Sony Xperia 1 VI review: an old-school flagship that demands some compromise

Sony Xperia 1 VI two-minute review

The Sony Xperia 1 VI is Sony’s top Android phone, and it will seem pretty familiar to existing Sony fans. Even with a significant change to the screen aspect ratio versus the Sony Xperia 1 V , using the Xperia 1 VI feels like meeting an old friend.

A lot of the typical Sony strengths and weaknesses are here too. The Sony Xperia 1 VI’s key charm is in the way it rejects several contemporary smartphone trends. It has a headphone jack. It has expandable memory. It doesn’t have a camera cutout in the screen, and Sony hasn’t cut down battery capacity just to make the Xperia 1 VI marginally thinner.

These will all seem smart moves to a good chunk of the phone-buying audience out for something a little different. And you still get high-end camera hardware, a top-tier chip, good speakers, and an eye-catching screen — just about all the usual elements expected of a pricey Android phone.

The Sony Xperia 1 VI does cost a packet, though, and arguably isn’t hugely competitive considering some of the slightly less advanced parts.

These include slower-than-ideal fast charging, camera processing that still lags a little behind the best for dynamic range optimization and night-time image processing. I also found the rear disappointingly prone to visible scratches, despite the use of high-end toughened glass.

A big part of the appeal here is the handful of features that Sony’s Xperia 1 VI shares with much lower-end phones. There’s still a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a microSD slot built into the SIM tray. These are not expensive features to implement, but are vanishingly rare in phones of this level.

The Sony Xperia 1 VI is a lovely phone, but you had better buy into its specific style for the outlay to be worthwhile.

Sony Xperia 1 VI review: price and availability

• Costs £1,299 / AU$1,899
• No US availability
• 512GB storage version available in some territories

The Sony Xperia 1 VI is priced just like its predecessor. But unlike the Sony Xperia 1 V, this phone is not slated for release in the US.

In the UK you’ll pay £1,299, and AU$1,899 in Australia. That gets you a 12GB RAM and 256GB storage configuration. There’s also a 512GB storage version available in some territories. But with a microSD slot onboard, seeking one of these out or paying more for the additional storage may not be all that appealing.

The phone was announced in mid-May 2024, with general availability in June 2024.

Sony Xperia 1 VI review: specs

Here's the Sony Xperia 1 VI spec sheet in full:

Sony Xperia 1 VI review: design

• Classic boxy Sony design
• Excellent water resistance rating
• Scratch-prone rear panel

Samey or confident? The Sony Xperia 1 VI has a design much like the phone before it. This look — a no-nonsense block — has been Sony’s house style since 2012.

Changes therefore come in some of the finer points. The Sony Xperia 1 VI has an embossed, textured glass back, and it comes in red, silver and black, as well as the subdued green seen here. It's more of an ordinary shape too, as Sony’s ultra-long 21:9 screen has been traded for a more standard 19.5:9 aspect ratio.

As usual, Sony makes use of high-grade materials on the Xperia 1 VI. The front and rear glass is Gorilla Glass Victus (Vitus 2 for the front). Unfortunately, the treatment on the rear panel doesn’t seem to be nearly as resilient as the glass itself.

On the first day of use, I managed to put a series of scratches on the back. These stand out because, it would appear, they make the matt finish more shiny. And since then more have appeared.

I didn’t go to the beach or throw the phone around. The Sony Xperia 1 VI just seems unusually susceptible to damage, at least in this particular finish. And I’ve not had many complaints to level at matt glass phones before, even ones whose ruggedization sounds a lot worse on paper.

Other ruggedisation cred here is good, though. The Xperia 1 VI is rated at the IP68 and IP65 standards, meaning it can be submerged in water at a depth of up to 1.5 meters, and can withstand low-pressure water jets; you just need to make sure the SIM tray and its rubber gasket are properly in place.

This is a mid-size phone, but it feels a little larger than its screen size might suggest thanks to its blocky shape, and the way the lack of a camera punch-hole extends the upper-screen border a bit. There’s a combi fingerprint reader/power button on the side rather than an in-screen one and, just like the last generation, it’s not the fastest around to unlock the Xperia 1 VI, being a touch more leisurely than some.

• Design score: 3 / 5

Sony Xperia 1 VI review: display

• High maximum brightness
• Lower resolution than the last generation
• More ordinary shape than before

We tech reviewers like it when a product gets you more, for less money. But less for more money? You might be in trouble.

Sony once became famous for putting 4K screens in its high-end phones. The Sony Xperia 1 VI takes the opposite road. It has an elongated 1080p screen, one with a much lower pixel density than its predecessor.

The key question: does it matter? At this size, pixelation isn’t obvious even in small fonts. And thanks to what appears to be careful anti-aliasing, you notice it more as a slight softness when looking close up. I’ll level with you: I didn’t notice until a week into testing when I started looking at this phone’s vital statistics.

However, it’s one reason to drop the Sony Xperia 1 VI down a tier if you’re considering a bunch of these super-expensive phones.

It's otherwise strong, though. The Sony Xperia 1 VI is super-bright, and seems to reach its high brightness mode when outdoors more swiftly than some.

With launch software, it reached 720 nits in ordinary conditions, which increased to around 800 nits after an update. The screen can go brighter when it’s particularly light outside. I could only get my tester tool to register 920 nits (full field white), but others have measured as high as 1,300 nits. Either way, clarity outdoors is great.

This is also a screen made to save power. It’s a 120Hz refresh display, but in its default mode, it drops right down to 15Hz when displaying static content. Sony says it can actually go down to 1Hz, but I’ve only seen it cycle between 15Hz and 120Hz. You can also set it to cycle between 60Hz and 15Hz instead. But after switching, the loss of motion clarity is quite striking.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Sony Xperia 1 VI review: cameras

• Excels at shooting subjects very near and very far
• Excellent shot-to-shot shooting speed
• Night image quality and dynamic range optimization could be improved

The Sony Xperia 1 VI has three rear cameras, with an array not dissimilar to that of the last generation. There’s a standard camera, a dedicated zoom and an ultra-wide.

It’s not all business as usual, though. Previous iterations had multiple camera apps. It was intended to provide both a standard phone experience and one closer to the feeling of using Sony’s Alpha-series mirrorless cameras.

This approach had as much a cluttering effect as anything else. There’s now one key camera app, and it has a Pro mode inside that provides the manual control of the older models. But the one useful “pro” videographer app is apparently making a return at some point in the Xperia 1 VI, according to Sony. To accompany that style, the phone also has a physical shutter button that, just like a “real” camera’s, can be depressed halfway to focus without capturing an image.

The range of the optical zoom camera has changed too, from 3.5x-5.2x to 3.5x-7.1x. This camera even has “telephoto macro” shooting, which simply means the zoom camera’s lens is capable of focusing incredibly close-up for a camera of this type.

It is unnervingly effective, capable of “seeing” the subpixels on a MacBook Air’s display — the red, white and blue components of an LCD’s pixel that make white when shining out concurrently. Those are some serious macro photography chops.

This zoom camera is a blast to use all-round. It’s great for gigs, particularly if there’s a good amount of light or you’re shooting at a festival during the day. There’s a real pro feel to the way the Xperia 1 VI just lets you shoot away at full speed, because it lets the images sit in a queue for processing when there's a spare moment rather than slowing shooting down.

You can tell there’s a drop in lens sharpness at the max zoom. And low-light shooting isn’t amazing. But the sheer shooting flexibility it puts at your fingers is creatively freeing. The Sony Xperia 1 VI is some of the most fun I’ve had with a camera all year. That the zoom also works so well super-close too, only adds to the charm of this little lens and sensor combo.

The main camera’s primary strengths are its charming color reproduction and general decent-looking processing of detail up close. While there’s some evidence of a sharpening technique at work, the overall impression is of a camera happy to appear a little softer and more natural than over-processed and painterly.

The ultra-wide camera isn’t quite as strong. But like all the best ultra-wides in expensive phones, you can switch to it and expect roughly the same character and comparable image quality you’d see from the primary camera. Aside from at night, where the drop in native sensitivity is more obvious.

There are some weaker elements, though. The Sony Xperia 1 VI is more susceptible to overexposure than rivals from Samsung, Xiaomi, and Huawei, for example. This won’t usually be giant parts of the image, just smaller areas a more advanced HDR engine could pick up on.

The Sony Xperia 1 VI is also far from the best in low light. It’s probably the worst contender at the price for simple auto-mode shooting. Sure, the processing brightens images up dramatically and there’s a respectable level of detail. But photos don’t have the level of detail in shadows as seen elsewhere.

Video quality is good but, again, you lose some of the spotlight-pulling features of rivals. You can’t shoot at 8K, which isn’t hugely useful for most folks anyway.

You can, however, shoot at up to 4K, 120 frames per second with all three rear cameras. The telephoto macro mode supports video too, again at up to 4K at 120 frames per second.

The front camera has a 12MP sensor too, and it can produce detailed-looking selfies in reasonable lighting. This selfie camera is nothing revolutionary, but it’s solid.

• Camera score: 4 / 5

Sony Xperia 1 VI camera samples

Sony Xperia 1 VI: software

• Avoids the current AI obsession
• Potentially useful creativity apps
• Fairly normal interface

The Sony Xperia 1 VI runs Android 14 and has a largely inoffensive, not too invasive, custom interface layer grafted on top.

My first reaction to the phone was its app menu wasn't that good-looking; I thought the text looked a little too bolded and inelegant. The Sony Xperia 1 VI provides a decent amount of customization as to how these elements appear, though. You can alter object scaling and font size independently, and some may prefer the Dark mode, which uses lighter text upon a dark background.

Sony’s approach to apps hasn’t changed much this generation either. At a time when Google and Samsung are obsessed with AI, Sony’s angle is still to reference the other parts of Sony as a whole.

Music Pro is a nod to Sony Music. This is a multi-track recorder app, a tiny DAW (digital audio workstation) where other phones might just have the equivalent of a dictaphone.

External Monitor lets the Sony Xperia 1 VI act as a monitor for one of Sony’s Alpha-series mirrorless cameras.

Video Creator is a mini editing suite that lets you edit and put together clips into a larger video project.

All of these are neat ideas, a cut above the low-effort bloat some phones are criticized for including. But they aren’t quite ingenious or developed enough to be considered serious reasons to buy an Xperia 1 VI over a competitor. You’ll find better, more complete-feeling alternatives on Google Play.

• Software score: 3 / 5

Sony Xperia 1 VI review: performance

• Significant throttling, which kicks in fast
• Great peak performance
• Loud and chunky-sounding speakers

The Sony Xperia 1 VI has one of the most powerful chipsets around in 2024, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. It beats Apple’s A17 Pro, used in the iPhone 15 Pro, in a lot of tests, and has notably excellent graphics performance.

As you’d expect, then, the Sony Xperia 1 VI feels excellent in use. It’s responsive and fast, and games run great. Titles like Fortnite sing on the phone, as it only can with a true high-end chip.

The Sony Xperia 1 VI also avoids the overheating issues earlier models in this family were subject to. However, a little stress test reveals why.

This phone throttles its performance almost immediately when under strain. 3DMark’s test bench shows a drop in benchmark scores from the first run (which takes a minute), where other rivals will often wait for significant heat to build up before dropping power, if they do so at all.

The Sony Xperia 1 VI settles at 58% of its peak performance, which isn’t great. It’s not as bad as some of the sub-50% results I saw in some of the earliest Snapdragon 8-series phones, mind.

It’s good for gaming, then, but for a phone that’s been partially labeled as a “gaming phone”, you’d hope for high performance that can be sustained for longer.

The Sony Xperia 1 VI’s speakers are an unmitigated hit. They are a stereo pair that get loud and have real meat to their mid-range. I listen to podcasts all the time on my phone, and the robustness of speakers’ voices compared to the last phone I used, the Infinix Note 40 Pro, was truly eye-opening.

• Performance score: 3 / 5

Sony Xperia 1 VI review: battery life

• Good battery life, but only light users will see “two-day” use
• Slow “fast” charging
• Supports relatively slow wireless charging

The Sony Xperia 1 VI has a 5,000mAh battery. It’s an ordinary size for bigger phones in general, but larger than that of plenty of thinness-obsessed flagships.

There’s bad news too, though. As usual for Sony, the Xperia 1 VI does not include a charger. Its charging rate is also pretty poor for 2024, at just 30W. According to my power meter, tested with several different high-power adapters, it only reaches a power draw of 27.5W too.

Even Samsung, which has been slow to adopt higher-power fast charging, offers a 45W standard. As such, Sony only claims the Xperia 1 VI meets the old fast-charging standard of 50% in 30 minutes. And it meets that, sort of, reaching 49% at the 30-minute mark.

It takes 86 minutes to reach 100% and continues receiving power at a lower rate for a while after that. 50% in 30 minutes doesn’t feel like rapid charging anymore — not for this money, anyway.

Real-world stamina is good, and getting a full day of use is no issue. I don’t find this a two-day phone, though; not unless you barely use your Android. A phone with a screen this bright, with a powerful chip, is just capable of too much not to be able to hammer the battery at times. I find the Sony Xperia 10 phones last longer in real use, even if they are markedly worse phones otherwise.

Some will find the Xperia 1 VI lasts longer, though, and real-world stamina is clearly a highlight next to some of the direct competition.

The Sony Xperia 1 VI also supports wireless charging, but again the charging speed isn’t great, coming in at 15W.

• Battery score: 3 / 5

Sony Xperia 1 VI review: value

Sony pitches the Xperia 1 VI at the same price as its predecessor, £1,299. It’s among the most expensive phones out there, and its slight deficiencies stand out markedly at the price.

The merely acceptable low-light performance, slow charging and moderate screen resolution are not the most comfortable match for a phone selling at this high a price.

Meanwhile, features like a 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD slot, which are somewhat defunct from many flagship phones, help claw back some value for the Xperia 1 VI but can’t make up for the high price.

• Value score: 3 / 5

Should you buy the Sony Xperia 1 VI?

Buy it if...

You want expandable memory
Sony goes against the grain by keeping expandable memory as an option even in its flagship phones. That’s always welcome, particularly if you want to avoid relying on Google’s cloud backup to keep your photos safe.

You want a headphone jack
Like its predecessors, the Sony Xperia 1 VI has a physical headphone jack, which has been a rarity in higher-end Android phones for almost half a decade at this point.

You want a long-lasting flagship phone
Some clever efficiency savings and a respectable-size battery deliver good battery life among flagships. The two-day use Sony claims will be a stretch for most, but it's not out of the realms of possibility for some.

Don't buy it if...

You want the best value flagship
The Xperia 1 VI costs a lot, and arguably doesn’t push the envelope in quite enough areas to be considered an entirely sound deal. You have to loosen your grip on the concept of value a little when spending this much regardless, but Sony asks for more faith than most.

You care about fast charging
While this phone gets to around 50% charge in 30 minutes as Sony claims, its charging rate feels interminably slow next to that of the flagships from Xiaomi, OnePlus, Honor and so on. Sub-30W charging at this price is not ideal.

You are particular about a hard-wearing finish
In theory, the Xperia 1 VI should be one of the toughest mainstream phones around. In practice, its finish is a little too easy to scratch causing irritating surface-level imperfections.

How I tested the Sony Xperia 1 VI

• Review test period = 3 weeks
• Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used = Geekbench 6, Geekbench ML, GFXBench, native Android stats

I used the Sony Xperia 1 VI as my day-to-day phone for several weeks. During the review period, I took it to a couple of music day festivals, on a hike across the UK’s north downs, and out and about in London.

This real-world normal usage testing was accompanied by more technical benchmark testing, which included seeing how bright the screen could go in multiple environments, testing how powerful the chip is, and how its performance was affected by heat build-up.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed July 2024