Sony Xperia Pro-I Pro-I Black 512GB

The Xperia Pro-I's camera sits dead last in our rankings at the 11th percentile — a huge letdown for a Pro-branded phone. Performance (82nd percentile) and the 120Hz display are solid, but build quality and battery life drag it down. For $879, it's a hard pass unless you absolutely need 512GB of storage and don't mind a poor camera.

The Sony Xperia Pro-I's performance lands in the 82nd percentile in our database, so it still has some zip for daily tasks. Thanks to a Snapdragon 888, 12GB of RAM, and a clean Android experience, apps open quick and multitasking feels smooth. The 6.5-inch 120Hz OLED is also a treat, sitting at the 80th percentile for display quality, meaning it's bright and vibrant enough for most people. But the camera situation is a real buzzkill: it's down in the 11th percentile, making it one of the weakest camera phones we've tested recently. That's a weird look for a device with 'Pro-I' in the name.

Build quality and battery life don't do it any favors, either. At the 20th and 63rd percentiles respectively, this phone feels less premium than the price tag suggests, and the 4500mAh cell barely gets you through a heavy day. On the plus side, you're getting a whopping 512GB of storage out of the box, which is double what most flagships offer, and there's dual SIM support. But with a $879 asking price and no CDMA compatibility, you really have to love storage and ignore the camera to consider this one.

The Snapdragon 888 might be a couple of generations old, but paired with 12GB of RAM, it still pushes the Xperia Pro-I into the top 18% of all phones we've benchmarked. In real terms, that means apps launch fast, games like Genshin Impact run at respectable frame rates, and you won't hit slowdowns during normal multitasking. The 512GB UFS storage only helps, giving you room for a ton of media while keeping read/write speeds snappy.

The 120Hz OLED is another standout. With an 80th percentile display score, colors are punchy and scrolling feels super fluid. It's not quite up there with the latest LTPO panels, but for an older panel, it holds up well. So for sheer speed and screen quality, the Pro-I does its job and then some. Just don't expect the camera sensor to follow the same script.

Spending $879 on a phone with a Snapdragon 888 in 2025 is a tough ask. You can grab a Pixel 10 Pro XL or a OnePlus 15 for not much more and get vastly better cameras, build, and battery life. The Xperia Pro-I's main value play is that 512GB of storage: if you absolutely need that much space without a microSD slot and don't care about photography, it's one of the few cheaper ways to get there. But for everyone else, the price-to-performance ratio just doesn't stack up when you look at the competition.

Stacked against the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and iPhone 17, the Xperia Pro-I gets smoked in camera and build quality — its 11th-percentile camera score is almost laughable next to those devices' top-tier sensors. The Google Pixel 10 Pro XL and OnePlus 15 also leapfrog it in battery life and overall polish. Even the budget Motorola G Stylus feels more solid in the hand, though it can't match the Xperia's raw performance. If you're weighing storage alone, 512GB is nice, but the gap in camera and build is so wide that you'd really have to ignore every other spec to pick the Sony.

If you prize camera quality, build feel, or battery endurance, this isn't your phone. The 11th-percentile camera is a dealbreaker for anyone who takes photos seriously, and the 20th-percentile build makes it feel like a mid-ranger in a flagship's clothing. CDMA users should also walk away. Even if you just expect a modern all-rounder for $879, the Xperia Pro-I falls short when placed beside newer devices from Samsung, Apple, Google, or OnePlus.

The Xperia Pro-I is a strange phone. It nails the basics with a speedy chip, loads of RAM, and a gorgeous display, then torpedoes itself with a camera that ranks among the worst we've seen. Unless you specifically need 512GB of onboard storage and live in a GSM-only bubble, you're better off with almost any modern flagship. We can't recommend it for most buyers, especially when the competition offers such massive leaps in the areas where this Sony falls flat.