The most PRO phone money can buy.

we've seen a lot of pro phones over the years flagships like the Google pixel 6 Pro the iPhone 13 Pro the xiaomi Mi 11 Pro but even budget phones redmi Note 10 Pro poko X3 Pro realme 8 Pro if I had to guess I would say 50 of smartphones on the market have a pro version but not a single one of them is as Pro is this right here this is the Sony Xperia Pro I I being for Imaging because they want this to be the best camera ever on a smartphone it has printed no plastic in packaging which is usually just a politically correct way of saying no charger but if we open the box well that was tighter than expected we do have one here it's a 30 watt reasonably powerful adapter and there's a USBC cable followed by the phone okay I'll steal the question from your head it's only been a few years since normal smartphones hits the 1 000 Mark what on Earth could this thing possibly do that would justify 1800 well as it turns out I'm kind of surprised by how much and just to give you an idea every single shot in this video that's not from this main camera will be taken on this phone specifically there are five things that this Pro eye does that put it in a different category even arguably above the ultra phones of this world number five is actually the design and I'll admit I started off with rather mixed opinions about the rather obtuse looking camera system the slight rattle when you tap the bottom and the sheer Lack of Color on this thing but the more I've used it the more impressed I become how it's also distinctly function over form you've got a matte finish on the back low maintenance and these ridged rails going all the way around the sides I wouldn't say they're particularly pretty but they do make the phone tremendously grippable and probably as an unintentional consequence they also allow it to stand up on three of its four sides this might look like a similar shape to the latest iPhones which I mean I've straight up said had a poor in hand feel but in reality the combination of this being a much narrower phone with the slight tapering in of the flat sides makes it feel actually quite burdenless for a phone that's apparently packing in Market leading Hardware then it goes much further it's got a dedicated shutter button that you can press to access the camera and then within it half press to focus and full press to snap just like on an actual Sony Alpha camera a side mounted fingerprint scanner which is to be honest pretty average in terms of speed but the positioning has meant that I literally haven't thought about needing to unlock this phone it's very convenient a completely separate programmable shortcut key to open whatever app your heart desires a Micro SD card slot that get this you can take out with just your fingers four SD card swapping on the go and this is definitely one of the first phones I've used with a built-in hole to attach a lanyard oh yeah and to top the whole thing off it also has not just an ip68 rating but also an ip65 rating which means certified water and dust resistance yes but also resistance against low pressure Jets of water you see what I'm saying right crazy expensive phone yes but also for an actual Pro this is shockingly well tailored to their needs so number four then on what makes the pro pro is how it handles media consumption see here's the thing with Sony this company is doing really well in the audio Market they're doing really well in the TV Market they're doing really well in the camera Market uh fun fact every camera that I normally use a Sony but they're phones which for the most part have been built by a separate division called Sony mobile they just haven't stuck they've lacked differentiating features they've had confusing names they were never bad but it's just that for most of their history they've been missing an identity some curved inwards others curved outwards some weren't curved at all it didn't feel like there was a broader strategy however they've now changed tact pretty recently Sony has brought their mobile division in they've integrated it into the wider Sony Corporation with the goal of implementing their strengths in these other markets audio TV cameras into their entire lineup of smartphones and so even though this phone is literally nicknamed the camera the focus is actually broader than that so for example the audio is tuned by Sony Pictures Entertainment with Dynamic vibrations that automatically add physical impact to anything you watch or listen to We have a headphone jack that supports not just headphones but also external microphones any video you watch will be run through Sony's X1 engine which is used to upscale content on their Bravia TVs oh yeah and the actual screen itself is kind of nuts a 4K HDR OLED 120 hertz display just to make that very clear 4K which means that while phones like the latest iPhone have about 450 pixels per inch this has 643 it's pin sharp to a bulletproof extent it doesn't matter how close you're holding this thing you won't see pixels plus it's implemented in a way that's not irritating now the risk of sounding like a Luddite I'm still at the opinion that 4K is in most cases too many pixels for a 6.5 inch screen but thankfully it looks like Sony isn't blind to that instead you have both a normal viewing experience and Creator mode which whacks up that resolution and uses professional colors and it can be made so that this only turns on in the apps for which you can actually tell the only thing which is still a little controversial is this super tall cinematic aspect ratio it's made like this so movies which are traditionally shot really wide will fill the screen but while it does leave more room to be blown away it also leaves more room to be irritated when you find a movie that fills it and you've got all these Technologies working in the background to fuel this authentic immersive experience there's nothing else like it and to be fair in almost all of the scrolling apps that we use it's not wasting space but equally because these are such extreme proportions for the more amateur content which is not made with that in mind there is no happy middle ground also all these Sony interbrand tie-ins they don't necessarily make it the best like even though we have dual front-facing speakers with Dolby Atmos and Sony tuning the iPhone speakers just sound Fuller but for the most part yeah I mean this is a strong unique media experience quite nicely uplifted by the support of up to a terabyte of external storage on top of the 512 gigs you already have baked by default and if you are enjoying this video then a sub to the channel would be flabbergasting no but seriously uh hitting 10 million subscribers was like the 2021 goal and we're like we're so close we're literally on the cusp of it so I mean if you do watch my videos regularly I would really really appreciate it okay number three is the pro eyes approach to photography on first glance the camera specs don't look too enchanting Sony's gone down the apple route of sticking with a set of three 12 megapixel cameras however it's not the resolution that makes this special it's that this phone camera is using a one inch sensor you won't find a bigger one on the entire planet they prefer to call it a 1.0 type sensor because it's not using the entirety of that one inch surface area but that's pretty standard and for perspective the iPhone 13 Pro Max uses a 0.6 inch one and one inch is actually the same size as the sensor found on Sony's rather high-end RX100 V7 camera from a couple years ago but in theory this should be even better because of all the image computation that smartphones do on top of it also remember that Sony hasn't just put a sensor in this phone they're the ones who make these sensors it's safe to say I was pretty excited to try this and you know what I think they've pulled through bearing in mind that this is still pre-production software this phone takes very pleasant photos you get the distinct impression that it's not using as thick a layer of processing as most other companies and that's not always a positive if it's dark and gloomy outside your shots again look dark and gloomy if you're in a poorly lit room your photos will feel poorly lit this is not a Google pixel this is not going to turn night and today this doesn't have the AI to make sure faces are never blurred this can't magically erase photobombers from the background of your shots and for going off Sony's past phones you're probably not going to get the best portrait mode either however there's something really liberating about having that control yourself yeah especially combined with this huge image sensor you really get the feeling that you're taking pure images and that the sky's the limit that the ceiling is incredibly high for what you could potentially take when used right this is a joy and even though this ludicrous amount of options combined with a pretty clunky UI is borderline anxiety and juicing next to most phones this simply zones in which the phone is constantly monitoring to make sure that what you want to be in focus is in Focus plus I focus and object tracking Focus or how all Optical elements here use a Zeiss t-star anti-reflective coating which when combined with the fact that the main lens is built from high transmittance glass instead of the plastic that most phones use means that you just have to worry less about strange lens flares from bright light sources or how this phone has its own dedicated image processor called bion's X which although it doesn't mess with the natural colors you can tell it massively chips away at graininess and enhances Clarity the final key differentiator I guess from any other current Flagship is dual aperture or in other words you have the option here to physically reduce the amount of light that the camera lets in which will give you less background blur if you want it I mean it is just another option so you can't complain about it but given that one of the phone's biggest selling points is how much light it can now process thanks to its sensor the more background blur is usually associated with more cinematic quality and that more light is universally better for image quality the ability to restrict that light is nothing more than a niche feature for Fringe scenarios but do you know what actually impressed me more than photography it's how this thing takes video and to be honest I wasn't expecting to say that it feels like we've just fallen into a market where the iPhone is a league ahead in video quality and all Androids are playing catch-up this issue usually becomes because you can't apply all that processing that you use on photos 30 times per second for a video however because Sony doesn't seem to rely as heavily on that processing its video actually looks quite consistent with its photos I mean I don't need to show you more video samples we've been shooting on it this entire time but there's a few things that I will point out a we have all the same autofocus and tracking features that we had in photos also now in video B is that you might know that most phones now have just become able to take 4K video at 60 frames per second right well this can take 4K video at 120 frames per second which means two things you can either watch it back at full speed for ridiculously fluid footage or that's also enough frames to be able to slow the video down four times and still have a smooth output let me put this another way you can take slow-mo in 4K resolution so for perspective this is the Sony Xperia Pro I versus the iPhone 13 Pro which as far as I'm aware has the second nicest looking slow-mo see Sony's added in a third microphone it actually sits right next to this main camera here to improve speech pickup and I'm not gonna lie it sounds really really good although not exactly a unique feature because Apple and Samsung latest also have something pretty similar and D not one not two but actually three separate camera applications so one is Photo Pro which can take both photos and videos one is video Pro which is focused on being able to record just professional video but video that's ready for immediate shooting and uploading so the YouTubers and then Cinema Pro which gives you even more options more color profiles more aspect ratios and this shoots 10-bit footage made for post-processing for people who will want to upload into a proper editing program and do everything from scratch how you would on a cinema cam now to be honest while it is of course impressive that Sony's created three separate applications just to capture footage I'm not convinced that the fact that they felt like they needed to is necessarily a good thing isn't it a bit like you go to a restaurant you order a meal and then the three separate parts of your meal are served on different plates I can't quite understand why all these features couldn't have just been bundled into one camera app with three different modes so you could easily flip between them and on that note there are two things that I'm not a fan of the first is that while it is refreshing that Sony's footage looks pure and almost untouched based on this early look it does seem to also mean that you lose the luxury of that slightly processed looking but still nice high dynamic range that you might get on say the iPhone but also this high-end main camera is is really quite wide and I think it would have benefited from having more magnification you probably noticed on a lot of the shots we've taken with it how things just look a bit distorted that's because we've had to go right up close to them and also lenses with more magnification also just naturally have more background blur but all this takes us to number one the thing that takes this video Beyond any phone I've ever used this is the Vlog Monitor and it's one of the most supremely extra accessories that I've ever seen launch with a smartphone check this out you mount the phone into the Bluetooth handle there's a magnetic area where the monitor slides in you connect the monitor to the phone via USBC and Bam you now have a secondary display to be able to use the front camera to Vlog now to get the obvious out the way this is like a 200 accessory which can add it to the price of the phone makes it literally a 2 000 package so it's not fair to compare its results to phones that are half the price but the results are phenomenal like this is footage where both the video and the audio is being captured on the phone you gotta admit there's like a there's a certain cinematic quality that's pretty unmatched right now worth mentioning though is that without this gadget the actual front camera footage is not the best so that brings me on to the big question I am pretty much the target consumer for the Xperia Pro I I love cameras I use Sony gear making content is literally my job this is clearly a very advanced phone for a very Advanced price does it seem worth it I do need to stress here that this is not a review the phone I've got here is not final and I haven't been able to test the zoom camera because it isn't working yet this is just an opinion based on what I've seen so far but yeah you're paying for a pro experience and I can confirm you are getting a pro experience for someone who really knows what they're doing this is a fun versatile joyfully unencumbered experience which can produce results so far not seen on a smartphone that said is it in itself a bit of a contradiction because weren't most of the people that this is being targeted towards already have and would rather use an even better camera and because for everyone else average consumers it is too much if I think of all the people in my life who aren't camera enthusiasts I think they'd all end up with better results from a Google pixel 6 Which is far less Pro but smarter easier to use and just as fast of a phone oh yeah and it's like exactly one third of the price I think Sony is very aware of this though and if you're to ask me why like why is Sony putting so much effort into a phone that they know is only going to sell in the thousands I actually think the answer is marketing I think there's a certain kudos to owning technically the best phone money can buy even if it's not a good value phone in of itself Sony doesn't have a strong foothold in the smartphone market right now and so I reckon their entire objective with this is to just sit as a show to Leverage The Power of their other programs like Bravia TVs like Alpha cameras which enthusiasts already approve of to make a pinnacle smartphone that's good enough to drive conversation the conversation from Pros with the hope that Pros are going to be the ones with influence so the word of mouth that they generate could potentially trickle down into just positive associations for Sony phones in general and I just want to cap this off by saying this Xperia Pro I well I wouldn't recommend buying it to most people I know it does make me excited about Sony's future they seem like pretty much the only brand who's actually trying to make a phone for enthusiasts who also have the resources to be able to follow through and deliver on that and if Sony can stay ahead on the hardware curve like this while finding a way to distill the essence of Sony Corporation and all its various Technologies into a more streamlined and Visually simple interface I think they have all the ingredients of a headphone okay here's something to think about for a second your location your operating system every Hardware detail of the device you're on right now as well as all your past browsing history these are things that you'd want to keep to yourself right well this is how much information a website immediately knows about you the second you click on it and to be honest if it's a website you trust then it's fine but there's probably a fair few that you visit that you wouldn't want to know this and that's where surfsharkvpn comes in as far as I've seen it's the most affordable way to keep yourself Anonymous it's just over two dollars a month for as many people and devices as you want but there's another perk because you can effectively pick the location that you want your device to come from I can for example pick the US and watch us TV shows you can effectively have the exclusives for every single region without leaving your home like if I want to watch Batman The Dark Knight I just switched to Canada and I can do that so check the link in the description and use the code boss that'll give you 83 off and an extra three months for free to find out why the Galaxy s22 Ultra is looking super exciting click here or to understand the precarious situation that huawei's found themselves in click here my name is Aaron this is Mr who's the Boss and I'll catch you in the next one [Music] I kind of need a bigger dictionary

Channel: Mrwhosetheboss

Views: 6,291,277

Keywords: xperia pro I, xperia pro-I, sony xperia, sony, sony phone, best phone, pro phone, top smartphones, best smartphone, best phone 2021, mkbhd, marques brownlee, xperia pro, pro-i review, review, unboxing

Id: LFmcYQZKoEE

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Kain161]

And only the extremely niche one

[u/Jaiden051]

I get sad when they say on reviews on this phone about it has a camera button! It also has a matte design and it's thin like the other modern Xperia's don't exist

OR

When they talk about other phones and say how amazing they are when the Xperia's exist.

just makes me kinda sad of how so little people know about these amazing phones and yes they have problems but they have alot more features than other phones.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/EveningCommand1]

He is good but he is a bit biased. My favourite reviewer is tech spurt. Chris is unbiased even though he worked for Sony.

[u/m2keo]

I really do want this phone to be successful but I'd be very wary about buying it. For such a video/camera centric device, there's no mention of a cooling system like the vapor chamber on the previous model, Xperia Pro. That one also has a more tamed SD 865 and a polycarbonate body (cooler heat conductor).

[u/Mozkozrout]

And he actually gave it a lot of credit and more or less liked it. That is pretty rare with Sony phones and big tech tubers. They usually mock the phone for not going the mainstream way.

[u/mister350xwb]

For the Xperia Pro I 2023(?) I would like to see bigger sensors for the UW (12mm) and Tele (70mm), alongside a proper 1 inch sensor. New image processor to do AutoHDR or Raw+Jpeg on 20fps

[u/Toe500]

in one of his videos about the best smartphones out there, he did bring up sony at the end but sadly we didnt see him do for 1 III or 5 III. would be nice to hear about what he has to say?

[u/0qxtXwugj2m8]

Somegadgetguy