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00:00Hey, what's up, MKBHD here.
00:04So this is the back of the iPhone 8, one camera.
00:07Then this is the back of the iPhone 10, two cameras.
00:09This is the iPhone 13 Pro, three cameras.
00:12This is the back of the Galaxy S22 Ultra, four cameras, and you better believe there
00:17are some phones out now with five cameras.
00:19We've just gotten very used to the idea of smartphones having lots of cameras on the
00:24back.
00:25It's even become a little bit of a status thing, like when you see that phone with several
00:29cameras on the back, you kind of know that that's one of the more premium ones.
00:33So this Sony phone may look like a bunch of the other ones that we've talked about and
00:39kind of just like a lot of other Sony phones, and it has all the Sony stuff that we've come
00:43to expect over the years, but it has one really key feature up its sleeve that makes it very
00:49different.
00:50See, there's other types of phones.
00:51When they have three cameras, for example, they have three native focal lengths.
00:56Typically it's an ultra wide, a standard, and a telephoto.
00:59So that's awesome if you just hit the 0.5X button for an ultra wide, or just hit the
01:043X button for that telephoto shot.
01:06Those are basically native optical zoom, but everything in between is just going to be
01:12digitally zooming between them.
01:13So if you zoom into 3.5X, that's basically the same as you cropping in slightly to a
01:18photo from the 3X camera after you take it.
01:22If you zoom into 2.5X, that's just zooming way into the 1X lens with digital zoom.
01:28You're not getting more detail, the photo won't necessarily look better, it's just purely
01:32for convenience.
01:33So that's why you notice that little snap that happens when you get to the 3X and it
01:37switches to the next camera.
01:38That's how you can tell your photo will be better.
01:40But this Sony Xperia 1 Mark IV brings back the legendary continuous optical zoom through
01:48this telephoto camera.
01:49So last time we saw this was in the Asus Zenfone Zoom back in 2015, which was a much
01:56worse camera and that kind of fell on its face.
01:58So the tech has come a long way since then.
02:00So there's still a 1X camera, yes, there's still a 0.7X for your ultra wide shots, but
02:05the telephoto camera is now behaving kind of like a full size zoom lens with a focal
02:11length range of 85 millimeters to 125 millimeters.
02:16So now lets you smoothly zoom between 3.5X and 5.2X with real optical zoom.
02:23And yes, that means there are moving parts inside the phone to make this happen.
02:28So Sony's been working on this for a little while.
02:29You might remember the Xperia 1 Mark III that I also reviewed, which is this one, which
02:34also had a pretty wild telephoto camera setup.
02:37This one with magnets snapped between 70 and 105 millimeters.
02:43So that was technically variable optical zoom, which is still super cool.
02:47It's like having two cameras in one in that telephoto camera.
02:51This one with continuous zoom is like having dozens of different focal lengths and dozens
02:57of cameras in one just in that telephoto.
03:00Now any focal length between 85 and 125 millimeters will be perfectly native optical zoom.
03:07But again, it's more like having a real continuous zoom built into the back of a phone.
03:11Now in practice, you can see here the zoom range is relatively small.
03:153.5X to 5.2X is not a huge zoom, but it does actually achieve its goal.
03:20This was the Xperia 1 Mark III at 70 millimeters, then snapped to 105 millimeters.
03:26Both of these are optical.
03:28Then this was when it was right in between.
03:31So just digital zoom.
03:32Now this is the Xperia 1 Mark IV, first at 85 millimeters, then all the way in at 125
03:39millimeters.
03:40And then here it is right in between.
03:42It's subtle, but it maintains better sharpness throughout this whole range while behaving
03:47just like a regular camera.
03:49And that is why I think this is, or at least logically should be the future of smartphone
03:55cameras.
03:56We've been trying to get good variables, different focal lengths on the back of smartphone cameras
04:01for a while now.
04:02Like I said, we've just accepted a bunch of different cameras on the back.
04:05So Galaxy S22 Ultra right now, what does that have?
04:07It has a regular camera, an ultra wide, a 3X telephoto, and a 10X telephoto so that
04:15it can balance between a variety of different focal lengths.
04:18Of course, 3X will be perfectly optical and then 10X will sharpen again.
04:23But again, it's still going to be a little bit blurry in between.
04:27That's why this is ideal.
04:28This is literal perfect optical zoom throughout the whole range.
04:32You just can't beat physics.
04:34Now, of course, the tech has a lot to improve on.
04:37Probably the most obvious piece being it's got to cover a wider and wider focal range
04:43as it gets better.
04:44Like I said, 3.5X to 5.2X turns out isn't a whole lot of zoom right now.
04:49But imagine a version that goes all the way from 2X to 8X, and then maybe something does
04:55all the way from 1X to 10X.
04:58You know, suddenly you don't need a separate primary and telephoto camera anymore.
05:02And so I was just kind of logically extrapolating, it seems like it would be such a cool idea
05:06if we went from one camera on the back to two to three.
05:11And then as the tech gets better and better, we go from three back to two, and then back
05:16to one.
05:17But, but the more I think about it, I don't actually think that we can expect to reduce
05:22all of the cameras on the back of the phones now, all down to one.
05:27Just because the physics problem is incredibly hard.
05:30Like if you look at a mirrorless camera, you have one sensor, but you still need to
05:33change lenses to go from ultra wide, to a normal field of view, to a telephoto.
05:40Even if they all can zoom, you really don't see often some casual lens that can do everything
05:45like an 18 to 400 millimeter lens.
05:48Actually I take that back, I just looked it up.
05:51There are some that exist, I just found on B&H there is an 8 to 800 millimeter lens,
05:59but it's the size of like a microwave.
06:02It's 53 pounds and costs $165,000.
06:07And that is the point here.
06:08This is a physics problem, basically, and all of the pain points of trying to solve
06:12that problem get magnified when you shrink it all down into like a tiny smartphone camera
06:17like this, with these little itty bitty sensors that don't gather that much light, and where
06:23there's not a lot of room for high quality optics.
06:25High quality optics really is the key here.
06:28So that Zenfone Zoom that we talked about earlier, that phone had a single camera that
06:32did 28 to 84 millimeters.
06:35So that's about 1x to 3x zoom.
06:38And I never owned that camera or that phone, but from all the reviews I read, they all
06:42killed it for having really poor quality optics and really bad images as a result.
06:48And so, that means the technology has definitely gotten significantly better since then, and
06:52hopefully that trend can continue.
06:54So I love that Sony's working on this.
06:56They stay really clever with it, obviously starting with turning everything sideways
06:59within the phone for the periscope zoom, and then using magnets to move around the optical
07:04elements inside in a super precise way.
07:08That is very impressive what they've achieved so far.
07:10So file this down as yet another Sony phone with a super impressive, technically well-executed
07:17enthusiast feature.
07:19And then the rest of the phone built around it is exactly what you'd expect from Sony.
07:23It's an upgrade from the Xperia 1 III that I reviewed less than a year ago.
07:27It's the same tall matte black shape and design.
07:30You can barely tell the difference from the outside between the phones, but they do have
07:33some year-over-year upgrades thrown in.
07:35They've still got their incredibly overkill 6.5-inch 4K 120Hz OLED display, but this one's
07:43even brighter, up to 1,000 nits, so it's more visible outdoors and even more of a battery
07:48hog.
07:50The battery though is also bigger.
07:51It's up to 5,000 mAh now, and they've bumped it up to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip with 12GB
07:57of RAM, half a terabyte of storage.
08:00There's updated loudspeakers and a new 12-megapixel selfie camera.
08:04All three cameras on the back can shoot 4K 120 frames per second videos and 20 photos
08:11per second in bursts with Sony's awesome eye-tracking autofocus.
08:15And hey, I gotta hand it to Sony, I was gonna say I think they're the only smartphone brand
08:19that's never had a notch in any of their phones, but I did look it up.
08:23There was actually once a Sony phone that had a notch, and it was pretty brutal.
08:27But they've been remarkably consistent with this design.
08:31They're also one of the only ones keeping a headphone jack around, despite being one
08:35of the companies selling tons of wireless earbuds too.
08:38So they've added a bunch of new software features around this phone centered around gaming and
08:42live streaming, but at the same time, with all those pluses, there are definitely also
08:46still some classic Sony downsides.
08:50First starting with the fact that it's being unveiled now, but isn't coming to the US till
08:55September.
08:56So you can sort of map out the hype curve dropping between now and then.
09:00And they very much still lean into the enthusiast Sony Alpha camera-like shooting experience,
09:05which is an upside for some people, but that also means there is no simple point-and-shoot
09:10portrait mode or night mode.
09:12You do have to dive straight into Sony's camera app, which obviously isn't for everybody.
09:17Also fun fact, the box it comes in just has a phone.
09:21Yeah, just the phone.
09:22No charging brick, also no USB-C cable, no paperwork, just the phone.
09:28That's it.
09:29And it's gonna retail when it does land in the US for $1,599.
09:35So yeah, not for everybody.
09:38But hey, I gotta give Sony props because this is one of those things I really enjoy using
09:42these Sony phones.
09:44The software experience on them has kind of quietly become one of my favorite near-stock
09:49Android experiences on any Android phone.
09:52They get their updates, they're smooth all the time, and they consistently deliver some
09:57innovative new stuff in every new phone they drop.
10:00And they refuse to be notched or headphone jack dropping like kind of the rest of the
10:06phones out.
10:07So I'm glad it exists.
10:08All right.
10:09That's been it.
10:10Thanks for watching.
10:12Catch you guys in the next one.
10:13Peace.
10:14Transcribed by https://otter.ai