**Hands-On Review: Sony Xperia 1 IV Camera Phone**

I recently had the opportunity to get my hands on the latest camera phone from Sony, the Xperia 1 IV. As soon as I started using it, I knew that this was going to be a game-changer for mobile photography enthusiasts. The phone's auto mode gives you a more cinematic look, similar to the Alpha series view. This is evident in its camera features such as Shutter speed priority, manual mode, and memory recall.

One of the standout features of the Xperia 1 IV is its mechanical shutter and aperture control. When you switch to manual mode, you'll find that the Shutter speed is located on the left side of the phone, while the Aperture is on the right. This allows for precise control over your shots, making it ideal for professionals who want a more nuanced creative experience. The mechanical shutter and aperture mechanism are clearly visible when using the lens, adding to the overall sense of realism.

**Test Shots and Video Recording**

I took some test shots with the Xperia 1 IV, starting with a scene of three Funko pops discussing how they're going to kill Lucky the dragon. I was impressed by the phone's ability to capture detailed images, even in low-light conditions. The focus feature is incredibly intuitive, allowing for smooth and natural rack focusing. This is evident in the depth of field control, where subjects can be kept sharp while the background becomes blurred.

The phone's video recording capabilities are also noteworthy. I recorded a clip using the cinema pro app, which is supposed to provide processed footage in post. However, for comparison purposes, I decided to record another clip directly from the Xperia 1 IV. The resulting video shows a much flatter profile compared to the cinema pro app.

**Focus and Shutter Control**

One of the challenges with camera phones is achieving smooth focus and accurate shutter control. In my experience, the Xperia 1 IV excels in this department. I was able to rack focus easily between subjects, including a scene where I had to switch from one subject (Lucky) to another (Andy). The phone's electronic shutter allows for fast and quiet operation, making it ideal for capturing decisive moments.

**Comparing the Camera Phones**

For those interested in comparing these camera phones, I took some additional test shots using my other devices - iPhone and Pixel. While all three performed well, each had its strengths and weaknesses. The iPhone excelled in terms of detail capture, with minimal fringing on the edges of subjects. However, it didn't perform as well when it came to low-light conditions.

The Pixel, on the other hand, showed more fringing on the top of Lucky's head compared to the Xperia 1 IV. Although this wasn't a significant issue, it did detract from the overall image quality. The Xperia 1 IV, however, seemed to perform reasonably well in both these scenarios.

**Conclusion and Verdict**

The Sony Xperia 1 IV is an impressive camera phone that offers a unique blend of features and capabilities. Its mechanical shutter and aperture control provide a level of precision that's hard to match with other mobile devices. The focus feature is also incredibly intuitive, making it easy to achieve smooth and natural rack focusing.

While the price point of $1799 may be prohibitively expensive for some, this phone is undoubtedly aimed at professionals who already have a Sony camera and want a companion device that can match its performance. For those in this camp, the Xperia 1 IV offers a compelling alternative to traditional travel cameras. Overall, I'm thoroughly impressed with this camera phone, and it's certainly something that I would love to own.

**Bonus Features and Accessories**

In addition to its impressive camera features, the Sony Xperia 1 IV also comes with a few other useful accessories. A 30-watt charger is included in the box, along with a Sony type-C cable. Interestingly, the phone also supports being used as a monitor, thanks to the support for external devices like the A74 or Zed VE 10.

**Who is This Phone For?**

So, who is this phone intended for? Simply put, it's for professionals who already have a Sony camera and want a companion device that can match its performance. With its advanced camera features, compact design, and intuitive interface, the Xperia 1 IV offers an unbeatable combination of convenience and creative capability.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Guys that is so awesome.Oh man,I love this thing.Guys,I am so excitedbecause what I have in front of meis what I hope to be thefuture of all smartphonesgoing forward.In front of me is the Xperia Pro-I.And for those of you whohave been paying attentionLan listed as short circuiton the Xperia 1 Mark IIIabout three or four months ago.And that phone is reallysimilar to this onewith one key distinction,the pro I name.And why is it called the pro I?Well the I stands for imaging,which is why I'm here about to unbox thisbecause this phone is Sony's first phoneand one of the first phones in the world,with a one-inch sensor.Yes.This phone behind this camera bump,is a one inch sensor.I,I can't even describe to youwhen I first read thearticle rumoring this phone,saying that they had put a one-inch sensorand from the RX100 Mark VII no less,the same sensor in the RX100 Mark VII,is in this phone.In a phone!So you might be asking,what is the one-inch sensor?Brandon I have no ideawhat you're talking about.Why does this matter?Well,if you've ever watched a camera video,but even if you haven't,you'll probably understand thata larger sensor in a camerais generally better,better low light,better dynamic range.There's lots of reasons thatin terms of performance,that it is better.So the fact that theytook a one-inch sensor,which is much larger thanthe typical smartphone sensorand put it into a phone that is also like,as thin as a flagship smartphone would be.Guys this is a really big dealbecause nothing likethis has really exist.Even the iPhone doesn'thave a one inch sensor.Okay but before I get ahead of myself,let's look at the phonephysically on the front,we've got a 6.5 inch old LED display.Love to see that.On the right we've got avolume rocker power button,which doubles as the fingerprint sensorand two shortcut buttons,one for the videography pro app,which has this fancyanimation when it launches.And then the camera,if you look really closely,the Shutter button onthe camera is actuallyknurled kind of likea Shutter button on other camerasjust to give you that like tactile.Okay this is my Shutterbutton for my camera feel,also it makes it easy to know thatthat's the shortcut buttonthat you're going topress for your camera.So you just have to hold it.Camera opens really quickly,and you're ready to go.On the left of the phone,we've got a tool-less SIMand micro SD card slot.So you can run a microSD expansion or dual SIM.Love to see that.And then there's a littleislet for a like wrist strapif you want to have thatextra like security,just kind of like a pocketcamera would be honestly.And the device itself feels very,very nice.Almost forgot on the top.We have a headphone jack love to see thatbecause it is now becoming a feature.And then on the back of course,we got our three cameras,the 50 millimeter (telephoto),which on our pre-productionsample is unfortunatelydisabled,but that's okay.We've got two other camerasto try the 24 mil witha one-inch sensor andthen a 16 millimeter wide.So that's three camerason a phone that has aone-inch sensor.And it's still again the size,the camera bumps not even that bad,like it's really not that,I have an iPhone here.And I'd say,let me take this case off.I'd say the bump on the iPhonemight even be slightly more.And then I also actuallyhave a Pixel Six Pro here,the bump on the Pixel Six Pro.The bump on the Pixel SixPro is a quite a bit moresignificant,a couple more things aboutthe camera on this phoneis the aperture is actually mechanical.So you can go from F two to F four,there's a little like thinaperture blade thing in thiscamera.And it can actually changefrom one to the other,which is again in this form factorreally cool because that givesyou more control over yourdepth of field,which is typically somethingyou can't really doon a smartphone or I'llsay do it kind of with,you know,computational photography.So Sony has made a coupleof apps on here specificallyfor video and photobecause this thing canalso do 4k One 20 FPS,just like something bigger like the a,oh wait,this can't even do 4k One 20 FPS.One of their new appsis the videography pro,which is supposed to be,cause they also released the cinema proon the other Xperia'sthat they've launched.But apparently they triedto simplify the processand make it a little bit easierto use for different users.And so let's take a lookat the video pro app,but first we got tothank our sponsor Altium.Thanks to Altium forsponsoring today's video.Altium designer enablesengineers to connect with everyfacet of the electronics design process.It's intuitive you caninteract in a 3D environmentand it features interactive routing.They've even got Altium 365,which allows multiple peopleto work on the same project at once.Get a free trial of Altium designer viewerfor a limited time at the link below.When the device temperature becomes high,the following icon will be displayed.Do not hold the device directlyin your hand while this iconis displayed,doing so may result in burns.Oh,I mean again,I guess that's understandable.It's a one inch sensoron a very thin phonecooling will probably be an issue,it's not active cooling as far as I know.So yeah,this thing's going toget hot and that's that.We'll see how this goes.Let's see,we've got manual focus and auto focus.Whoa,So manual,Whoa.That's so cool.And then if you want to do wide,can you change the lens in this mode?Oh my,they might be locked on the 24.Oh,you can do tele or you can like zoom inkind of like on a broadcast camera.It's got like that power zoom.Well no,I think this is digitalzoom from Luxembourg.And then if you do auto off,you can just change your Shutter speed.Like a normal camera,Andy.Look at this.And it's,it's a pretty easy simple view.You've got a giant record buttonhere and then you just go,let me see if thisvideography pro button works.Oh that's so that stillbrings us to the mode.So you have to hit the recordbutton on the display okay.They probably intend you to use their gripbecause Sony actually isgoing to sell a vlogging kitto go along with this phone.And it actually comes with afront facing monitor that youcan connect to the,to the phone and a microphone on the top.And then it uses theirBluetooth tripod handle thingthat I've shown in the past.And honestly,the vlogging kit.Here's some images of it.Like it looks pretty cool.Jono just asked me howmuch this phone costs,because I've been nerdingout about how awesome it isand all these features.Unfortunately it is not cheap.This phone goes for 1799USD.Guys think of the technology though.$1799,yes incredibly expensive.But you get so much for that.You get a camera that is also a phone,but more camera than a phone to be honest.So in cinema pro I have ah,so I have frame rate here.24 FPS or One 20 audiofunctions not available.That's fine.Okay.We're going to have to properlytry that One 20 in a minutehere.You've also got different looks.We've got Venice Color Science,Bright or Pink,Warm,Strong.Whoa,These are drastic.They're also flat though.Oh,so you can use both lensesin the cinema pro app nice.Okay.Probably want to stick tothe 2,400 white balance.You can set auto or customand then if you hit for cord,it just goes in on yourscreen and then you can changeyour focus from here.Oh,you can like rock focus mid shot.That's so cool.And then,oh,you can set.You can reset your A and Band then you can do Andy,this thing can do a onebutton focus poll for you.I'm pretty impressed with this app.It is very,very intuitive to use,especially if you've everused a camera before,like any of Sony's cameras.Okay,but before we start doing test clips,I want to try one more thing.I want to try their photography.Full disclosure,I've actually been usingthis phone for about two daysand I've tried the photographyapp a decent amount.And it is again pretty good,on the right of the display.You've got all these controlsthat you'd want on a camera.This is like the,the quick settings in a Sony camera,but on the right of your display.And then you have acouple of different modesyou've got basic,which is just what changes that.But if you,as soon as you go to auto gives you thatlike more camera alpha series view.And then of course you've gotprogram Shutter speed priority,manual and then memory recall.So once I go to manual I'vegot my Shutter speed here.My aperture is right here,two to four.See that,that's mechanical.So if you guys look reallyclosely at this lens,you can see the mechanical Shutteror the mechanical aperture in action.There's F two,here's four,there's F two,here's a four.F two,F four.Guys that is so awesome.You can actually see it working.That is,oh man,I love this thing,but let's actually do some test shots.Let me grab a couple ofthings and we can try.I have a tiny scene here ofthese three Funko pops talkingabout how they're goingto kill Lucky the dragon.Oh man,that actually again,I have to look at this on a computer,but from the Ola display on this phonethis it looks really good.Even just this focus feature,the fact that I can rack to Luckyand then rack to these guys asif I was using a real camera.Oh man,That is awesome.And yes,of course there are phonesthat give you manual focusadjustments and you can dothem on all the smartphones,but on this phone it feels sonatural as if it was like areal camera.And then you can look atthe depth of field from herejust to my background.Lucky's not even that far away.He's just on that part of the table,but he's very naturallyand nicely out of focus in this clip.So that's the videographypro recording clip.I want to try this on the cinema pro.Footage off of the cinema pro appis supposed to be processedin post color-wise,but just for comparison,I'm going to record aclip on this as well.You can see it's a much flatter profile.I just love how easythis is to rack focus.And it's so natural lookingat least on the phone.I have to look at on another computer,but there's Andy back to our huddle.And then to Lucky,this is so easy.Okay.Here's just a quick anddirty test of the One 20 FPS.I keep getting thrown off with the Xperia,because the the Shutterbutton is a physical button,not just like a tap on the screen.Andy just asked if I couldhave pressing and get focusedand yeah sure you bet I can,obviously I'm not going to beable to tell from the phonedisplays alone,but first impressions on the phone displaythe Xperia looks pretty good,but then so does the iPhoneand so does the Pixel,I'm gonna let you guys be the judge.Here's the three photos.Let me know what you thinkin the comments down below,but I'm not sure yet whichone I think is the best.Just taking a quick look at thephotos that we did of Lucky.The iPhone you can seedid a pretty good jobin terms of like detailand the lens doesn't looklike it has a lot of fringing,on the edges of Lucky here.And then on the Pixel,we actually see a,quite a bit more fringingon the top of his head.It's present on the Xperia a little bit,but really not that bad.Funny aside,I actually got soexcited about this phone,I forgot to look at whatwas in the rest of the box.So I'm going to reopen the box.We've got a Sony 30 wattcharger and a Sony type C cable.So I didn't miss much,honestly unfortunately,that is all the time wereally have for this phone.If you want a deeper video,maybe comparing these three phonesand a couple other's cameras,let me know in the comments down below,because I mean like,there's things we didn't even get to.We didn't even get to the factthat you can use this phoneas a monitor.If you have something likean A74 or a Zed VE 10,which is super cool becauseit's like a 6.5 inch Olinmonitor.And the last thing youguys might be asking iswho is this phone for?Because it's $1799.Well,it's for the type of personwho already has a Sony cameraand wants a phone that isalmost as good or maybe betterin certain scenariosas there are X series,portable,compact travel camera.And instead of having likethat separate travel camera,you can just have your phoneand your professional camerawith you at all times,instead of carrying two camerasfor two different purposes.I got to say,I want one of these because it is super,super cool.Anyways thanks guys for watching.And please subscribe to short circuit.\n"