Sony Xperia 1 III Review | Best Niche Smartphone of 2021?

So this right here is the Sony Xperia 1 Mark III, one of the biggest—or certainly the tallest—smartphones of 2021. It's coming to the UK on August the 19th, so still a little while to wait for the bowel-emptying price of £1,200. I've had it tucked into my pants for the last week and a half, testing it out as my full-time phone. So, is this fresh new Sony flagship smartphone worth remortgaging your house or selling your firstborn over? Well, here's my in-depth Sony Xperia 1 Mark III review.

Design & Build

First up, we shouldn't need to linger too long on the design side of things, as not much has changed up here from previous Xperia flagships. You've got yourself a glossy 6.5-inch beastie that literally stands tall against its rivals, and it looks really slick as well—as long as you're not after a screen that curves around every single edge because for some reason you hate bezels with a passion.

As a big fan of eggplants, I'd rather have had the purple effort myself, but the black Xperia 1 Mark III is smart and sleek as well, while the matte finish means few troubles with finger smears when your filthy hands have been all over it. The Xperia 1 Mark III is very comfortable to clutch and 100% usable, thankfully, as you can quickly shrink down that screen if needed, although stubby-fingered peeps will probably be happier with something like the Pixel 5.

You've got Gorilla Glass Victus slathered all across that display, and I've got to say I'm a little bit suspicious of Victus after my recent exploits with the Samsung Galaxy S21. Victus is supposed to be highly drop-resistant but also still scratch-resistant like previous versions, but the S21 after just a few months is absolutely coated in scratches. Touch wood, thankfully that hasn't been the case here on the Xperia 1 Mark III, although it has only been a matter of days—no nicks or scuffs to speak of yet. Will that be the case in a few months, or will it go the way of the S21? Only time will tell.

That rear end is protected with Gorilla Glass 6, so again, so far no scratches, and the whole thing is IP68 water- and dust-resistant, so the Xperia 1 Mark III seems like a safe option if you're a bit cack-handed.

Software & UI

Any Sony smartphone fan won't just feel cosily right at home thanks to the design, but also the software experience is very familiar indeed as well. Android 11 is lovingly caressed by the Xperia UI, which adds an appealing aesthetic and adds features that make the most of that 21:9 display, such as an excellent split-screen shortcut tool.

The downsides are pretty much the same as usual as well. There's no face-unlock support here, but that's less awkward in plague world anyway, and thankfully the fingerprint sensor is perfectly responsive and only really fails when your hands are slathered in sanitizer or whatever.

However, Sony is getting into the slightly annoying habit of adding a dedicated Google Assistant button to all of its smartphones recently, so this right edge is absolutely cluttered full of stuff. Not only is it completely pointless, but it can't be remapped to any other feature or shortcut, which is definitely irritating. It is at least indented, so you won't find yourself knocking it by accident.

Also, once again, Facebook and LinkedIn come pre-installed and can't be easily removed—you're pretty much stuck with them. It's kind of like buying yourself a posh, expensive countryside manor and then discovering that Nigel Farage is already living in one of the bedrooms, and not only that, but he's actually chained himself to the radiator.

More importantly, though, Sony hasn't actually guaranteed a set number of years of security updates and OS updates for the Xperia 1 Mark III, which is a massive shame considering it is a flagship device that costs a fair bit of cash. You'll probably want to hang on to it for at least two or three years, and that's the kind of promise that the likes of OnePlus and Samsung and some other rivals do make. So if you want that extra peace of mind, you might want to look elsewhere. But hopefully, because Sony only releases a small number of smartphones each year, touch wood, the Xperia 1 Mark III will still be getting some love in two, three years' time.

Bitching aside, though, I did enjoy the UI here, and you get plenty of storage as well—256 or 512 gigs—plus microSD support, and that memory-card support is something that a lot of Sony's rivals have killed off, especially for their flagship devices, so it's great to see Sony clinging on to that feature at least.

Display & Media

The media chops of the Xperia 1 Mark III are as strong as usual, and that's not just because of the 6.5-inch 4K OLED display—although that definitely helps. You've got that cinematic 21:9 finish, which is a bit annoying when you're getting stuck into the classics, but effing marvellous for movies on the move. Visuals can be either lush or natural; whites are perfectly crisp, contrast is sharp, and you've got Sony's usual software enhancements for upscaling any crappy old content and adjusting the output so film looks just as the director intended.

Where supported, it's not an essential feature by any means, but it could be interesting for any cinephiles out there. It's not quite a perfect display, however. For instance, I noticed sometimes, when browsing on the phone late at night with the screen brightness on the minimum level, there was a greeny tint to proceedings, which is a problem that has affected some OLED panels in the past from the likes of OnePlus. I did see it on the Xperia 10 Mark III as well, though that was a more extreme case. Fingers crossed that's just a problem with this early review model and you won't see that in the final retail model.

I've definitely noticed a problem with screen responsiveness on this generation of Sony smartphones as well. Sometimes a tap will register as a swipe if you move your fingertip just a fraction of a millimetre before lifting it. So if you don't have the super-steady hands of a surgeon, then you might notice that that's a bit of an issue—that's one thing, an occasional sort of irksome thing for me, though.

At least you do get the 120 Hz refresh here on the Xperia 1 Mark III, which is a feature that was missing from last year's flagship smartphone, which was a massive shame, so it makes everything just buttery smooth—absolutely gorgeous, stunning stuff.

Audio

The Xperia 1 Mark III comes packing a stereo-speaker setup as usual, now with 40% louder and richer bass than last year's model, and they certainly do impress, although I'm still not convinced by Sony's claim that they can recreate 360 Reality Audio. You've also got full support for Dolby Atmos plus high-res audio, which you can fully enjoy thanks to the ruddy lovely bit of headphone-jack action. Streaming a bit of high-fidelity audio via Tidal—absolute bliss. You can hear every single little detail going on with a decent pair of headphones, so definitely highly recommended for music fans.

If you do want to stream wirelessly, no worries there, because you've got that Sony LDAC action on board as well, so even in packed event spaces like Wimbledon—absolutely flawless performance, and that's helped by the fact that you can actually scale the audio performance in order to keep the connection stable.

Performance & Gaming

If you're all about performance, well, the Xperia 1 Mark III absolutely shifts power thanks to the Snapdragon 888 chipset packed inside, and that's backed by a generous 12 GB of RAM. I did notice this smartphone definitely gets a little bit toasty at times, especially when you're using the camera a lot or when you're doing a bit of gaming, but nothing too troublesome—I'm not talking like burning your fingertips or roasting your chestnuts.

Sony's Game Enhancer dashboard is back as well, now with all-new features. My favourite is definitely the low-gamma raiser, which helps you to see those dirty sneaky buggers lurking in the dark, ready to pounce out and punch you in the kidneys. If you'd like to record and upload your gaming exploits online as well, you'll love the video-recording updates here, including the ability to record in HD resolution at 120 frames per second and also the time-rewind feature, which buffers 30 seconds of footage in the background.

The gaming experience isn't quite perfect, unfortunately, because you do get some overheating and what appears to be a bit of throttling when playing the likes of Genshin Impact on those top-detail settings. Still a great experience, though—you've got that lovely flat display, you've got the gaming tools and everything—but of course, then there are also the screen-sensitivity issues, which meant that when I was playing Genshin, I couldn't quite swap my characters fast enough at times because it just wasn't registering. So yeah, the Xperia 1 Mark III is definitely a mixed bag for the overall gaming experience, especially if you're into your proper hardcore stuff, but I still enjoyed having a bit of a blast on Genshin just for 20 minutes or so here and there when I actually had a rare bit of spare time.

Battery Life

Now, Sony has managed to cram a bigger battery into the Xperia 1 Mark III flagship compared with previous generations of flagships. Unfortunately, I did still often find that I was running on dregs come the evening time. I found that was especially the case if I'd been using the camera a fair bit during the day, so definitely in the evenings I finally usually had to be quite conservative with my screen-on time—not picking it up and checking my messages and stuff too often. Overall, not terrible, not as bad as something like the ZenFone, for instance, and probably comparable to the likes of the Pixels.

You've got support for 30 W wired charging—not the fastest around, but certainly not lethargic slow-ass either—and you've got wireless-charging support as well, plus that adaptive-battery tech. So I generally would stick it on my wireless-charging pad; it would trickle-charge up to the point where I generally leapt out of bed in the morning all full of gusto and joy and hopes and dreams, and hopefully that means in the long term no battery damage.

Cameras

Let's finish with the optics, and Sony Mobile has once again teamed up with Zeiss and its own Alpha camera division for the Xperia 1 Mark III's camera tech. The hardware once again comprises three separate 12-megapixel lenses plus the time-of-flight lens for those ultra-fast-focus chops.

I really like how, on the Xperia 1 Mark III, Sony has unified the standard camera app and the Photo Pro app as well. It's not just a single tap—you're straight into your auto mode basically—but with the tap up here you can swipe along and you've got all the different program modes, so you can have a good old tinker around with manual controls.

At times I've found that I do get more aesthetically pleasing results with rivals like Samsung's Galaxy S21 and Oppo's Find X3 Pro, for instance. The Xperia 1 Mark III can't quite handle high contrast as well, with colour saturation creeping in during brighter moments. This can be tempered with those manual controls, of course, although this often does mean a slight sacrifice in detail levels.

But on full auto, the Xperia is certainly capable of producing gorgeous pics, making the most of naturally vibrant subjects by realistically reproducing those colours. Even without using the portrait mode, you can get some beautiful bokeh-style action, while detail levels are definitely fine enough to blow these buggers right up. I also liked the look of my indoor and ambient snaps as well, which were bright and sharp.

One of the best bits is the burst shooting is once again supported at 20 frames per second with full autofocus and auto-exposure action, and factor in the impressive eye autofocus and the Xperia 1 Mark III is one of the best camera phones for capturing live subjects at play. Stick on the continuous shooting on shutter-priority mode and you're guaranteed to get some great-looking action snaps.

If you tinker with the other program modes, you can completely change the vibe of your shot as well, which proves especially useful in softer and more challenging light. You still don't get a dedicated night mode, but the Xperia 1 impressed me in the dark even with the auto mode—what you get is something close to what you'll see with the naked eye.

The Xperia 1 Mark III's ultra-wide-angle lens can be swapped to when using full auto or manual modes, and it doesn't mess much with the natural colour reproduction—a problem that does plague most rivals—although you will get some distortion as you near the edges of the frame.

Last up, the telephoto lens can swap between two different focal lengths to suit your scene, and you'll once again get a crisp, natural finish, this time at a distance. Yes, it's nowhere near as space-zoomy, but I definitely found it did the job when needed.

Video

I definitely enjoyed using the Xperia 1 Mark III to shoot video as well. You can grab some really slick-looking 4K clips again with those natural-looking hues and good contrast, even without having to switch on the HDR mode—although that does help at times. You get the odd spot of saturation here and there on a sunshiny day, but nothing too bad. Meanwhile, Sony's usual dependable image stabilisation means that you can move and shoot without vomit-inducing results.

One of my only real complaints is that you can't swap on the fly between the three different lenses as you're shooting—you will need to hit stop and then change to a different lens and then hit record again if you want a different view of the action. Audio is clearly captured too, only distorted when things get proper rowdy, and there isn't much in the way of wind interference.

Sony's strange-but-addictive Cinema Pro mode is back as well, although it's still a separate app, and once again this allows you to shoot 21:9 cinematic footage with a variety of filters and full manual control. You can really change the mood of a scene with a couple of taps—brilliant stuff if you want your home movies to look like they're directed by David Lynch or something.

Selfie Camera

Then there's the 8-megapixel selfie cam, which is pretty basic for a premium handset. It struggles in stronger and also weaker light; you've got a screen-flash feature, but it just makes you look as orange as the cast of TOWIE, and definitely don't expect much in the way of finer detail—and that's all right by me if you're a crinkly-faced old git like I am.

Verdict

Sorry, there's my full, final, frank Sony Xperia 1 Mark III review, and I did really enjoy using it as my handset for the last week and a bit, but it definitely does have its issues—unfortunately, some slight screen-responsiveness problems going on, that green tint, and a few other little bugbears here and there.

But of course, the big stumbling block here is the price, which means that the Sony Xperia 1 Mark III is essentially only going to really appeal to a very niche set of fans—basically, those who want a much deeper media or camera experience. Everyone else will be very well served by smartphones half the price of the Xperia 1 Mark III, and if you're still after one of the best camera phones around, well, just look no further than the Pixel, which of course doesn't have anywhere near the depth of the Xperia 1 Mark III's camera, but it can just spit out really good-looking photos with the tap of a button.