On the same day that Sony announced the Alpha 1 power station, it also unveiled its latest Xperia phone. Although technically a smartphone, it is functionally something else.
It’s easy to look at the Sony Xperia Pro and wonder what Sony even thinks. To understand what led them to do this, it is important to look at their history in computers.
Sony makes fantastic smartphones, but the strategy behind these phones was staggering and, probably, hurtful for the success of the phones commercially. As a result, those who like Sony’s Xperia devices and are actively looking for them were a little bit of the overall smartphone market.
Such a shard that the devices have about 0% of the smartphone market share in the United States.
Admittedly, this is strange, since the company manufactures devices that look very good on paper. Previous devices have expandable storage, wireless charging, high-resolution 4K screens, a headphone jack, water resistance and a top processor. In addition, it offers settings that promise better color accuracy for recording and viewing content, along with Sony’s high-level camera features such as full manual and the company’s legendary autofocus features.
And it can not be overemphasized: just as much as other companies like Samsung and Apple have amazing smartphone cameras, the sensors are manufactured by Sony and Sony makes high-end cameras. They gain the camera market, and these features are fairly faithfully rendered in the Xperia range.
But despite all this, the company does not sell many of its cameras, and this is where the ‘strategy’ role plays. Sony treats its smartphones much like the way it treats its cameras: it makes an announcement and then waits a while until the camera is available. The gap between hype and availability catches the wind completely behind the release, to the point that the general public has forgotten that the phones are finally available.
Add to that the fact that Sony spends basically zero dollars on marketing the phones up to and including their release. It’s incredibly easy not to know that Sony phones exist because of this.
I think another problem is that Sony’s smartphone division overlaps similarly to the camera division and to whom it sends products and how it markets the phones is very similar to the way the company handles full size camera releases. It works for the camera niche, but not for the broader consumer market for smartphones.
However, it seems that Sony has now tackled this issue with open arms. The latest phone, the Xperia PRO, has ceased to be a phone. Instead of trying to be a consumer device like other smartphones, it is now an all-in on the pro camera market as a photo and video accessory. Because the company is no longer trying to make a device for all smartphone users and is now hyper-focused on making a device that is specific to a very specialized niche, there actually seems to be a good strategy.
The Xperia Pro is basically the Xperia 1 Mark II that has been repackaged to take advantage of niche features even more than ever before. This is not a device that anyone who wants to buy a phone will ever consider, and it seems to be intentional.
In the video above, Marques Brownlee claims that this is the only device that really deserves it in a market that is flooded with products with the “pro” name. While many devices use the term Pro to sound loud, the Xperia Pro is actually a legitimate professional tool.
The most important feature of the device, about which you can read more PetaPixel’s here coverage, is the HDMI input and connectivity with full-size cameras. It has the ability to use 5G signals (and monitor signal strength) to send photos and videos from field cameras to a central location for distribution.
Actually, it’s a 4K HDR monitor with a built-in 5G modem.
If you look at Sony’s marketing images, no single image can show that it’s used as a camera or as a phone.
Although no one has previously considered a Sony phone due to confusing strategy and bad marketing, Sony has apparently turned the ‘error’ into a ‘feature’. The company never expected to sell many Xperia 1 Mark II phones, and I can hardly imagine that that will change with the Xperia Pro. But at least this time, it feels like design rather than coincidence. It actually feels like a solid strategy.