New day, new Xperia 1 VIII controversy: How thick is it, really?

It’s been almost a week since the Xperia 1 VIII launched, and the phone has already faced an AI camera controversy that just got worse with Sony’s response. It doesn’t seem like the company can catch a break, because yet another controversial problem has emerged — this time from the phone’s spec sheet.

According to Sony’s website, the Xperia 1 VIII is 8.3mm thick. That would’ve been perfectly fine, except the phone is reportedly considerably thicker. An X post by OnLeaks shows that it actually measures 8.59mm (via Android Headlines).

It’s unlikely that Sony is lying about the thickness of its phone, but it’s also a fairly big blunder to make. While 8.59mm isn’t too much thicker than the claimed 8.3mm, the oversight is still surprising, and it’s clearly not a simple rounding error.

There is some speculation that Sony might have measured the phone’s frame only. Since the display and the glass back of the Xperia 1 VIII are slightly raised, the actual thickness would be a bit more than the thickness of the frame. That could account for the small but noticeable difference in the measurements.

It’s an odd mistake to make, if that indeed is the case. Regardless, Sony should fix the numbers on its spec sheet to reflect the actual thickness of the phone.

The Xperia 1 VIII launched last week with iterative hardware updates. The phone features a 5,000mAh battery, which is relatively small. It also features a 6.5-inch LTPO OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, and a triple rear camera that’s largely unchanged from the last generation.

The phone starts at £1,399 / €1,499, and at that price it is competing against phones like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra and the Oppo Find X9 Ultra.