Sony's revolutionary Xperia 1 V goes up for US pre-orders with two deal sweeteners
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Unveiled at a recommended US price of $1,399.99 earlier this week, the Xperia 1 V seems to suffer from the same two cardinal sins as virtually all of its ultra-high-end forerunners. The first is obviously that exaggerated price tag, which makes this new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 powerhouse more expensive than all of the best Android phones available today, and the second is an inexplicably distant July 28 release date.
Although it doesn't completely solve those two major issues, Best Buy is bringing early adopters one step closer to owning Sony's latest mobile flagship by kicking off the official pre-order process while also sweetening what feels like a hard-to-swallow deal with a free $50 gift card and a complimentary pair of true wireless LinkBuds.
The two pre-order gifts technically make for a combined value of 230 bucks, but in all fairness, the "open-ear" Sony LinkBuds are extremely easy to find at significantly lower prices than $179.99 these days.
Still, if you were thinking of being among the first people in the world to own the 5G-enabled Xperia 1 V beast and try out its revolutionary new stacked CMOS image sensor, these freebies could well get you over the fence.
That cutting-edge "Exmor T for mobile" sensor promises to vastly improve the already impressive photography performance of last year's Xperia 1 IV, especially in low-light environments, and the other two rear-facing shooters are nothing to sneeze at either.
Then you have a pretty much unrivaled 6.5-inch 4K OLED display capable of playing... essentially everything you throw at it in perfect clarity and top-notch quality, as well as a hefty 5,000mAh battery under the hood supporting 30W charging speeds, and perhaps most importantly in its fight against the best high-end phones around, both a microSD card slot and 3.5mm headphone jack.
Is this thing better than Samsung's Galaxy S23 Ultra flagship? In a few key ways, absolutely, and especially if you're a (semi) professional photographer or videographer looking for a compact shooter... that's also capable of making phone calls, you might be inclined to choose Sony's Xperia 1 V monster despite its beastly price point.
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