The Sony Xperia 1 VIII was spotted at an online store today. This leak has not only provided information about a higher price, but also details about the features. Probably the biggest surprise is the new telephoto camera. While Sony is said to install a 16 mm ultra-wide-angle camera and a 24 mm main camera as before, the innovative telephoto camera is apparently being replaced.
This is because the Sony Xperia 1 VII has a telephoto camera with a real zoom lens, meaning that the focal length can be continuously adjusted from 85 mm to 170 mm (35 mm equivalent), achieving 3.5x to 7x optical zoom. This feature is unique on today's smartphone market, at least in this form – the Xiaomi 17 Ultra offers a zoom lens too, but with a much smaller zoom range from 75 – 100 mm. Competitors such as the Vivo X300 Ultra use a telephoto camera with a fixed focal length instead, which is combined with digital zoom to enable a longer zoom.
Sony is now set to follow exactly this example with the Xperia 1 VIII and replace the innovative zoom camera with a telephoto camera with a focal length of 70 mm, so that only 3x optical zoom is achieved. For users, this is an upgrade in almost every case, as Sony is replacing the 12 megapixel 1/3.5 inch sensor with a 48 MP f/1.56 inch sensor - the sensor is therefore around four times as large and offers four times the resolution.
In combination with 2x digital zoom, the Xperia 1 VIII thus achieves a resolution of 12 MP on a section of the sensor that is roughly equivalent to the entire sensor of the telephoto camera of the predecessor model. Even if the new telephoto lens is not brighter, the new tele camera should record better photos and videos in the 70 - 139 mm range than the Xperia 1 VII; the new model is only inferior on paper in the 141 - 170 mm range.
Nevertheless, this development is a disappointment for the smartphone market. This is because Sony's flagship smartphone loses a unique selling point, while the new telephoto camera cannot keep up with the zoom factor, resolution or sensor size of the telephoto cameras of flagships such as the Vivo X300 Ultra. The fact that Sony has decided to follow the path of the competition instead of further developing the innovative zoom camera is a bitter blow for the smartphone market, which already tends to see smartphones from different manufacturers becoming increasingly similar.
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