The results from last week’s poll have us wondering – do people really love the Sony Xperia 1 VIII so much or do they love phones with 3.5mm headphone jacks and microSD slots and the Xperia happens to be the only flagship to have those features? Because the results are quite positive – nearly a quarter of voters are willing to spend €1,500/£1,400 to get the Mark 8 and that is if they pick up the base 12/256GB unit. The 512GB and 1TB models cost more (€2,000/£1,850 in the case of the 1TB version). Interestingly, the positive vote could have gone higher, but Sony didn’t even launch the Xperia 1 VIII in several major markets, so those would-be buyers are left out. And, yes, the phone is expensive, which is turning away many people – some don’t want to spend over €1,000 on a smartphone and many of those that do, think they can get better hardware from other brands. People in the comments found plenty to complain about – the 6.5” 1080p+ display doesn’t match the price, the chipset doesn’t have enough cooling and Sony did basically nothing with the battery and charging hardware since the previous generation. Sony’s work on the camera is interesting, but it’s hard to justify the results in the context of that price tag – the image quality isn’t on par with similarly-priced Ultra phones. Anyway, other makers should consider bringing back the 3.5mm jack and the microSD slot – these features still have die-hard fans. | 256GB 12GB RAM | £ 1,399.00 | € 1,499.00 | | Show all prices |