video from Netflix over Wifi, one film dropped the battery about 23 percent. It's enough to get you through a coast-to-coast flight, but your battery will be in poor shape by the time you get to Paris to start that shot-on-a-phone remake of *L’Atalante* that you've been plotting. The good news is that with 30 minutes of charging you can get the Xperia battery back up to about 50 percent.
The cameras at your remake's disposal are also pretty good, though not necessarily Truffaut-inspiring great. Like most flagship phones in this range, the Xperia 1 has three rear cameras. There's the main lens, a fisheye-style wide angle, and a telephoto. All three shoot 12MP images.
While not quite wide enough to call a true fisheye, the wide angle has some of the effects of a fisheye, with significant distortion that is not corrected by the phone. You can still make good images with it, but you do have to watch your angles and horizons or else learn to love the bug-eyed view of the world that it offers.
The telephoto offers up to 2X zoom, which is good, though not great. By far my favorite of the bunch is the primary lens. The results are sharp, colors look true and details hold up well. It's also excellent at depth of field in portraits and macro-style shots. One thing you won't find here is night mode, though there is a scene mode that will lighten nighttime shots. Unfortunately the results are not the best.
## Fingerprints and sound
The Xperia 1's power button and volume toggles are both on the right side, as is the fingerprint reader. I found the fingerprint reader to be hit or miss. When it works it's great and does exactly what you want and it's in the comfortable spot while you're holding the phone. Unfortunately, at least a third of the time it didn't respond at all. But hey, at least that Gorilla Glass coating doesn't pick up fingerprints as you wildly stab at the side of your phone.
Much more reliable is the dedicated camera button, which not only works as advertised, will even work when the phone is asleep, immediately springing to life and snapping an image with a single press. I found this to be the single best part of the Xperia 1.
One surprise was the speakers, which are actually pretty good. Of course they really better be in a phone chasing a cinematic experience. And no, they aren't *that good*. If you're serious about your movies, you'll want to pair this phone with a decent set of headphones, in which case movie watching becomes fairly immersive, David Lynch not withstanding. At least until your vibrating phone interrupts things.
As with some other phones, Sony has released recently you get the "Dynamic Vibration" feature, which vibrates the phone with the song (or movie). Who wants this is unclear to me and like WIRED editor Jeffery Van Camp said in his review of the [Xperia XZ2](https://www.wired.com/review/review-sony-xperia-xz2/), it's a ridiculous gimmick. It has the oppposite of the intended experience, pulling you out of the experience and reminding you that there's a phone in your hand. Hopefully this feature will soon go the way of the Memory Stick.
What you won't get for your $950 is a headphone jack. Ironically Sony includes a pair of headphones—albeit some of the worst sounding headphones I've ever used—but no jack. Instead you get a USB-C headphone adapter, because life did not have enough dongles already. If you end up getting the Xperia 1, grab yourself a pair of [Bluetooth headphones](https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-wireless-headphones/) to go with it.
In general though it's tough to recommend this phone. On one hand, there's really nothing wrong with the Xperia 1, but it also isn't the best at anything. What you're left with is a phone that's fun to test, great if you get one as a gift, but just too expensive to justify buying. If you really want to create a cinematic masterpiece, skip the Sony phone, grab a [Pixel 3A](https://www.wired.com/review/google-pixel-3a-and-pixel-3a-xl/){: rel=nofollow} and put the money you save toward the [Sony Alpha 7S](https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Alpha-Mirrorless-Digital-Camera/dp/B00JIWXTXG?tag=w050b-20){: rel=nofollow}.
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