The quest for smartphone supremacy has always been full of surprises, with tech giants such as Apple and Samsung constantly revamping their products, surprising audiences with new unexpected features.

Sony never shied away from competing in the market, yet never quite reached the heights of the two titans. So what did the company decide to do?

Take a completely new radical approach with its smartphones. Instead of upgrading its phones with a slightly better camera, now they are infusing their successful mirrorless camera technology with their latest 5G phones.

Xperia Pro-I, the latest addition to the roaster of seasonal smartphone revelations, is already hell-bent on making sure that everyone is aware of its photographic roots: The "I" in the name stands for imaging, a tribute to Sony's famous line of mirrorless interchangeable lens photo and video cameras, the Alpha series.

The camera of the Xperia Pro-I uses the Alpha 1.0-type Exmor RS image sensor with phase-detection AF (autofocus), which allows for “outstanding low light performance, high dynamic range, and beautiful bokeh,” according to Sony. With a total of three 12-megapixel cameras on the back (main, ultrawide, and telephoto) and a single 8-megapixel camera on the front, all containing large (2.4µm) pixels, making each pixel capable of capturing more details and retaining a wider dynamic ranger and greater depth of field.

The rear cameras are built using three glass lenses from Zeiss, with the main 24mm lens possessing dual aperture (f2.0/f4.4) which allows for a swift change of depth of field, hence creating an authentic bokeh instead of the software-rendered ones in other phones.

Xperia Pro-I is capable of taking up to 20 frames per second (fps) in burst shots, and is imbued with the capacity of rapid autofocus and real-time eye-tracking capability in both stills and video, a rarity in phones. 

On the video side of things, Sony declared the Xperia Pro-I to be the first smartphone with the capability of recording 4K videos at 120 fps without any frame loss or compression.

Regarding the phone specs, this flagship phone has a 6.5-inch 21:9 3840x1644 OLED display, with a 120Hz refresh rate, at a  21:9 aspect ratio. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G processor powers the Xperia Pro-I.

With 512 GB of internal storage, 12 GB of RAM, a microSDXC card slot, and a 4,500mAh battery, the phone is clearly flaunting its premium capacities.

The real surprise though might come through its price: At a whopping $1800, the latest Sony entry is certifiably one of the most expensive phone models to ever be launched, ranking only second after the $2000 1TB model of the iPhone Pro Max.

The preorders for the Xperia Pro-I begin two days from now, on October 28. Will the unique camera-first approach work for Sony?

Only time, and sales numbers, will tell.