Sony Xperia smartphones look so good on paper. So why is it that we don’t recommend them? Here’s our answer to that and a brief 2023 review of the Sony Xperia 1 IV.
Poor updates (policy), overpriced for the specs. I mean, 400-500 for a phone with a SD695 and 60hrz? Come on… Such a shame, because they are the only ones with a screen without a punchhole/camera cutout…
And they quit making the compact. I rocked 3 or 4 new old stock Xperia xz1 for YEARS. Smallest phones I could get at the time. Now I’m doing the same thing with the s10e which I still feel is too big.
Yes. I loved the compact! Small size is still a major criteria when I look at phones, but they’re unfortunately just getting bigger and bigger… Plus, yeah they were sorta expensive, but super solid. Would buy again anytime.
Why People Arent Buying Sony Xperia Phones
because they are fucking expensive
how much of that is due to people actually being able to actually buy a s24, or because that just what happens to be their phone carrier’s option? when selling phone it’s extremely important distinction, most people can get their phones “significantly cheaper” so to speak, via their carrier.
As an ex cellphone salesman I have never seen any carriers here in canada selling phones in like, pretty much the last decade almost now. Canadian here. Rodgers, Bell, Koodo, Fido, off the top of my head, none sell sony phones.
Now I did often try to sell cellphones to folk out right since IMO it’s far better to own the device and pay for a cheap plan, but to do that, phones need to actually be affordable.
What, because you can use them with one hand? As opposed to all the fat bricks out there?
Yeah and you can read 2 pages of an ebook on the same screen, they fit one on top of the other lengthwise. A win-win situation! Definitely worth the premium price now that you said it. Anyway, good luck reaching the top part of the screen with your stubby thumb without using the other hand on that land strip type of a form factor.
2 Years of updates was my reason. Samsung is up to 7,Apple is about 5 or 6 and Google is 7 years.
Note this is based off of my memory so I could be wrong.
Have Samsung & Google actually delivered 7 years yet - or is that still just a promise on paper to continue supporting existing products?
Apple for all its faults has at least delivered on this premise.
Samsung made that promise last year and limited to the higher-end lineups, I believe.
Google still update their pixel 6 phones from years ago (not sure about the pixel 5 or below).
Apple is a complete different story since they owned the entire ecosystems and keeps making money from the devices being in use.
Pixel 6 came only came out near the end of 2021, I would hope all companies support phones for more than 3 years, but maybe I’m too optimistic.
It would be more realistic if they made batteries easily swappable. If I could just pop off the back of the phone and swap a battery in 20 seconds I’d keep that phone forever.
No entry level options, relatively lower specs for the price asked, mediocre software support. That being said, they are one of the few OEMs in their price segment to still offer headphone jacks.
Yeah headphone jack is a nice bonus, my only method of playing audio from my phone in the car is the aux cable
I got an Xperia 5 IV very recently when my Galaxy S7 died. Been happy with it. Smallest phone I could find with an SD card slot, and while it’s still larger than my old phone, the screen is the same width, just taller. Overpriced? Probably a bit. In the end though, I like it.
The size is why I keep them in the back of my head. Because when my Pixel 4a dies I’m kinda screwed with how humongous (what?) all those phones nowadays are.
