Sony announced its new flagship, the Xperia 1 VIII. The rear cameras have been changed from a vertical arrangement to a square layout, while the telephoto camera has been switched to a larger sensor than that used in previous models.
Sony announced the Xperia 1 VIII, a new flagship smartphone. The impact of a manufacturing defect that occurred in 2025 and difficulties in the smartphone business had been reported, but the product was announced in 2026 as the business restarted. Although it is the successor to the Xperia 1 VII, many aspects have been redesigned, including the rear layout, which has been changed from the previous vertically aligned cameras to a square camera cluster and Sony logo arrangement across the back.
One factor behind the design changes is the size of the camera configuration. The rear camera system still consists of three cameras—a wide-angle, ultrawide-angle and telephoto camera—but the telephoto camera uses a larger 1/1.56-inch sensor with approximately 48 megapixels. The larger sensor is expected to improve low-light photography, but because it requires space on the circuit board, the overall design had to be reconsidered.
Constraints on circuit-board space arising from the installation of a high-capacity battery are believed to have been a factor. The previous design, with the cameras arranged vertically, made it difficult to accommodate the larger sensor. This is said to have led to the decision to redesign the camera layout and the body design.