Design and build The Xperia 1 is designed around the new 21:9 aspect ratio display, a rework from the previous "Ambient Flow" design seen in the
Xperia XZ3. It consists of a 7000-series aluminum alloy chassis that has a curved edge all around the device, a 2.5D scratch-resistant front and curved-edged back glass panels made of
Corning Gorilla Glass 6, resulting in a more squarish but symmetrical design aesthetic, reminiscent of the classic "Omni Balance" design language of old Xperia Z-series flagships. The most defining change in the Xperia 1, as it was in the Xperia XZ2 trio and the XZ3, are the placement of the camera on the back. It is centrally aligned on the upper half of the device, as opposed to being placed on the top-left side like in previous Xperia devices. The
NFC antenna is placed on the left-handed side of the new triple-lens camera system, housed in a raised module with chrome beveled edges surrounding it, along with the color sensing (
RGBC-IR sensor) and the single LED flash up top. The front houses the ultra-wide 4K HDR
OLED display with slight curve corners and very minimal bezels on both sides, and significantly slim (when compared to the XZ3) but at the metrical top and bottom bezels. On the top bezel is the earpiece that acts as part of the hybrid dual-stereo speaker setup, the 8 MP front-facing camera, ambient light and proximity sensor and a
notification LED. The hybrid SIM tray is located on the top of the device, with a sealed pull-out type of cover for added ingress protection. The bottom bezel has shrunk significantly and is blank, omitting the company logo entirely. The second part of the stereo speaker is relegated to the bottom along with the lone USB Type-C port and primary microphone. The fingerprint sensor is now re-positioned back to the right-hand side of the device as with previous XZ Series devices. This is possible, in part because the power button is now separate. To mitigate this, scanner is now always-on. Directly above the fingerprint scanner is the volume rocker, and below the power button near the bottom edge is the camera shutter button, this has become a staple of Xperia devices ever since. The Xperia 1's dimensions are in height, with a width of and a depth of and weighs approximately . It is rated
IP65/IP68 dust/waterproof up to 1.5 m for 30 minutes. The device comes in 4 colors: Black, White, Gray and in some markets, Purple.
Performance The Xperia 1 is powered by the
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset, built on a 7
nm process technology with 8
Kryo 485 processors in a 1 + 3 + 4 configuration (1x 2.84 GHz
Gold Prime, 3x 2.42 GHz
Gold, and 4x 1.8 GHz
Silver), 6
GB of
LPDDR4X RAM and an
Adreno 640 for graphics rendering. It has the option a 64 GB (SO-03L, SOV4,0, and 802SO models) or 128 GB (J8110, J8170, J9110 and J9150 models)
UFS 2.1 internal storage and comes in a single-SIM or hybrid dual-SIM versions depending on region, with both featuring 5CA
LTE Cat.19 of up to 1.6 Gbit/s download speeds. It also has
microSD card expansion of up to 512 GB in a hybrid SIM 2 slot setup.
Display The Xperia 1 showcases the world's first 21:9 aspect ratio
4K HDR OLED display officially called
Cinema Wide, with a 3840 × 1644 resolution, and 643
ppi pixel density. This aspect ratio was previously found in
LG New Chocolate (BL40). In a more practical approach, the display resolution on regular usage and throughout the UI only is at PPI ppi, which is still considered sharp and is especially beneficial for the battery. The full 4K resolution only triggers automatically when compatible content is displayed on-screen. The Xperia 1 also has a new system-wide color setting feature, called
"Creator mode", alongside the "Standard" and "Super-vivid" modes. When activated, the Xperia 1 tries its best to display accurate colors as close as possible to the original intention of the content creator. It has a BT-2022 certification HDR, which is more versatile than
HDR10. This supports the wide color space ITU-R BT.2020m and as DCI P3 and Illuminant D65. It does however require the source to be encoded with the proper color info to take advantage of the feature. The device also has the new
X1 for mobile engine borrowed from their
BRAVIA TV line, optimizing content that is not natively-created for the high contrast and color palette of the OLED panel. ==Camera==