Sony has a habit of making phones no one expects, and no one has thought to ask for. That’s how the Xperia Pro came to be. The Xperia 1 II’s ultra-expensive alter ego was meant to be used as an external monitor for Sony Alpha cameras… and it also happened to be a phone with 5G connectivity.
The Xperia Pro-I, on the other hand, is not an accessory, it’s the main act – the phone is the camera. Inside the Pro-I, Sony fitted a 20MP 1.0″ Type sensor, and it’s the first one this big with phase-detect autofocus on a phone, they point out to get that Sharp out of the conversation. What they don’t explicitly mention is that the Pro-I isn’t using all of it – just 12MP, but we’ll elaborate on that later on. The point is – great main camera chops.
The other cameras aren’t all that special but complete a capable tri-set. There’s an autofocusing ultrawide that’s at the reasonable end of the ‘ultrawide’ spectrum instead of the extreme. As for zoom, gone is the dual focal length periscope of the Xperia 1 III, replaced on the Pro-I with a more modest 2x-only unit.
The rest of the internals are almost entirely straight from the Xperia 1 III. The Pro-I reuses that one’s 120Hz 4K display, the Snapdragon 888 is doing the calcs (not the plus, not that it matters), the battery is the same too.
Sony Xperia Pro-I specs at a glance:
- Body: 166.0×72.0x8.9mm, 211g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass Victus), glass back (Gorilla Glass 6), aluminum frame; IP65/IP68 dust/water resistant (up to 1.5m for 30 mins).
- Display: 6.50″ OLED, 1B colors, 120Hz, HDR BT.2020, 1644x3840px resolution, 21:9 aspect ratio, 643ppi; Runs at 1096 x 2560 pixels except for select use cases.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM8350 Snapdragon 888 5G (5 nm): Octa-core (1×2.84 GHz Kryo 680 & 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 680 & 4×1.80 GHz Kryo 680); Adreno 660.
- Memory: 512GB 12GB RAM; UFS 3.X; microSDXC (uses shared SIM slot).
- OS/Software: Android 11.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 12 MP, f/2.0-4.0, 24mm, 1.0″-type, 2.4µm, PDAF, OIS (315 PDAF points, 90% frame coverage); Telephoto: 12 MP, f/2.4, 50mm, 1/2.9″, PDAF, 2.1x optical zoom, OIS; Ultra wide angle: 12 MP, f/2.2, 124˚, 16mm, 1/2.55″, Dual Pixel PDAF; Depth: 0.3 MP, TOF 3D.
- Front camera: 8 MP, f/2.0, 24mm (wide), 1/4″, 1.12µm.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@24/25/30/60/120fps HDR, 1080p@30/60/120/240fps; 5-axis gyro-EIS, OIS; Front camera: 1080p@30fps, 5-axis gyro-EIS.
- Battery: 4500mAh; Fast charging 30W, 50% in 30 min (advertised), USB Power Delivery.
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted); NFC; 3.5mm jack; Native Sony Alpha camera support.
