The Sony Xperia 1 VII has a unique feature, it’s a shame that it’s bad

The Sony Xperia 1 VII launches today, but the phone has already gone through its review cycle. We have the full Sony Xperia 1 VII review here, and while I generally like the phone, there are some places where it just doesn’t compete.

It’s an absurd thing, but in 2025, Sony phone cameras are just not up to par with the competition. And the reason why this is so contradictory is that most smartphones out there — from the value midrangers to some of our favorite flagships — use Sony sensors to begin with.

It even hurts worse that the super-advanced zoom camera just doesn’t produce the quality of photos to justify its existence.

Yes, it’s amazing that you have true optical zoom. But does it make the photos better?

Since the Sony Xperia 1 IV, these phones have had actual, true variable zoom inside. Components inside the camera module move around to produce stepless zooming between 3.5x and 7.1x.

The implied benefit is that you get lossless magnification — instead of using digital crop-in and sharpening to get a quality zoom shot, it should be perfect and pristine as is.