DESIGN
The Xperia 1 IV stands out from the start with beautiful finishes and its characteristic flat-edged design. On the other hand, if you were planning to put it on a table so that it would stand on its own, good luck. The surface is probably not wide enough to support his large body.
An impression of grandeur of course reinforced by the 21:9 screen format, again a hallmark of Xperia. If vertically, you lose a little maneuverability with one hand (nothing that a little practice can not adjust), the comfort of grip is generally irreproachable. This is the kind of phone that you keep in hand at all times without any problem, the format curling up perfectly in your palm. The contained weight of 185 grams, rare in this price segment, and the reasonable thickness of 8.2 mm contribute greatly to this.
screen
One of the stars of the phone is undoubtedly its 4K screen (3840 x 1644 pixels), 6.5 inches with its 21: 9 format (120 Hz). Let’s be clear, no other brand offers this set of features. By this we mean that not only are 4K screens on smartphones not running the streets, but that Sony is also paying for the luxury of offering an original screen format suitable for watching movies.
Of course, each and everyone will be able to judge the usefulness of this definition and this screen ratio, but note all the same that fans of cinema or series who use their smartphone in transport to catch up with the latest series Netflix or Disney+ will undoubtedly be able to be seduced.
Already, rest assured, on the coverage of colorimetric spectra, it’s all good. Standard mode offers 145% of sRGB and 98% of DCI-P3. Of course, with a phone at this price, we expected a little more, but let’s not be choosy.
Where we can be a bit more critical is on color accuracy. The screen displays an average delta E of 4.69, a little too far from the figure of 3 below which the human eye no longer sees the difference. In particular, note that on whites, but also on flesh colors, the delta E tends to move away a little from what we are looking for.
Likewise, the standard mode tends to push the blues a bit too hard, displaying 7475 K (against 6500 K ideally). However, this parameter can be easily corrected in the settings and you can easily obtain 6500 K by pressing the D65 option in the white balance menu. An option that is both precise and practical, therefore, that we would like to find on more terminals. We also measured a rather good peak brightness of 882 cd/m2. This ensures good readability outdoors, even in direct sunlight.
To finish on the screen, remember the presence of a creator mode. This allows you to be closer to the image desired by the creator of a film, for example, or to obtain a more neutral and desaturated image. In addition, this creator mode can be activated automatically on the applications of your choice. Convenient for example if you want to activate it on a photo editing app, but not when you wander through your messages on a daily basis. A good idea, because if you apply the creator mode to the entire interface, you quickly realize that the rendering is flatter and bland.