Sony announces the Xperia 1 III and Xperia 5 III with variable telephoto lenses - The Verge

Sony is announcing two new phones today, the Xperia 1 III and the Xperia 5 III.

As such, the camera system is once again the main focus, and Sony specifically is touting the “world’s first smartphone with a variable telephoto lens paired with a Dual PD sensor” and improvements to its already fast and accurate autofocus system.

Each phone has the basic specs you’d expect on a top-flight Android phone: three cameras on the rear, a Snapdragon 888 processor, and support for 5G.

The phone also keep the Xperia design language Sony landed on with the original Xperia 1.

In order to establish the Xperia brand, Sony has also been pushing a lot of other nice specs that are relatively hard to come by on other Android phones.

Sony is also enabling a special mode for the USB-C port that allows you to use a special cable to take an HD-resolution video signal from an SLR camera so you can use it as a monitor – much like the Xperia Pro can do with HDMI.

Sony is using three 12-megapixel sensors on the back, and both the main and telephoto lenses support OIS.

Previous Sony Xperia phones have also had great camera hardware specs, but for taking quick shots they have often missed the mark.

A lot of that has come down to higher prices than is the norm for even flagship Android phones, but some of it also comes down to availability

Without carrier partnerships or massive marketing budgets, these Xperia phones are more likely to appeal to camera enthusiasts than mainstream Android buyers