Save £200 on the brilliant Sony Xperia 1

The Sony Xperia 1 is a damned fine smartphone. It’s stylish, fast, packs an excellent camera and a has a superb screen – even if it’s party trick of 4K is a bit pointless on a mobile. 

Its main problem is pricing: £849 is simply too much. It’s not that the Xperia 1 is markedly worse than its equally expensive Apple or Samsung rivals, it’s just that they will sell at that price, and Sony handsets, historically, do not. 

And that may be why Giffgaff is now selling the unlocked Xperia 1 for £649 – a £200 saving on its optimistic RRP. Yes, you need to buy a Giffgaff Goody Bag with it, but this can be cancelled after one month if you like, and the cheapest only adds £10 to the price.

What makes the Xperia 1 so great, then? Well to start with, it packs the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor backed by 6GB RAM, which means everything is silky smooth and will likely remain that way for the next couple of years. It has 128GB storage built-in, but that can be topped up with a 512GB microSD card too. On the back, it has a triple camera array with both a wide-angle and 2x telephoto lens supporting the main 12-megapixel unit which, as you’d imagine, takes some cracking photos.

The 21:9 screen takes a little getting used to, but the thinking behind it is sound: it’s the aspect ratio films tend to be shot in, making the wonderful OLED screen the perfect way to watch movies on the go. And yes, it supports up to 4K resolution, even if that still seems a bit silly to me on a 6.5in screen.

Still, as a package, it’s hard to fault as Nathan wrote in his review. “In the end, the Xperia 1 is a high-end smartphone that’s filled to the brim with positives,” he wrote. “The 21:9 OLED screen is simply a joy to stare at, the camera outperforms the competition in most scenarios, and performance is right up there with the very best in the business.”

With £200 off, it’s worth a look.
Buy now from Giffgaff