Sony has seemingly disbarred itself from the typical consumer-oriented smartphone market, focusing on its flagship Xperia line of photography-centric phones. The newest in this line, the Xperia Pro, boasts many notable features geared towards professional photographers and videographers that certainly set it apart from other smartphones. These features, however, come with a hefty price tag — the new Sony Xperia Pro currently retails at a whopping $2,500.
Though the Xperia Pro might garner some sticker shock, even from photography and videography professionals, a further analysis of its features could prompt some to consider it a worthy buy.
CNET reviewer Patrick Holland outlined the pros and cons of the new Sony device in his recent article on the tech product review site. Among other useful hardware features, he favorably described its nondescript, utilitarian casing as an “appropriate [component of] a serious piece of equipment.”
He goes on to review its functionality as a 4K field monitor for professional videography. The Xperia Pro comes equipped with a mini HDMI port and External Monitor app, which displays output from any professional camera (not just Sony) in real-time with 4K picture quality. Holland describes the size, weight, and battery life of the phone as a huge improvement over his “bulky and heavy” standalone monitor. He remarks that the Xperia Pro battery lasted for hours when used as a camera monitor, where the standalone monitor’s battery usually lasts for under an hour.
Holland also praises the External Monitor app itself for its ease of use over a typical videography monitor. External Monitor works like a typical phone camera app, with the ability to easily pinch and zoom, control brightness, add gridlines, and perform a 180-degree image flip. He cites the standard, often clunky and outdated display controls on traditional video monitors as evidence that the 4K video monitor function of the Xperia Pro is a huge selling point for the device.
The other key feature the Xperia Pro offers professional photographers is the ability to act as a 5G modem for 4K video broadcast. Holland details a use case for this particular function as demonstrated on the sidelines of an NFL game, where a video rig nicknamed “the Megalodon” came equipped with a 5G modem in the videographer’s backpack that wirelessly shared the signal with the broadcast truck. Ergo, thanks to the lack of a cable tether to the broadcast equipment, the videographer had maximum freedom of motion to capture the lively football game.
“It is not hard to imagine an Xperia Pro being used in lieu of the cellular modem and/or the monitor,” says Holland.
Read the full CNET article here to learn more about the new Sony Xperia Pro.
