Sony Taking Preorders for $1,300 Smartphone With Advanced Photo Features

Sony borrowed heavily from its imaging and audio businesses in designing its flagship $1,299 Xperia 1 III smartphone, which went on preorder Thursday, with shipments starting Aug. 19. Orders placed by Sept. 26 will come with Sony’s WF-1000XM3 wireless noise-canceling earbuds, a $230 value, and 43,200 Call of Duty Mobile CP Points, valued at $540, said the company. Co-developed with the engineers behind the Sony Alpha brand cameras, the Xperia 1 III has a variable telephoto lens paired with a dual phase-detect sensor, and it has real-time eye auto-focus, real-time tracking and accurate, continuous auto-focus across all lenses, said the company. It has four focal lengths in photo and video recording -- 16mm, 24mm, 70mm and 105mm -- and Zeiss coating is said to improve rendering and contrast by reducing reflections, Sony said. The phone, with a 6.5-inch OLED display, has 20-frame-per-second burst mode, AI zoom and is the first phone with a 4K HDR 120 Hz refresh rate display, said the company. Dolby Atmos is included. Its stereo speakers are 20% louder than previous models and the phone is the first to reproduce Sony’s 360 Reality Audio. Sony's 360 Spatial sound allows users to up-mix stereo music to create an immersive audio experience, and they can create videos in 21:9 aspect ratio at 24/25/30/60 frames per second. The unlocked Android phone comes in two versions: The frosted black model will be available at authorized Sony dealers; the frosted purple one will be available exclusively at electronics.sony.com.