The Xperia 1 is Sony’s latest and greatest smartphone right now. It’s got all the latest specs and features the only 4K, 21:9 ratio display on the market. The Xperia 1 is fast and responsive, has dual speakers, and did I mention the gorgeous screen? While the Xperia 1 is Sony’s best phone to date, that doesn’t mean it isn’t without fault. There are some quirks about it that need to be addressed with hopes that Sony maybe changes these for their next flagship.
1. Finger Print Reader Isn’t Great – I absolutely dislike the position of the side mounted finger print reader. It’s in such an awkward position that makes it difficult to use accurately. And not only that, the finger print reader itself doesn’t seem all that reliable. Their old rear mounted finger print readers were much better and I wish they’d go back to that and move the reader back to the rear of the phone.
2. Button Placement – I know Sony has for the most part always placed their buttons on one side of their phones, usually the right side. While not terrible, the placement of them needs to be slightly altered. The power button is smack dab right in the middle almost which makes using certain things like phone holders a bit tricky. Also I found myself pressing this button inadvertently all the time while holding the phone. All the buttons just need to be shifted upwards more and away from the middle area.
3. Gorilla Glass 6 Is Strong But Scratches Easily – While the Xperia 1 has a Gorilla Glass back panel that makes it feel and look premium, it’s a fingerprint magnet and is also very easily scratched. I’d like to see them move away from glass, maybe something like ceramic. In fact, I wish all phone manufactures would move away from glass for the back.
4. No Advanced Facial Recognition – The Xperia 1 needs advanced face recognition and not the basic face detection that comes with Android. While in practice it works, it’s not very secure and the Xperia 1 doesn’t implement it in a very user friendly way. This is face recognition in its most basic form which is way behind what the competition is doing. Sony needs to step it up here.
5. No Wireless Charging – Lastly, I still don’t understand why Sony refuses to include wireless charging technology on their Xperia devices. Wireless charging has been around for several years now and Sony’s Xperia devices had so far not joined the party. That’s definitely a shame because the Xperia 1 has serious flagship specs, but the lack of wireless charging makes it less flagship than every other flagship device out there.
And there you have it. Those are the five issues I had with the Xperia 1. That doesn’t mean I still don’t love the phone, because I do. It just has little quirks here and there are I’ve learned to deal with. Hopefully these won’t be things they overlook next time.
