The Sony Xperia 1 VII is the throwback flagship I didn’t want to put down

Introduction

There was a point in early 2025 where I wondered whether Sony’s mobile division was doing the whole “quiet quitting” thing. While I routinely rated its flagships up there with the best smartphones, it had been awful quiet about a new one. I needn’t have worried. The Xperia 1 VII is here, and Sony’s unwavering commitment to doing things its own way remains intact.

It brings back signature tech tricks from the Xperia 1 VI, like the continuous zoom telephoto camera. Of course the headphone port and microSD card slot haven’t gone anywhere. And naturally it’s packing the latest Snapdragon silicon. There have also been some worthwhile upgrades to the ultrawide snapper, and screen brightness has received a welcome boost.

Will keeping its long-time fans happy stop Sony from winning many new ones, though? At £1399/€1499 (and no US launch in sight), the Xperia 1 VII could be a tough sell compared to more mainstream flagships. Is there enough here for anyone outside the content creator bubble Sony has curated for itself?

Design & build: long-lasting legacy

Has any other phone firm stayed committed to a single design for so long? Sony’s Xperias have been set in their ways for over a decade now, with only minor iterations to its monolithic appearance. This latest effort looks an awful lot like the last one: tall and skinny, with a squared-off frame, flat glass up front, and textured glass around back.

OK, the frame isn’t as bevelled as it used to be, you can have one in Orchid Purple now – though I’m betting the Slate Black and Moss Green versions sell better – and the rear cameras have shuffled about a bit to move the flash closer to the zoom lens. But you’d need both phones side-by-side to spot the difference.

That means Sony’s convenient tool-free SIM tray returns, and it can still swallow a microSD card for when you fill the 256GB of on-board storage. There’s still a 3.5mm headphone port up top (because some people still prefer wired listening). And there’s a physical camera shutter button at the side – which crucially is in a comfortable position when holding the phone in landscape. Sony hasn’t crammed it full of touch-sensitive tech to compete with Apple’s better-late-than-never Camera Control, either – just made it a little bigger, and the half-press to focus action a little more pronounced.

I’ve personally never tried to steam clean a phone, so not having an IPX9 rating like the recent influx of Chinese flagships isn’t a big deal to me. You get IP68 protection here, which means accidental sinking and submersion is no cause for concern.

It’s as palm-friendly as the outgoing Xperia 1 VI, being just as thin (8.2mm) and light (192g). Sure, it’s more of a handful than Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge, which is absurdly light for its size – but less so than either the Google Pixel 9 XL or Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Those phones don’t have thick top and bottom screen bezels, though. And they’ve got more modern biometrics than the Xperia’s side-mounted fingerprint scanner. It’s accurate enough and lefties won’t struggle to reach it, but it feels decidedly old hat compared with an under-screen sensor or secure face unlocking. If you’re a fan of the styling you’ll be happy Sony hasn’t stirred the pot; if you were hoping for a more modern twist on the old recipe, you’ll be a little disappointed.

Screen & sound: see the light?

After last year’s Xperia 1 VI finally stopped trying to make 4K on phones a thing and adopted a more widely-used aspect ratio, Sony really didn’t have to do a lot to keep the 6.5in OLED display current for 2025. The slightly thicker top and bottom bezels might look a little out of date compared to rivals that fill the entire front face with screen, but the way they avoid a distracting punch-hole for the selfie camera will surely still please gamers and on-the-go streaming service bingers.

Rivals with 2.5K resolutions might look sharper under a magnifying glass, but I had no issues with the 2340×1080 panel used here. Images and text look perfectly crisp, and the internal hardware isn’t put under too much strain when gaming. The adaptive 120Hz refresh rate kicks in quickly when scrolling, and dials back for static content to preserve battery life.

Bravia’s image processing tech has been used again to help deliver convincing colours, near-perfect blacks, and outstanding contrast. HDR content looks properly impactful, and viewing angles are superb. Catching up on my Disney+ Watch list on a morning commute was a pleasure with this phone.

The biggest upgrade is to brightness – Sony claims a 20% brightness boost over the previous generation, which itself was a whopping 50% brighter than the one before it when in direct sunlight. The Xperia 1 VII is definitely more legible under sunny skies, so I didn’t have to take off my sunglasses to read incoming notifications, though it’s far from the class best. I put it behind Apple and Google for outdoor visibility.

It’s great to see Sony still flying the flag for front-facing speakers, when just about every other brand has given up on them. The Xperia 1 VII delivers a convincing stereo sound, with better balance than you’ll find from most rivals with down-firing drivers. The top speaker always plays the left channel, so you’ve got to hold the phone a particular way in landscape for a convincing stereo effect. There are louder phones than this, and ones with more low-end presence, but few can match its clear delivery.

You still get a 3.5mm headphone port for personal listening, too. Sony has overhauled the circuitry with gold- and copper-plated resistors, and higher quality solder than the previous generation. It’ll be a major selling point for anyone currently carrying around a digital audio player in addition to their smartphone.

Cameras: wider appeal

Sony has kept two of the Xperia 1 VII’s rear snapper trio unchanged from the previous generation. A 52MP Exmor T for Mobile main sensor still leads the way, with a 24mm focal length, 48MP effective resolution, and a stacked sensor for better low-light shooting.

The unique 12MP continuous zoom telephoto also returns, letting you stretch between 3.5x and 7.1x (or 85mm to 170mm in photography terms) without any unsightly jumping between lenses when filming video, as you’ll get with pretty much every other smartphone. Digital zoom still tops out at a semi-realistic 21x, avoiding the over-processed (or AI generated) rubbish some phones offer up.

It’s the ultrawide – often the least appreciated lens – that has been given the upgrade treatment. The 1/1.56in sensor is physically twice the size of the one seen on the last-gen phone, and the 48MP pixel count is a big step up too. The 16mm focal length might be narrower than before, but it leaves room for the optics to dial out any distortion, rather than rely on digital processing.

Everything is handled through the one camera app now; Sony ditched the confusing multiple app approach last year, making Pro Photo and Pro Video part of the mode wheel instead. The UI is unchanged and borrows a lot from the firm’s alpha camera division, including the green focus highlighter and eye tracking autofocus indicator. Two AI-powered video recording modes – AI Camera Work and Auto Framing – are new for 2025, using object recognition to keep your subject framed even if you’re moving about. Otherwise Sony’s image processing is more hands-off than most rivals – albeit with a little more assistance than previous years for those who prefer to point-and-shoot.

In daylight conditions, the Xperia 1 VII delivers wonderfully contrast-heavy shots that are packed with detail. Exposure was almost always spot-on and there’s plenty of dynamic range on show. Noise is nonexistent and finer textures are preserved, even at a distance.

I’m a big fan of how this phone preserves shadows and darker parts of a scene, making it feel more true-to-life than devices that artificially lighten dimmer parts in order to avoid blowing out highlights. HDR is generally very well judged, but if you find the more naturalistic approach a little lacking there are a bunch of creative filters that can make your snaps seem more vibrant. I in no way felt forced to reach for the manual mode to get the best results, as was the case with older models – though it’s still there, and as fully-featured as ever. Burst shooting for fast-moving subjects remains a highlight.

Close-ups give a convincing natural depth blur, if not quite to the extent of rivals with 1in sensors. The Bokeh mode is rather aggressive by default, so I quickly lowered the strength of the effect for cleaner portraits. The telemacro zoom lets you get impressively close to your subjects, but you’re forced to focus manually, which can be tricky.

There’s real consistency between the three lenses on colour, contrast and exposure. It’s sharpness where the zoom lens shows its only real weakness: things hold up well enough at 3.5x but there’s a definite softness to stills at the maximum 7.1x that rivals with fixed focal lengths manage to avoid. I’d sooner reach for a Vivo X200 Pro or Oppo Find X8 Pro if zoomed-in stills were a priority. The pixel count just can’t keep up here in comparison.

If you’re a fan of ultrawide photography, you could argue the new 16mm snapper makes up for any zoom shortcomings. It’s almost the star of the show, with loads of dynamic range, excellent exposure balance, convincing colours and lots of resolved detail. That’s true at night as well: Sony’s processing again leans more true-to-life, avoiding artificially brightening the scene yet keeping noise to a minimum.

There’s not much in the way of image editing tools, beyond the ones built into Google Photos; Sony hasn’t added its own generative AI image expansion or object erasing. If you consider those must-haves now, you’ll feel like the Xperia is a little lacking. It’s still a great cameraphone overall, just a step behind the class best.

Software experience: familiar features

It might be running a newer version of Android, but the Xperia 1 VII doesn’t feel dramatically different from its predecessor. Sony has stayed characteristically hands-off with the styling tweaks, so everything feels pretty vanilla compared to other Android skins. The Quick Settings menu’s square icons are the biggest standout.

That means familiar features like the pop-out dashboard return, making split-screen multitasking an absolute breeze by swiping in from the side of the screen. Being able to save pairs of apps is a real time-saver, too.

A fair few Sony apps come pre-installed, including some that are only really useful if you own a Sony digital camera or Sony headphones. None try to replicate Google’s defaults, though, which is nice to see. I wouldn’t call any of it bloat. Aside from the frame rate-boosting Game Enhancer and PlayStation companion app, the majority are aimed at creators. Video Creator and Music Pro are both fully-featured, with the latter using cloud processing to clean up your recordings.

Sony has committed to four new Android versions and six years of security patches, which is decent (but not class-leading) long-term support. Samsung and Google remain the better choices if you plan on keeping your handset for five years or longer.

If the way those firms have gone all-in on AI is a turn-off, however, you’ll feel right at home here. Sony has skipped out on the generative image edits, audio transcription and foreign translation that others are making a big singsong about.

Performance & battery life: plenty powerful

It’ll hardly come as a shock that Sony has equipped its new flagship with Qualcomm’s most potent processor. A Snapdragon 8 Elite and12GB of RAM put the Xperia 1 VII on par with the rest of 2025’s top-tier phones, with exactly the sort of real-world performance you’d expect. Android is perfectly responsive, with apps that open in a flash and animations that are always buttery smooth.

Interestingly synthetic tests put it lower down the rankings than I expected, but only just. Possibly Sony has continued to play things safe with clock speeds and temperatures, following the overheating issues prevalent on Xperia 1 handsets at the start of the decade. You’re still getting flagship levels of performance, as the results below show.

A large vapour chamber cooling system meant the phone never got uncomfortably warm, and I was able to record 4K video continuously for over half an hour without any issue. Gaming was equally trouble-free, with demanding titles able to sit consistently at 60fps.

I was pretty happy with how long the Xperia 1 VII lasted away from the mains, too. It easily lasted a full day of heavy use while connected to Wi-Fi, and with more moderate use a day out of the office on 5G wasn’t a struggle either. Both times I made it to bedtime without reaching for the Battery Saver mode. That said, I did need to plug in fairly early the next morning. That’s a decent showing compared with Samsung and Google’s best efforts, but the current crop of Chinese flagships and their silicon-carbon battery chemistry last even longer. The 5000mAh cell used here is now only average.

It’s not like Sony has stepped up on charging speeds, either: 30W over USB-C or 15W wirelessly is as good as it gets here, and Qi2 magnetic charging hasn’t made the grade. That means an hour and a half wait for a complete empty-to-full top-up.

Sony Xperia 1 VII verdict

By religiously sticking to its guns, Sony has guaranteed Xperia die-hards will feel right at home here. The Xperia 1 VII is another creator-first phone with ample performance, a gorgeous screen, and features you just don’t see on rival flagships anymore, like expandable storage and a 3.5mm headphone port.

No rival does ultrawide photography quite as well as this, and its lead lens takes equally dynamic shots – whether you reach for the Pro settings or not. Mobile movie makers will appreciate the variable zoom telephoto, too, but it’s a shame stills sharpness now lags behind the very best cameraphones.

As a long-time Xperia fan I really enjoyed my time with it, but equally I don’t think the 1 VII will win over many new fans. Battery life is simply great now, rather than class-leading; the styling shows its age (even if the screen bezels are a necessary evil to preserve the front-facing stereo speakers); and it’s undeniably expensive. When there are multiple well-rounded rivals available for less, it’s an even tougher sell than previous generations were.

Hopefully there’s enough of an established audience left to keep Sony in the game for another generation.

Sony Xperia 1 VII technical specifications