Sony Unveils Xperia 1 VII, A Sexy Slim Android With Flagship Specs And Multi-Day Battery Life
Sony's mobile business is somehow still hanging in there despite not struggling in sales and being not as popular as its South Korean, Chinese, and American competitors, by quite a margin in both cases. For 2025, the Japanese electronics giant has announced the Xperia 1 VII—a flagship that brings together the company's own take on imaging, design, usability, and hardware. Can it succeed despite the monstrous asking price? Come on Sony, we know that high MSRPs are traditionally expected for your phones, but $1,700 is ridiculous territory.
So yes, if you can get past the eye-watering, wallet-denting price, the Xperia 1 VII is actually quite the piece of kit. On the outside, the phone refines the design of the previous generation (some might call it boring, we call it Samsung-like), although there ARE slight dimension differences. Where the Xperia 1 VI measured 161.9 x 74.0 x 8.2 millimeters, the VII comes in at 161.9 x 74.5 x 8.5 mm.
The internals are where the most changes are found, however. Befitting a flagship device, the VII is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor paired with a single 12GB RAM and 256GB storage configuration. Where most premium phones have shunned expandable storage, Sony offers up to 2TB of microSD expansion.
For the VII, Sony leveraged help from some of its other divisions, such as Alpha for the cameras, Bravia for the display, and (new for this year) Walkman for audio. For the cameras, the main and telephoto hardware haven't changed all that much, except for the ultrawide, which gains a much larger 48-megapixel sensor. One of Alpha's contributions to the mix is auto-framing mode (in video) that auto-detects people and keeps them centered in frame. The camera crops in the image and drop resolution to 1080p to achieve the effect, however.
Like Samsung screens, Sony's Bravia team know a thing or two about tuning displays. In this case, the VII's 6.5-inch 120Hz OLED panel gets multiple ambient light sensors in the front AND back of the phone to better assess and adjust panel brightness, colors, and so on.
For audio, the VII supports higher quality processing/codecs like Sony's DSEE (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine), LDAC, and Dolby Atmos. The Walkman division helped develop the audio circuitry and signal pathways while also insisting on gold soldering for the 3.5 mm headphone port.
Despite the audio port, the phone is certified for IP65/68 dust-water resistance.
Historically, Sony flagships have been considered overpriced and the VII unfortunately doesn't buck that trend. It's currently available for $1,700 in the Japanese, UK, and European markets (Sony hasn't officially said whether it'll sell the phone in the U.S.).
