Today (May 13), SONY officially released the Xperia 1 VIII flagship mobile phone in Hong Kong. It goes on sale at an entry price of $12,099, which is a sharp increase to $1,900 compared to last year’s Xperia 1 VII’s starting price of HK$10,199. However, it features a new appearance design and more pre-loaded AI applications.
The main photography function of Xperia 1 VIII has replaced the standard zoom telephoto lens with a three-camera module consisting of a 48MP F1.9 24mm ZEISS T* primary lens, a 48MP 16mm wide-angle lens and a 48MP 70mm macro telephoto lens.
Among them, the 4cm macro of the previous generation has also been removed and replaced with a more flexible full-lens full-focus 15cm macro for photo and video shooting; in addition, the day portrait mode adds a Bokeh bokeh button to the composition screen, and the background blur effect is obvious in real shots.
▲ Xperia 1 VIII portrait bokeh test shot (click on the image to enlarge)
Xperia 1 VIII’s native camera interface AI-assisted composition will be displayed in real-time in a sub-window. You can directly select different filters and even different focal length shooting suggestions when shooting, greatly simplifying the operation and application.
In terms of specifications, the Xperia 1 VIII uses the S8E Gen5 chip, retains the same 6.5-inch FHD+ 120Hz OLED and 5,000mAh battery, and removes the dual SIM card slot to replace it with a single SIM with MicroSD and built-in eSIM.
The Xperia 1 VIII Hong Kong version is available in four colors: garnet red, obsidian, cordierite and natural gold, priced at $12,099 (256GB), $12,899 (512GB) and $15,899 (1TB, Sony Store only) respectively.
The 1TB version is only available in natural gold color. The Xperia 1 VIII will be available for pre-sale from now until May 19th, and will be officially launched on May 20th (next Wednesday).
Pre-sale discounts include a case with stand (worth $290), a choice of WF-1000XM6 true wireless earphones (worth $2,599) for $799 or a $1,000 supermarket cash voucher, and a $500 discount for existing Xperia customers.
Mobile Magazine’s short comment: This time, the Xperia 1 VIII’s opening price has increased by nearly HK$2,000 compared to the previous generation. It has also replaced the signature zoom lens, redesigned the appearance and upgraded the hardware. Fans will pay more attention to the replacement than the previous generation.
Source: SONY (Hong Kong)
