Xperia Pro: When "pro" finally meant Pro

 

There have been a great many articles, reviews, and videos surrounding the Xperia Pro and it's astounding $2,500 price tag. However, this phone has so many things that don't make it worth $2,500 to everyone. However, for pros, no not iPhone 12 Pro, no not OnePlus 8 Pro, I mean real pros, NFL stadium pros that use the Xperia Pro to stream their camera footage via 5G. The Xperia Pro is not a phone for most people, it's not even a Phone for me, but the refreshing honesty of what it means to be a pro phone is in the essence of the Xperia Pro. Without further ado, let's talk about the Xperia Pro. 

 

 

The Xperia Pro is pretty much the Xperia 1 mark II sharing its display, cameras, and processor. However, there are some crucial differences that make the Xperia Pro the Xperia Pro but before we do that let's go over the basic specs. We have a Snapdragon 865, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, no exceptions. The screen is a crisp 6.5-inch 4K OLED with a 21:9 aspect ratio. We also have a fingerprint scanner embedded in the power button, mm wave and sub-6 5G, IP68 water and dust resistance, and a MicroSD card. As for ports we have a USB-C port, micro-HDMI, and a headphone jack. Cameras include a trio of 12MP main, telephoto, ultrawide, and a 0.3MP depth sensor all capable of recording video at 4K 60FPS. A full spec list can be found at Gsm arena, here's the link: https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_pro-10707.php. 

 

 

With specs out of the way let's start talking about capabilities of this phone, the features that make it Pro. 

The first is its ability to connect to cameras with its mini-HDMI port to become a viewfinder. Although there were other ways to do this such as the wireless canon camera app integration found on most newer Cannon cameras (including my Rebel T6), this allows for a much more precise viewfinder experience. It's also a 4K display for your camera which is an excellent value considering most monitors are more expensive than the Xperia Pro. One of the downsides is that due to the glass screen of the Xperia Pro its prone to glare, something that a matte screen protector may or may not fix, however several reviewers have struggled with it so far. 

Image Credit: Sony

The 21:9 aspect ratio is also troublesome as it causes the viewfinder experience to have bezels, thus not being able to have a full-screen experience on the screen of the Xperia Pro. Having used the wireless viewfinder on my Cannon I would welcome the dedicated viewfinder of the Xperia Pro but I'm still not sure it would work on other cameras with most of these features only being guaranteed to work on Sony Alpha cameras (more on that later). 

The other main feature is the ability to connect via the HDMI cable and use its 5G connection, regular 4G, or WI-FI to stream to services such as Streamyards or Streamlabs. It's not important to me but for so many people streaming live from remote places such as parks, cities, and piers (maybe not that last one). This is one of the better uses of 5G that really does make a difference, streaming 4K or 1080p from a dedicated camera is a lot of data to process and for minimal lag 5G is invaluable. For some examples of the streaming feature here's various videos from SomeGadgetGuy and MrMobile, both incredible creators that I highly recommend. 

Other than that, the Xperia Pro still has other Pro features such as the advanced power management, dedicated shutter button, and headphone jack that's still included on this phone. Not to mention the pro camera and video interfaces Sony provides along with its more pedestrian camera app. So, what are you sacrificing with the Xperia Pro? Well, you trade the smooth glass of the Xperia 1 mark ii for a more durable rubber/plastic substance that makes it more grippable (decent job Ben, totally a real word...) and less susceptible to drops that would damage a glass-backed product. Though you do omit wireless charging along with some unsightly antenna lines for better LTE and 5G reception around all sides of the phone which matters more than you might think.  

 
 

 
 

I love how Sony was brave enough to omit some consumer features and instead just making a regular phone and slapping "Pro" on it they made a phone that applies for pros. An unapologetically utilitarian phone. So many youtubers have focused on the $2,500-price tag and how the "price-to-performance" ratio doesn't make sense, but what they've yet to realize is that pros buy things even more expensive than this all the time. While you are complaining about the 865 in the Xperia Pro some people are complementing how they save money by not having to buy a separate modem or monitor for their cameras because the Xperia Pro combines those two tools into one. Of course, this is not a phone I would even dream about recommending to most people, even I wouldn't buy it, but the fact of the matter is that this phone isn't for me or you. It's for the pros that would make proper use of its capabilities and features, for the people that Sony made the Xperia Pro for. Even though some of these features are Sony-exclusive I still really don't care, as a cannon user I do feel hurt but the fact that Sony even released this phone is a wonder for me.  

 
 

We want all phones to apply to everyone, but they just don't, and Sony drew the line with the Xperia Pro. Thank you Sony, for finally making a phone worthy of the "Pro" tagline. 

 

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