What They Say
Sony announced the Xperia Pro-I smartphone which has the same sized 1″-type CMOS sensor as Sony’s RX100 VII compact camera.
That’s the headline, but lens limitations mean that the used surface area is less than on the RX100 and yields 12mp rather than the 20mp of the camera. DPReview did a detailed analysis of the camera and finds that it is, broadly, close to the iPhone 13 and Google Pixel 6 in terms of final quality. GSMArena reported the low light performance as ‘stunning’.
The smartphone also has a 12mp 16mm equivalent F2.2 ultrawide camera, a 12mp 50mm telephoto camera and a 0.3mp TOF depth camera. The camera can capture 4K 120Hz HD video or 1080P at up to 240fps.
The display is a 6.5″ 3840 x 1644 (643ppi) OLED protected by Gorilla Glass Victus. It supports HDR. There is Gorilla Glass 6 on the back.
An optional accessory is a 3.5″ VLOG monitor that that magnetically attaches to the rear of the smartphone mount. It connects to the Xperia Pro-I via USB-C so you can compose and record with the back of the camera facing you. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack so you can record audio via an external microphone right to the Vlog Monitor.
The phone will be available in December for $1799/€1799.
What We Think
I have the Sony RX100 camera. It’s excellent and after I got it, I stopped lugging my bigger full frame mirrorless A7 around to trade shows. One of the great features is that the DX100, like higher end cameras, has RAW format and I often find that I am able to significantly improve images after capture with RAW and processing with DxO PhotoLab. The new Xperia also captures in 12 bit RAW and if DxO provides support for the lens corrections for this smartphone, it could provide great results. I certainly would be looking at it as a video blogging option if I was still doing this.
Although smartphone displays, on average, have been going down in resolution, Sony has maintained its ‘4k’ claim for this device. (BR)
