Sony has just announced its newest smartphone with the Xperia 1 VII.
Considering we gave its predecessor Sony Xperia 1 VI an impressive four-star rating and hailed the Android as able to tick “a lot of boxes for what a true flagship should offer”, how does the Xperia 1 VII seem to compare?
We’ve compared the specs of the Sony Xperia 1 VII to last year’s VI and highlighted the main differences between them here. Keep reading to see what’s new with the Xperia phone and whether it stands a chance at making it into our best Android phones list.
Pricing and Availability
At the time of writing, we haven’t received word on how much the Sony Xperia 1 VII will set you back in the UK. We’ll update this once we find out the pricing, though we can reasonably expect it’ll cost around the £1299 mark, like its predecessor.
Hailed as “one of the best phones that no one will buy”, one of our main concerns with the Sony Xperia 1 VI was its high price tag. With an RRP of an eye-watering £1299, the Xperia 1 VI remains extremely expensive, however, as the Xperia 1 VII has just launched, we’ll hopefully see a price cut imminently.
Sony Xperia 1 VII runs on Snapdragon 8 Elite
This year’s Sony Xperia 1 VII runs on Qualcomm’s 2025 flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, while the Sony Xperia 1 VI runs on last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
While we haven’t reviewed the Sony Xperia 1 VII yet, we have reviewed many phones sporting the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, such as OnePlus 13 and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. Put simply, we’ve been blown away by the processor’s performance across the board, as it is incredibly powerful and ensures AI tools run smoothly. With this in mind, we can reasonably expect the Xperia 1 VII to be the same.
Even though it runs on the year-old Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, we found the Sony Xperia 1 VI to launch games and apps quickly, and performed well in our benchmark testing too.
Otherwise, both handsets are fitted with chamber cooling tech to ensure they don’t heat up too significantly during usage. During our time with the Xperia 1 VI, we noted that the only time it warmed up was when running extreme stress tests for benchmarking. Otherwise, the phone rarely became noticeably warm, even during gaming.
Sony Xperia 1 VII has four years of OS and six years of security upgrades
Sony has slightly improved the longevity of the Xperia 1 VII compared to the Xperia 1 VI, but only just.
While the 1 VI has a total of three years of Android updates, taking it up to Android 17, and four years of security patches, the 1 VII offers four and six years respectively.
Although the Xperia 1 VII is undoubtedly an upgrade to its predecessor, considering the likes of Samsung and Google offer up to seven years for their flagship handsets, this still feels disappointing.
Sony Xperia 1 VII has 20% increase in peak brightness
An issue we had with the Xperia 1 VI’s display was its auto brightness, as we found it slow to respond when ambient lighting conditions changed. The Xperia 1 VII should now solve this, as it offers two illuminance sensors for more accurate brightness adjustments, even outdoors.
Not only that but the Xperia 1 VII promises a 20% increase in peak brightness compared to its predecessor too.
Otherwise, both displays sport Sony’s Creator Mode, which promises to reproduce colours just as the original creator intended, for better vibrancy and accuracy.
Sony Xperia 1 VII supports new video recording technologies
The Xperia 1 VII now has auto-framing, which is usually reserved for Sony DSLR cameras. The tool means the phone can generate different aspect ratios and, while it can record in 16:9, its auto-frame crops to 9:16. You’ll then have both formats saved, allowing you to choose which you’d like.
Both the Xperia 1 handsets are fitted with human pose estimation technology, found in Sony’s Alpha cameras. The technology is able to recognise body and head positions with high precision, allowing it to lock and track a subject either facing away or partially obscured from view.
The 1 VII also sports AI Camerawork which is perfect for content creators or videographers alike. Not only does the technology ensure your videos remain stable but it also keeps the subject centralised in the frame too.
Sony Xperia 1 VII has a new ultrawide camera hardware
While both have three rear lenses, the Xperia 1 VII now sports a new ultrawide camera that Sony explains is “equivalent light to full-frame cameras”, thanks to its 1/1.56-inch 50MP sensor. This is over a 2x increase in sensor size from its predecessor.
It’s worth noting that we were really impressed with the Xperia 1 VI’s camera set-up. Not only did we find images weren’t as overly processed as those of Samsung or Pixel phones, but the camera app is much easier to use than previous iterations. With that in mind, we can only expect good things from the Xperia 1 VII.
Considering we enjoyed the Xperia 1 VI’s camera set-up, with its pro tools combined with ease of use resulting in brilliant results, we can only expect good things from the Xperia 1 VII.
Early Verdict
With a faster processor, longer Android support and new video recording capabilities, the Sony Xperia 1 VII looks set to be a solid upgrade from the Xperia 1 VI. However, the Xperia 1 VI is still one of the best camera phones and, especially as we can realistically expect its price to drop in the new future, may become a more realistic choice in 2025.
We’ll be sure to update this article once we review the Sony Xperia 1 VII.
