okay i've spent the last two weeks with
the just announced flagship phone from
sony the xperia one mark iv and you can
tell very quickly that this company is
now fighting to make something special
so the question is can sony a smaller
5000 employee phone company with a lot
of ambition actually beat a huge 300 000
employee mainstream smartphone company
like samsung
let's find out
well you're not getting much of an
unboxing experience either way i'm just
like 50 of flagship fans nowadays you
get nothing with this phone except in
this case like literally nothing not
even a cable
but when it comes to the smartphone
itself you really do get the continuous
impression while using it but sony is
actually trying to just make the best
phone that they can they put a 4k
display on here that's 50 more pixels
than practically any other phone and
when it comes to brightness this thing
is not 20 or 30 brighter than last year
it's 50. sony speakers were already
great too but now they further upgraded
the bass and the volume to the point
where you know that traditional tinny
phone speaker sound that's gone their
last phone had a weak selfie camera they
fixed it they've given us a headphone
jack a dedicated camera shutter button
this is one of the very few flagships
that supports microsd cards i love the
fact that they've made the sim tray
completely tallest and that they've made
the matte finish on the back practically
immune to fingerprints it's just a
thoughtful design
and really
that doesn't sound good it's the main
benefit of sony being a much smaller
company you get the distinct feeling
while using these phones that they
aren't as commercialized as samsung's
that this device was not created with
the mindset of right how do we sell 50
million units this year and how do we
get people to sign up to every single
one of our services but instead the
simple goal of how do we improve the
last one how do we make the best phone
for our sony community i mean just look
at it the xperia one mark iv looks
practically identical to the one mark
iii which looks practically identical to
the one mark ii you can tell that sony
isn't playing the game of we've got to
make sure our phone looks different
every year and add flashy new colors to
make it seem like a more noticeable
upgrade
either that or someone needs to have a
word with the marketing department but
there is another side to this coin
see while having a smaller team can give
you the autonomy to add in nice personal
touches just because you feel like it
there is also a very distinct advantage
to scale in the smartphone market like
because of how samsung's operation is an
order of magnitude greater than sony's
it it gives them the budget to one
invest far more in research and
development to be able to create
features that are not just new and
innovative but can also be internally
tested millions of times before actually
being put on store shelves to make sure
they're also reliable and optimized and
two support devices for longer like if
you look at the most profitable
smartphone companies out there samsung
and apple they're also the companies
that give the most consistent software
updates four years and five years
respectively compared to sony who'll
probably do two and it's not that sony
isn't trying as hard it's just the
nature of their lower sales volume makes
it much less time efficient to match the
bigger companies they'd have to put in
the exact same amount of manpower and
resources to create and update but it's
only going to benefit to 20th of the
number of people and you can argue that
this support this optimization this
reliability is kind of the biggest
factor in a smartphone's success like if
you really think about the phones that
have truly failed over the years the red
hydrogen one the next bit robin the htc
evo 3d none of these flopped out of a
lack of intention they all have very
strong visions it's just they weren't
backed by the resources and the
investment power to deliver on them
thanks to the immense and increasing
complexity of a smartphone so that
leaves us with an obvious question
can you feel it here compared to
samsung's top end flagship does this
feel any less optimized and any less
reliable well 90 of the time
not in the slightest and if you're
enjoying this then a sub to the channel
would be
so nice
this is a pacey smartphone with fluid
animations super responsive gesture
navigation and the sheer torness of its
screen makes it an absolute beast for
all those scrolling apps my thumb feels
positively liberated from how much less
work it has to do here plus sony has
absolutely smashed the core content
consumption experience the combination
of this cinematic 4k screen these new
and improved speakers dynamic vibrations
that physically shake the phone when
there is bass it's in some ways an
unmatched phone for experiencing youtube
and netflix games look great too and
they feel like they wrap around you with
this ultra wide display
i wouldn't call this a phone for gamers
because i have noticed some pretty high
temperatures if you push it but for
moderate gaming it's beautiful and of
course this camera system is in a lot of
ways
quite special you might well know that
in the market for professional cameras
sony's alpha brand is somewhat of a
leader like this is a sony alpha camera
this is a sony alpha camera
and so the fact that this xperia 1 mark
4 is apparently using tech from these
cameras is
well it's enough to give me the tingles
and you know what this thing does
deliver an extremely reliable focusing
system like alpha cameras it can burst
fire like a demon taking 20 photos per
second and they've added an absolute
truckload of creative visual effects to
play around with like partial color
which is really cool it lets you pick a
color and then only that color will be
highlighted on screen and the one thing
that this does better than any other
phone in the market is slow-mo
i honestly don't think any other company
cares to be honest but on the sony you
can take slo-mo videos in 4k resolution
and it's pretty much the only phone on
which you could then also watch those
back in full quality
but okay
the camera is also a pretty good place
to talk about where this phone goes
wrong here's the thing you need to
understand sony's alpha cameras are
phenomenal i can't knock that but if you
really think about it sony's ability to
make incredible professional cameras it
has almost no bearing on their ability
to make great mobile cameras 95 percent
of what makes traditional cameras good
is their hardware they're huge custom
sensors they're full frame lenses it's
not the technology their incredible
hardware means that they only need very
simple software compared to what most
smartphones use and so this idea of
bringing over alpha technology to a
phone which is using a very standard
tiny phone sensor
all of a sudden it doesn't feel like
such a bonus in fact in most cases while
the sony does take good clean natural
looking photos it doesn't hold a candle
to the intelligence of a mainstream
flagship made by a huge team of people
like the s22 ultra to capture the kind
of photo that we've almost come to
expect on a 2022 smartphone it actually
takes a lot of work behind the scenes
like every shot requires the phone to
take 10 or so different frames at
multiple exposures and mesh them
together it requires it to identify
people's faces and adjust them based on
the skin tone and the environment it
requires tons of sophisticated micro
adjustments that i just don't get the
impression this sony is making as much
when you take a photo on this xperia for
the most part what you see is what you
get which you know there was a day where
that was a compliment but not when you
compare it to the s22 ultra which after
capturing will literally comb through
every single pixel in the image
sharpening bits tweaking colors and
improving lighting and this software
processing it's important when you're
taking zoom photos the s22 ultra will
detect text for example and use
artificial intelligence to neaten it up
it's important when taking action shots
where the samsung will realize that
you're doing a lot of moving and
cleverly take multiple shots and pick
the stillest one it's important when
you're taking video the xperia lacks
that powerful high dynamic range that
these mainstream phones have it's
important when you're taking portrait
mode shots where sony's edge detection
and artificial background blur they
still feel a little basic and it's
really really important when you're
taking night photos where your phone has
to capture many many frames and then use
machine learning to piece them together
into a single brighter shot now i will
give sony this they have successfully
distilled the look and the feel of using
an alpha camera into this phone all the
menus the fonts the sound effects and i
understand it i could totally see the
loyalists who love sony cameras really
appreciating this authentic touch
however to be really brutally honest
interfaces are pretty much the worst
thing about professional cameras i love
my sony alpha camera but let's be very
clear if i could swap its ui for android
12
i would do it in a heartbeat i mean look
at this beautiful home screen slick menu
operation material design everything
bright and colorful but the second you
open the camera app you feel like you've
jumped back 10 years and the layout
isn't as intuitive as more mainstream
phones either the camera experience is
split between not one not two but three
separate camera applications it doesn't
respond to gesture navigation like the
rest of the phone trains you to do and
like why is it that if i want to use
portrait mode on the rear camera i click
this button and then this button but
then to do portrait mode on the front
camera i go into a completely separate
menu
i want to reiterate here this is not a
bad camera in fact ceiling is just as
high as samsung's but it's just that
lack of behind the scenes grunt it
doesn't leave you any room for error if
you don't get that perfect shot in the
moment this phone isn't going to save
you now the final two things that i want
to quickly point out are the one while
this screen is way brighter than sony's
last phone it is still noticeably less
bright than samsung's and two that my
battery experience hasn't been amazing
the capacity is great at 5 000 milliamp
hours but on an average day of usage i'm
getting about six hours of screen on
time which is okay but then if i push
the phone by testing its camera it'll
end up as more like four and a half this
is early software bear that in mind but
to be honest all this stuff is quite
consistent with my experience of other
sony flagships again presumably because
of slightly less thorough optimization
compared to larger corporations so the
thing to take away from this is that the
xperia one mark iv
has merit there are legitimate reasons
why you might want to buy one for
example it's absolutely top-class media
experience but compared to a flagship
from samsung who it's very clear build
their smartphones by constantly keeping
the average consumer in mind it's very
clear why samsung phones sell more than
sony phones and i would still be more
likely to recommend someone this
over this
now
if you are in the market for a new phone
right now there's a pretty good chance
you've been checking out lots of
different stores signing up for multiple
services and handing out your data like
it's everyone's birthday but let me ask
you a question do you have any idea how
many companies hold this data and more
importantly
how to get it back
a lot of people assume that at the point
where they delete an app from their
phone or deactivate one of their social
media accounts their data just
disappears but the truth is unless you
specifically write to a company and
exercise your right to be forgotten all
of your sensitive personal data address
phone number credit card everything will
just sit on this growing number of
servers from every single thing you've
ever signed up to and well it goes
without saying the more servers the
higher the risk of a leak this does
happen quite a lot and these data
breaches involve the private information
of hundreds of thousands and sometimes
even millions of people all exposed to
scams and online crime okay this is what
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today you kind of need to be open to
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that's why you need money
to check out my experience meeting
apple's robot for the first time that
video is here or to see me test the
fastest gadgets in the world that
video's here my name is aaron this is mr
who's the boss
and i'll catch you in the next one
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