With all the COVID 19/Coronavirus news it seems out of place to fret over smartphone maker decisions. However, we have to mention the latest Sony smartphones which prioritize photo and video quality with one gigantic omission. All of the new lineup from Sony the Xperia 1 II, Xperia 10 II, and Xperia PRO 5G lack super slow motion features. Yes, the 960fps 1080p mode is gone and the only spec remaining is a paltry 120fps 1080p Full HD pseudo-slow-mo frame rate.
If you recall in years past, the Sony brand was incorporating their Motion eye™ technology which pairs a sensor with ultra-fast memory on the same package to allow for large datarates and super slow motion capture. In the lab, the phones were able to shoot up to 1000fps at full 1080p HD with excellent quality. What came out in the Xperia phones was a somewhat odd translation of 0.1 seconds recording time at 1080p 960fps/1000fps which came out to be extremely short and a kind of useless feature. Now that has been abandoned.
Camera Features Sony Xperia 1 II:
| Quad | 12 MP, f/1.7, 24mm (wide), 1/1.7″, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS 12 MP, f/2.4, 70mm (telephoto), 1/3.4″, 1.0µm, PDAF, 3x optical zoom, OIS 12 MP, f/2.2, 16mm (ultrawide), 1/2.55″, Dual Pixel PDAF 0.3 MP, TOF 3D, (depth) |
|
| Features | Zeiss optics, LED flash, panorama, HDR, eye tracking | |
| Video | 2160p@24/25/30/60fps
HDR, 1080p@30/60/120fps; 5-axis gyro-EIS, OIS |
We get excellent quality capture in both 4k and 1080p at several frame rates but the super slow motion has vanished. No 240fps, no 480p no 960p. Has Sony given up?
We believe Sony has prioritized per-pixel quality and low noise along with deep learning features over any higher frame rate features. It seems slow motion phones peaked sometime in mid-2019 and now the new features sought after are more hardware-oriented with multi lenses, multi-camera, and higher pixel densities with extreme zoom features instead of the frame rates. We have seen this in the Samsung S20 but those phones keep 960fps except in the 5G variant see here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMqgyJjrY8k
So, all in all, we at HSC cannot recommend any of the new Sony Xperia phones for slow motion enthusiasts unless you are happy with 120fps 1080p which is almost a low-level spec now. Check our Camera Guide and our Best phones of 2019 feature for guidance on which phones are Slow Motion capable.
RIP Sony Motion Eye Slow Motion Technology for 2020, We hope you resurrect sometime in the future!
Sony Xperia 1 Slow Motion Video @960fps (1080p Sample Video) by Danny P.: (FEATURE NO LONGER IN NEW PHONES)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7_w1vbEP8
Stay safe out there and follow the guidelines to combat the spread of this virus! -HSC
Saddest thing ever