Sony aims to revolutionize livestreaming and broadcasting with the Xperia Pro, a $2,500 smartphone featuring a dedicated HDMI input and advanced mmWave 5G hardware. While far beyond the average person’s budget, the Xperia Pro could find a home among popular YouTubers, sportscasters, and news agencies with access to mmWave 5G.
On paper, the Xperia Pro isn’t all that different from an Xperia 1 ii. It uses the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor, 6.5-inch 4K HDR display, and 12GB of RAM, for instance, and sports a ZEISS tri-camera array that’s comparable to Sony’s Xperia 1 ii.
But the Xperia Pro is truly a different breed of smartphone. Plugging a video camera into the Xperia Pro’s HDMI input allows you to use the phone as an external video monitor—a major upgrade from the small, low-resolution screen on most DSLRs. Sony also packed the Xperia Pro with a 360-degree mmWave 5G antenna, ensuring a more reliable connection than any other 5G handset.
There’s no denying that the Xperia Pro could streamline some video projects. Not only can it stream or upload videos directly from your camera to the internet, but it uses mmWave 5G for wireless upload speeds that are comparable to what you get with an Ethernet connection. But mmWave 5G is a rarity in the US, even in big cities. Until mmWave 5G is available across the nation, it’s hard to truly assess the Xperia Pro’s value.
While Sony is yet to prove the Xperia Pro’s usability, the company has published a nice YouTube video (above) with an overview of the phone’s features. The company also claims to have used a prototype for the phone to stream the Berlin Marathon in 2019.
