I want to like the Xperia 1 VIII, but Sony keeps ignoring its biggest issues

I’ve long had a love-hate relationship with Sony’s Xperia range, which has often left me conflicted about the series. On one hand, it’s arguably the best high-end multimedia phone money can buy, packing hi-res audio over wired and wireless connections, unmatched video playback options, and still supporting microSD storage for a massive on-device media library. In a market obsessed with removing features, Sony continues to make phones for enthusiasts who actually care about media.

But the Xperia lineup has spent years struggling with the basics, too. Charging is slow, thermals are inconsistent, and battery life is only decent rather than class-leading. Despite Sony’s Alpha branding, the cameras often feel underpowered compared to rival flagships. Sony wants the Xperia to be the ultimate creator flagship, but it still feels like it’s primarily designed for Sony fanatics.

This tension continues with the new Sony Xperia 1 VIII. Although Sony has made some smart upgrades, I’m not sure the company is addressing the series’ biggest problem: workflow.

The Xperia 1 VIII suffers from the same problem that plagues many modern flagships – much of the hardware feels repetitive. Sony is once again working with a 5,000mAh battery, which can still comfortably last a whole day and possibly up to two days with light usage. But once you start using the phone for its intended purpose – long-term video recording, editing and media capture – the battery life will undoubtedly drain faster. Competitors are now moving forward with silicon-carbon capacities in excess of 7,000mAh, making Sony’s approach increasingly conservative.

The charging status doesn’t help either. Sony was keen to emphasize long-term battery health, claiming a healthy battery life span of up to four years, but this also serves as a justification for retaining 30W wired charging. Last year’s model took about 83 minutes to fully charge, which feels pretty slow in a 2026. It’s hard to ignore a phone built for creators who may need a quick charge between shoots or while traveling.

Cameras tell a similar story. The ultrawide, main and selfie cameras are largely unchanged from the previous generation, and while they’re perfectly capable, they didn’t impress me at all at first. HDR performance can be inconsistent, zoom shots often look overly soft, and the front camera struggles, especially in low light. Meanwhile, competitors are increasingly closing the gap between smartphone and mirrorless camera quality with larger sensors and smarter computational photography.

To Sony’s credit, the revised telephoto camera actually seems to be a worthwhile improvement. Moving away from the old variable zoom lens may seem controversial on paper, but replacing the smaller 12MP 1/3.5-inch sensor with a much larger 50MP 1/1.56-inch sensor should improve image quality dramatically. Better dynamic range, lower noise, and stronger low-light performance are worthwhile trade-offs, even if the optical zoom range changes slightly.

Sony also says the new setup supports RAW multi-frame processing for better HDR and noise reduction, while software Bokeh edge detection has also apparently been refined – another sore point for previous Xperia cameras. These are all promising changes, but they still feel like improvements on the existing formula rather than a huge leap forward.

And ultimately this is the problem. Xperia continues to focus heavily on enthusiast hardware, while much of the modern manufacturer space has shifted toward frictionless workflows.

An entire generation of creators are happily shooting on iPhones with objectively less ambitious hardware because Apple offers a broader experience: reliable video quality, consistent app customization, seamless file sharing via AirDrop, and a tightly integrated ecosystem that makes content production easier. Sony still approaches mobile manufacturing like a camera company, while Apple has made content capture modern and accessible.

Sony has made progress here. Streaming support over YouTube and RTMP is useful, and its camera and video applications continue to improve. But the Xperia still lacks the seamless ecosystem integration and manufacturer-first software experience that many modern users actually prefer. The hardware may appeal to enthusiasts who enjoy manual controls and the art of videography, but it doesn’t help you deliver your content any better than any other phone.

Pricing only makes Xperia’s situation more difficult. Starting at £1,399 / €1,499, the Xperia 1 VIII enters direct competition with ultra-premium rivals like the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and Xiaomi 17 Ultra, both of which pair larger batteries with more aggressive camera hardware.

None of this makes the Xperia 1 VIII a bad phone. Far away from. Sony still offers many of the features competitors abandoned years ago, including expandable storage and a 3.5mm headphone jack, Gorilla Glass Victus 2, IP65/68 protection, and a relatively clean software experience free of excessive AI gimmicks. In many ways, the Xperia is refreshingly focused, and I still love the series for that. But beyond the current Sony, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to figure out who these phones are actually for.

The Xperia 1 VIII feels stuck between eras. It’s still sticking to the spirited ideas that longtime fans love, yet it’s not working hard enough in other areas to establish itself as the pinnacle of modern smartphone hardware or creator tooling. You’ll find bigger batteries, faster charging, and more advanced camera systems elsewhere, while Apple and other manufacturers continue to dominate the ecosystem experience.

So I’m still on the fence about the Xperia. It’s no relic, and there’s still something really charming about Sony’s refusal to completely follow the crowd. I’m glad the Xperia still exists, and it’s great to see Sony at least trying something with a new look. But I’m also not sure the Xperia 1 VIII is good enough to attract new fans beyond the existing fanatics. I hope I’m wrong.