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Sony is forced to stop selling the Xperia 1 VII because of worrying issues

Another set of problems for Sony’s pricey flagship smartphone.

By Ilia Temelkov

Updated: Jul 09, 2025, 12:20 PM

12comments

Sony

Sony has announced it’s temporarily suspending the sales and shipments of the Xperia 1 VII in Japan. That’s the company’s latest flagship smartphone, which was announced in May, and it has been on sale in Sony’s home country and some European markets only for about a month.

Sony says (translated source) the reason for the suspension are multiple reports for Xperia 1 VII units that are turning off on their own, rebooting sporadically, or failing to turn on entirely. None of those issues sounds like a big deal on its own, but it appears that they’re affecting a significant number of devices in the wild.

Would you buy a Sony Xperia 1 VII if you could?

I’ve already got mine

7.55%

I would buy it, but it’s not available here

47%

I wouldn’t buy it, it’s too expensive

33.07%

I wouldn’t buy it, I prefer other brands

12.38%

The sales and shipments suspension is limited only to the Japanese market, and there is no official information if similar issues are happening with devices sold in other regions. The Xperia 1 VII is not available in the United States, and considering its predecessor was never sold there, a US release remains unlikely.

Probable solution

For anyone who owns an Xperia 1 VII with some of the issues, Sony has a potential remedy. The company suggests the following steps:

Hold down the power and volume up buttons for about 20 seconds
Recover the device
Apply the latest available software update

On its Japanese support page, Sony has given detailed instructions for the update process for the affected models. If those steps don’t resolve the problem, Sony’s advice is to contact its customer service center.

Sony Xperia 1 VII | Image credit — PhoneArena

Interestingly, Sony’s advice suggests that the issues could be fixed with only a software update, but the company still says that it is currently investigating the cause of the problems. The announcement states that the company will provide more information once it is available, and recommends that people back up their data.

I think Sony doesn’t really know what’s causing the Xperia 1 VII to experience these types of issues, and the software update is more of a precaution. The best option for the owners of the faulty units and Sony would be if everything could be solved with only an update.

However, there’s also a chance that all this is caused by hardware problems, which could be the final nail in Sony’s coffin. The Xperia 1 VII is already more expensive and less compelling than virtually all its competitors, so a major hardware issue and sales suspension could prove critical for Sony’s mobile ambitions.