Sony Xperia 1 III, comparison: this is how it is against OnePlus 9, Xiaomi Mi 11, Poco F3, Galaxy S21 and the rest of the high-end Android

A couple of years ago, Sony renamed its ranges by changing letters by numbers, with the Sony Xperia 1 being the classic high-end. After the renovation in the form of the Sony Xperia 1 II in February last year, the third iteration or Mark III is here: the Sony Xperia 1 III.

The Sony Xperia 1 III is once again Sony’s “number 1” or its classic-style high-end in which the Japanese have put all the meat on the grill. Has it been enough? To check, we face it against the rest of high-end Android like the OnePlus 9, Xiaomi Mi 11, Samsung Galaxy S21, Poco F3, OPPO Find X3 Pro and Huawei Mate 40 Pro.

The last banner of the camera in the frame

2019 was the year of the notch, 2020 was the year of all kinds of solutions such as pop-up cameras and perforations and in 2021 almost all ranges agreed to incorporate the perforated front camera on the screen, whether in a corner or in the center. Everyone? No, the screen included in the mobile of irreducible Japanese mobiles resists Gauls resists, still and as always, the invader. Sony continues to bet on incorporate the front camera into the upper frame.

It is thus the only mobile in our comparison in which you can enjoy all the pixels without interruption, since the rest include one -or two, in the Huawei model on its surface. And they are not few pixels, because we have a 4K panel. In the competition, there is a tie between Full HD + and QHD + panels, but 4K is still exclusive to Sony.

This 6.5-inch OLED display has a 120 Hz refresh rate which, although it has become the standard in the high-end (it is in all but the Mate 40 Pro), is accompanied by an improved smooth recognition speed, at 240 Hz. Beyond the aspect ratio of 21: 9 Sony’s classic and, therefore, a more elongated shape than what we are used to, the Sony Xperia 1 III does not have dimensions that are too different from other terminals such as the Xiaomi Mi 11.

Few megapixels

We already know that megapixels are not everything in mobile photography, and yet the resolution of the sensors continues to increase year after year. Sony stays true to its 12 megapixel triplet accompanied by a ToF, although it incorporates its own innovations to try to stand out from the competition.

In the meantime, the competition in the high-end reach 108 megapixels in the Xiaomi Mi 11. Without reaching such an extreme, the most common is to have a main sensor around 48 megapixels, such as the 48 + 50 + 2 MP combination of the OnePlus 9 in the triple cameras or the 50 + 50 + 13 + 3MP of the OPPO Find X3 Pro, in the quadruples.

It will be the photographic analyzes that have the last word, although Sony rescues the idea of ​​the variable aperture for your telephoto sensor and includes a fourth ToF sensor, just like the previous generation.

In front, the Sony Xperia 1 III mounts a 8 megapixel front camera Which, again, doesn’t sound too ambitious. The average in the competition is around 16 megapixels, reaching 32 MP in the OPPO Find X3 Pro and the 10 megapixel camera of the Samsung Galaxy S21 being the one that comes closest to Sony’s offer.

Lots of storage

Performance wise, we don’t have too many surprises. In the high end, the most common is to find the same Snapdragon 888 of Qualcomm present in the Sony Xperia 1 III, with three exceptions: Samsung with its Exynos 2100, Huawei with its Kirin 9000 and the Poco F3, which mounts a slightly lower Snapdragon 870.

With 12 GB of RAM, the Sony Xperia 1 III comes well stocked with memory and is on par with the competition, although it stands out for its storage capacity of up to 512GB. The rest of the terminals in our comparison remain in 256 GB of storage as a maximum option.

As for the battery, Sony’s high-end mounts one with a 4,500 mAh capacity, which has become something of the standard. 100 mAh up or down, it is the same as in the rest, with the only exception of the Samsung Galaxy S21, more compact and with a 4,000 mAh battery.

If we talk about fast charging, the Sony Xperia 1 III is somewhat more conservative than the competition. Stays in 30W fast charge, while the competition comes to the load of 65W (Huawei Mate 40 Pro, OPPO Find X3 Pro, OnePlus 9) and 55W (Xiaomi Mi 11). The only one that includes a more modest fast charge is Samsung’s high-end, whose load is 25W.

Comparison table

As always, we leave you the full comparison table of all high-end terminals, so that you can see at a glance the specific differences between the terminals, such as where the fingerprint reader is incorporated in each case or the presence of wireless charging.