Sony Xperia 1 VIII Announced

AI Camera Assistant – Mixed bag

During the video presentation Sony introduced a new feature called “AI Camera Assistant”. This new feature, using Xperia Intelligence, suggests various options and settings which can be applied to the photo. This on paper seems like an interesting idea, and Sony’s own video seems to have some decent examples, but the website examples are a disaster. The pre-AI enhanced photos are superior in all 3 examples below. The AI enhanced photos either have too much exposure, too much contrast, or not enough contrast and look washed out.

The AI assistant recommends 4 different filters/changes to the original photo, but the user does not have to use them, as they can just keep the original photo they took.

I have no idea how these photos were signed off by PR. I mean, what group looked at these and said “Yes this is great, post it up”. Regardless if Sony outsources their PR or uses in-house PR, someone needs to be held responsible for debacle . The amount of negative coverage these photos are generating is staggering. Although, there is no bad publicity right?

Sony actually responded to the negative press, with a post on Twitter explaining the AI Camera Assistant, and included some sample photos.

Following the post about AI Camera Assistant, we’d like to explain the feature in more detail. It doesn’t edit photos after shooting – it suggests 4 settings in different creative directions based on the scene and subject. You can choose any option or use your own settings.

From what I can see the same issues are present, washed out colours, contrast issues, or way too much colour saturation. I also noticed that on the suggestion photos, there are additional window frame shadows on the food and wood, and shadows changed on the book in Suggestion 2. Why is the AI camera assistant adding extra things to the photo? At this point, the final photo is not some changes in contrast, colour or lighting, but an AI generated copy.

There is one example in the Sony’s Q&A video, where the 4 suggestions are not that bad, and offer some changes which could easily be performed in photoshop by a skilled artist. In the past, I have manipulated some of my own photos using Snapseed and its editing tools to achieve similar results. At least the suggestions below do not add anything extra to the photo.

I am not defending Sony’s decision to post up the atrocious AI suggestions on their product pages, that is on them, and someone should be held responsible for that. The AI Camera Assistant can be a decent tool if it offers proper suggestions and improvements, but once the AI starts adding new objects to the photos like random shadows, then what is the point in taking photos?

Come one Sony, you are better than this.

Audio

Moving onto Audio. Sony has upgraded the speaker drivers on the new model. Previously on the 1 VII, the left and right speakers were of different size, with the left smaller than the right. But on the new 1 VIII, both left and right speakers are of the same size. Sony claims this improves the bass and treble. Will be interesting whether this is noticeable in real world testing.

“Walkman DNA” is back in the new model. Sony claims the 1 VIII features a premium-grade audio integrated circuit and fully optimised signal pathways for wired headphones. From the 1 VII teardown, it was impossible to actually see anything that would indicate this.

DSEE Ultimate returns, using AI to “upscale” the any compressed music to near High Resolution audio quality. I have used DSEE Ultimate on my Xperia 5 III and NW-A306 Walkman, and in my opinion, the function does not really improve audio quality anywhere near what Sony is claiming. And honestly, not sure how well it could, as once the audio data is compressed, you cannot decompress a lossy sound file. Try upscaling a photo to larger size, the quality will never be the same as the original.

I will give props for Sony for keeping the 3.5mm port. I cannot remember the last time I used it on my Xperia, but I do use it on my Walkman almost exclusively over wireless.

Battery Life

With the new EU regulations for removable batteries coming into force soon, rather than offer the ability to replace the battery, Sony went another route permitted by the new regulations. If the battery can maintain a charge of 80% after 1000 recharge cycles, then the battery does have to be user replaceable. Sony claims the new 1 VIII can retain 80% of its charge even after 4 years. Whether this is what real world users will experience remains to be seen.

The fast charging is yet again capped at 30W wired, and 15 W wirelessly. The slower charging speed will extend the battery’s lifespan, so perhaps this is the reason Sony kept the 30W wired charging speed, rather than increasing it to 45W or more.

In GSMArena’s battery test, the new model did beat out the previous one. Talk time was very similar, but both web browsing and video playback jumped by a significant amount.

The review also has a comparison table with other models, but all of the models have different battery capacities, so I decided to re-calculate the values to minutes/1000 mAh. From the values below, the 1 VIII comes in second right after the Apple, which is pretty impressive.

• Sony – 213.4 min/1000 mAh
• Samsung – 196.6 min/1000 mAh
• Apple – 223.5 min/1000 mAh
• Oppo – 171.6 min/1000 mAh
• Vivo – 143. 2 min/1000 mAh
• Xiaomi – 191.5 min/1000 mAh

Improved Performance

The Xperia 1 VIII upgrades the SoC to the new SD8 Elite Gen 5 SoC. The new SoC improves performance by 20% and CPU power efficiency by 35%, while the GPU enhances graphics performance by 23% and GPU power efficiency by 20%, when compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite. Based if the preliminary Geekbench results for single-core performance, the difference is around 17-20%, and the GPU benchmarks are around 20-23%.

The 1 VIII may not perform as well on the benchmark like some competitors, but I suspect Sony opted for a middle of the road strategy in regards to performance. This strategy should help with battery life and extending the life of the battery in the long term.

The new model includes a vapour chamber cooler, and graphite heat diffusion sheets for heat dissipation, just like the previous model.

The vapour chamber looks to to be identical, but the graphite sheets are different in their size and layout.