Little has changed with the newly-announced Xperia 1 III, which takes last year’s offering as a template and introduces subtle improvements to strengthen key areas, in an effort to appear even more appealing to the same specific subset of Sony fans that the company has gone after for the past few years: photographers, cinephiles, mobile gamers, cinematographers and audiophiles.
Here’s all you need to know about Sony’s 2021 Xperia flagship.
How much is the Sony Xperia 1 III?
2019’s Xperia 1 was designed to represent something of a reset for Sony’s smartphone line and despite offering some unique qualities in a crowded flagship space, it didn’t present the same mass appeal as devices like its then-competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S10.
Perhaps its most problematic trait was that it came in at a notably higher price than like-minded rivals, clocking in at £849, when devices like the Galaxy S10 cost between £150 and £200 less, without really losing any real competitive edge.
The addition of 5G, more advanced display technology and even tighter integration with Sony’s Alpha camera tech pushed that pricing disparity even further, with the Xperia 1 II coming in at a sizeable £1,099.
Despite announcing the phone, Sony didn’t initially lift the lid on official pricing, promising figures closer to launch. That said, a day after its unveiling Sony’s Russian site listed pre-order pricing for both the Xperia 1 III and 5 III of RUB₽99,990 and ₽84,990 respectively.
Direct conversion places the Xperia 1 III at around £945/€1,090/US$1,300, which seems low considering the additional camera and display innovation the Mark III showcases, not to mention the relative price of its predecessors.
Prior to launch, Sony tipster Zackbuks via Weibo, suggested a starting price point of CNY¥8,999, which directly converts to £990/€1,165/$1,370. Going on the assumption that international pricing will be higher, this implies similar pricing to last year’s Xperia 1 II, meaning it’s unlikely to be markedly more expensive than its predecessor come retail release.
When does the Sony Xperia 1 III launch?
The last two generations of Xperia 1 were announced on 24 February 2019 and 2020, respectively.
Things are a little different this year, with the company unveiling the Xperia 1 III, Xperia 10 III and rather surprisingly, the Xperia 5 III all alongside one another as part of its 14 April product announcement.
However, Sony is keeping schtum on when you’ll actually be able to purchase its new flagship, for the time being; simply citing a release window of “early Summer” for all three of its new entries.
Jumping back to the subsequent Zackbuks leak, the tipster casually dropped a release date of June too, which aligns with the approximate two to three-month window previous Xperia 1 entries have experienced between announcement and actual release.
In conflict to this, however, in mid-May a Reddit user spotted that US retailer B&H Photo Video suddenly started citing a 31 August ship date – far later than anyone had expected.
While there’s no mention of this particular date across any other Sony channels as yet, the fact that B&H hasn’t adjusted or removed the mention of this ship date, following its discovery, suggests that it may well be legitimate; undermining the promise of that “early” Summer release.
What features does the Sony Xperia 1 III have?
The Xperia 1 II is a 2020 flagship to be sure, placing focus on a superb 4K HDR 21:9 OLED display, top-tier internals and a capable (albeit finicky) trio of 12Mp cameras, backed up by some impressively robust photography and videography smartphone software.
Such traits carry across to its successor – the Xperia 1 III – with enhancements to the speed of the camera system’s already impressive autofocus, even better low light shooting and an improved Auto shooting experience.
The camera’s party piece is undoubtedly its variable telephoto lens. Not only is this the first time we’ve seen Sony adopt a periscopic telephoto sensor to increase the zoom range but moving lens components within the periscope module allow the phone two achieve two different focal lengths via one sensor – an alternative solution to the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy S21 Ultra, which simply adopted two telephoto sensors fixed to different zoom distances (3x and 10x).
The triple 12Mp setup on the back of the Xperia 1 III consists of a 16mm ultrawide, a 27mm main with OIS (optical image stabilisation) and a 70mm to 105mm variable telephoto with OIS, resulting in 0.7x, 1x, 2.9x and 4.4x levels of zoom respectively.
A ‘3D iToF’ sensor helps grant the phone ‘real-time tracking autofocus’ capabilities, enhanced by an AI algorithm that’s able to track objects, even if they move out of sight momentarily, improving on the already excellent autofocus of its predecessor and tieing the Xperia 1 III’s camera experience more closely with Sony’s Alpha cameras.
Other camera tweaks include portrait shooting across all lenses – save for the ultrawide, improvements to the Photography Pro app that includes a ‘Basic Mode’ to bridge the gap between the standard camera experience and the full manual control it offers, as well as a new knurled dedicated camera key, for improved ergonomics.
If you’re curious as to what the Xperia 1 III’s camera hardware will be capable of, Zackbuks has again come through with alleged camera samples from the phone’s triple sensor setup (they included a Google Drive link so you can download the originals yourself).
With no EXIF data present, we can’t glean much technical insight from the images but they at least demonstrate how the phone might handle challenging photographic scenarios – like low light and high-contrast scenes – as well as how consistent (or inconsistent) colour science and image quality presents between the phone’s various cameras.
Pulling a leaf out of the Xperia Pro’s book, the Xperia 1 III also supports UVC (USB Video Class), meaning it can double as a high-quality monitor when connected to a compatible camera (which includes a number of Sony’s Alpha cameras).
The other big talking point with this latest Xperia flagship is, as ever, its display. Like last year’s model, the phone features a 6.5in, 21:9 ‘CinemaWide’ 4K HDR OLED panel but – as introduced on the Xperia 5 II – a 120Hz high refresh rate is now on-hand (complete with a 240Hz touch response rate); addressing one of the biggest shortcomings on the display of last year’s 1 II and serving as a world-first in its own right.
Audio is another major focus for the Xperia 1 line and a number of technologies from last year’s model endure, including high-resolution wired (the phone features a 3.5mm headphone jack) and wireless audio, as well as DSEE Ultimate audio enhancement tech. A new chamber design means its stereo speakers offer a 40% improvement over those in the Xperia 1 II and the 360 Reality Audio support that was previously only reserved for headphone usage can now be recreated via those speakers too.
On the software side, the Game Enhancer built into the Android 11-based user experience gains a few extra talents, like a new audio equaliser for tuning game music and sound effects, an optimised voice chat algorithm for microphone usage, high frame rate recording at up to 120fps for sharing clips of your gameplay Rewind Time Record, which lets you retroactive capture the last 30 seconds of gameplay and an L-y Raiser to brighten the darkest areas of frame to more easily spot adversaries lurking in the shadows.
Of course, these granular improvements to come of the key pillars of the Xperia 1 line also come accompanied by more expected upgrades, like a jump to the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor with 12GB RAM, Gorilla Glass Victus on the front of the phone, a larger 4500mAh battery with 30W fast charging and the continuation of IP65/68 dust and water resistance, as well as 5G.
Here’s the full spec rundown of everything the Sony Xperia 1 III brings to the table:
- 6.5in 120Hz 21:9 ‘CinemaWide’ 4K HDR OLED display
- 240Hz touch sample rate
- Gorilla Glass Victus front, Gorilla Glass 6 back
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC
- 12GB RAM
- 256GB/512GB storage (availability varies by region)
- Rear cameras:
- 12Mp f/2.2. 16mm ultrawide w/ Dual-PDAF (phase detection autofocus)
- 12Mp f/1.7 24mm main w/ Dual-PDAF & OIS
- 3D iToF sensor
- 12Mp f/2.3 or f/2.8. 70mm or 105mm variable telephoto w/ Dual-PDAF & OIS
- 8Mp front-facing camera
- Stereo speakers
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Dolby Atmos
- High-Res Audio support (wired & wireless)
- DSEE Ultimate
- 360 Reality Audio (headphones & speakers)
- 360 Spatial Sound
- Knurled dedicated shutter button
- IP65/68 dust/water resistance
- 5G
- NFC
- 4500mAh battery w/ 3-years long life promise from Sony
- 30W fast wireless charging
- Wireless charging & reverse wireless charging
- 186 grams
- 165mm x 71mm x 8.2mm
- Colours: Frosted Black, Frosted Purple, Frosted Grey (availability varies by region)
We discussed the Xperia 1 III in more detail as part of our weekly podcast, Fast Charge: