Sony Xperia 1 VIII: AI Camera & Pricing

Sony has announced its latest premium flagship smartphone, the Sony Xperia 1 VIII. It’s coming to Singapore, with massive all-around upgrades and a tantalising early-bird launch promotion to rival other Ultra-tier Android phones already available here.

Sony Xperia 1 VIII

Sony cameras — DSLRs and mobile sensors — are a mainstay in nearly every high-end smartphone; it stands to reason that the Sony Xperia 1 VIII has given its triple-rear camera configuration a leg up.

Xperia 1 VIII now offers an AI Camera Assistant that relies on Sony’s Xperia Intelligence. In English, it means the cameras now use AI to enhance photos with suggestions — such as adjusting colour tones, choosing the right lenses to shoot with, and optimising bokeh effects based on the scene and subject. 

Pointing the camera at your intended shot triggers a whole bunch of recognition data, from the subject itself to the weather. These recommendations are based on Sony’s Creative Look — a style option found on its Alpha series DLSR cameras.

The 70mm telephoto camera (48MP, f/2.8 aperture) gets a 1/1.56-inch sensor, which is approximately four times larger than the predecessor’s telephoto lens. 

All three of its cameras, consisting of the 70mm mentioned above, its 24mm main camera (48MP, f/1.9), and 16mm ultrawide (48MP, f/2.0), get RAW multi-frame processing, allowing a wider HDR range while getting perks like noise reduction, lower chances of shadows crushing or highlights clipping, and more.

Also coming to the phone are a dedicated camera shutter button, a 3.5mm audio jack, and newly developed identical left- and right-speaker units for stereo sound.

As a 2026 premium flagship Android phone, the Xperia 1 VIII uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 as its brain. More interesting is Sony’s claim that it has improved battery life to two days with four years of “healthy battery”, somehow achieving that with a 5,000mAh capacity. It does have wired (USB PD) and wireless (Qi) charging, but Sony did not put their speeds in it specifications page.

Processing Optimisation, a resource efficiency tuning of Xperia, now includes maps apps usage alongside existing compatibility with social media apps and websites.

The phone has a 6.5-inch FHD+ (2,340 x 1,080 pixels resolution) HDR OLED panel with up to a 120Hz refresh rate and is rated IPX5 and IPX8 for water resistance, alongside IP6X for dust resistance. It also supports expandable storage via MicroSD card, has dual SIM available (and eSIM compatibility), with Android 16 right out of the box and 4 years of OS upgrades with 6 years of security updates.

Sony Xperia 1 VIII pricing and availability

The Sony Xperia 1 VIII begins its pre-order period on 13 May 2026, with first shipments coming to Singapore in end-June 2026. Official retail prices and colourways available are:

Even Sony knows the Xperia 1 VIII isn’t chump change, if we go by the early-bird promotion running from its launch date of 13 May to 30 June 2026. Each early bird purchase of the Sony Xperia 1 VIII comes with a free pair of WF-1000XM6 true wireless earbuds (worth S$479) and a Sony casing for the phone (worth S$50).