Sony Xperia 1 III - My Fav Smartphone of 2021 (So Far) By Karl Conrad

Hey guys its Carl, and today we are checking out my favorite smartphone of 2021, or I guess so far as we're around halfway there. This is a bit of a weird one, but it's the Sony Xperia one three, also a bit of a weird name and if you're also not into smartphones much. You probably don't know that Sony still makes smartphones. They do, and I'm actually really glad that they are because this has been a low-key surprise. For me, it's been awesome actually, and I will say I am a huge Sony fanboy, I'm currently shooting on two of their cameras right now, one of the most used phones that I've had been the Sony w8110. I think I had that one for close to three years.

It had little bits of orange on it, I loved it. I grew up using that phone. Then came the Sony m610 or was it the m600 that was the James Bond phone, so I've always had a soft spot for these phones. I know that they haven't been the greatest, and I am really glad that Sony keeps making them and keeps implementing features that I think tech enthusiasts, really love and usually complain about when they're taken away. So of course, this phone isn't perfect.

I don't think anything is we'll start off, maybe with the things that I'm not the biggest fan of, and the first is kind of that love hate relationship with the display. So it is a 21 by 9 aspect ratio. So if you do love to watch true cinematic content in ultra-wide format that content will fit, but I think most of us are still watching in regular 16x9, so a regular YouTube video you have black lines on the outside something as simple as Instagram or tick. Took you've got black bars around the apps. If you're watching YouTube videos in portrait mode.

Look how tiny that video looks and if that's something that you can live with? That's cool and, of course, if you are in landscape mode, you can always pinch to zoom, but you do have a slight crop if you want to take full advantage of the large 6.5 inch display further to that display in that love, hate relationship, even though we've got that ultra-wide form factor, it makes it nice and thin, and it's so different from any smartphone that I've used in the past couple years, and I know it's hard to change the way a block looks, or I guess, a rectangle. Most phones take a thicker approach and if you've got a screen over six inches, it's a bit harder to manage with one hand, there's just something so nice with the way this fits into your palm it's easier to get from side to side. I will say it's harder to reach, say the top left corner if you're using your right hand, top right corner if you're using your left hand, but I think the Xperia one really hits that sweet spot and everyone that I've kind of loaned. This phone to kind of agrees that it's different, but it does feel nice and refreshing. So it's kind of cool to see the screen itself.

Like I said it's 6.5 inches, it's got a 120 hertz, refresh rate which you can actually toggle, but the thing that you actually can't change is the resolution. So it's set at 4k. So even if you toggle that down to 60 hertz you're still getting a 4k screen, so I know spec junkies will appreciate that it's full HDR, it's a gorgeous panel and if you compare that to say the s21 ultra, which is around the same price, I know which display I'd go for every single time. It has to be the Sony. On the flip side, though, there's always that argument that love hate relationship will bite you in the butt, because it's a 4k panel, no matter what it does affect battery life, and I would say that's one of the weakest parts of this phone.

It's 4, 500 Williams, and I've already had a couple of days when it hasn't lasted me the entire day. I have to quickly juice it up that isn't really a deal. Breaker, but I have noticed under really, really heavy use, I'm maxing at around four to five hours of screen on time and the phone does get quite hot, not unbearable, but once again that's one of the compromises that you have to have for this device. Other little things that I love, which most smartphone manufacturers are actually taking away from their phones over the past couple years. It's got two front-facing stereo speakers super loud far enough, apart from each other that you can hear a clear distinction.

Self-Removable sim card slot tray with expandable storage, still up to a terabyte if you've got a micro SD card, and you still get that full ip68 rating. How weird is it to say that a phone still having a headphone jack is an enthusiast feature? We've still got one instead of the now traditional in-screen fingerprint sensor. You've still got one dedicated to the on and off sleep button. It performs great you've got a tappable button, that's defaulted to google assistant, and you have a dedicated shutter button for the camera which we'll now get to, and if you are a Sony user, which I mentioned, that I am a bit of a fanboy, you will be right at home with this camera, and maybe that's why I love it so much, and this is where this phone gets a bit funky. So we've got a 12 megapixel triple camera setup, but for the telephoto lens it actually optically switches between two different focal ranges.

You can toggle that between either 70 to 105, we've also got the ultrawide, as well as the 24 megapixel standard wide and the camera app, which is actually Sony's pro camera app. It doesn't come with a stock. One you'll feel right at home. Like I mentioned, if you've shot on Sony, so you can go full basic and this looks like most standard camera apps, and you can actually toggle between auto aperture priority shutter priority and from there you'll get full use of all the manual controls, and I know this camera actually got a big update since this phone initially launched. So I do find that the camera quality is actually a lot better than previously.

I still wouldn't say it's the best out there, but it actually maps kind of perfectly to the color profiles I have of both of my cameras. So I find, if I am shooting with say these, I can always substitute footage from this camera and it kind of integrates seamlessly into my footage. I will say, though it has these mass t-star coatings and if any of you are familiar that helps out a ton with all the flaring that you get when shooting kind of directly at the sun. I know that's not really ideal most of the time, but it does affect photos, and you can quickly see in this comparison of my 12 pro max, which is kind of touted as the best camera currently on the market in a smartphone. The Sony kind of took the cake with all the flaring and artifacts in terms of overall use and speediness.

This kind of compares against all other android flagships right now. So it's got the latest silicon snapdragon 888 you've got 12 gigs of ram. It's actually become my favorite phone for browsing content just because of that aspect ratio. I feel you get so much more in the phone. I guess it just does come down to developers of Instagram of Facebook to kind of get with this beautiful aspect ratio.

Once again, that is slightly biased. Is this phone for everyone? Absolutely not? Definitely if you're an average consumer, there are just too many sacrifices or too many workarounds that you need to deal with for using this device, but if you're a techie, if you're watching this YouTube video, if you're in the market for the s21 ultra versus this, I think that's a very realistic comparison. I'd take the Sony, but remember you won't find this at any carrier shop. You won't find this at your local store. You probably have to buy it unlocked somewhere I'll leave a link below it.

Has all these cool little features that I think the little techie inside us will kind of love, and I'll wrap it up by saying it has a LED notification light at the top. I haven't seen that since my OG blackberry days, and it's once again one of those little things that I dig hats off to you Sony. I think you've made a gem. Furthermore, I don't think they'll sell the greatest but uh. Please continue spending money and can't wait for the Xperia one for and maybe change the naming mechanism I'll catch the rest of you in one of my next vids' peace.

Source : Karl Conrad