Almost 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, America has gotten herself a new king. His name is Elon Musk.
Technology
Elon Musk’s rapid unscheduled disassembly of the US government
“Wait a minute,” you may be saying. “What about President Donald Trump?” Trump ran, much like Silvio Berlusconi before him, primarily to avoid prosecutions. He has never liked being president and he has already gotten what he wants. He’s not the power center. Musk is.
Consequently I will not be bothering with whatever statements Katie Miller of DOGE and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt are putting out. We all have eyes; we can see what is going on. Musk has taken over the civilian government. This is a billionaire pulling a heist on the entire nation.
Here are the things Musk has installed his IT Renfields at:
We all learned in 2022, with the weaponization of SWIFT, that technical systems are a source of power. By controlling the infrastructure, Musk controls the nation. The two most obviously significant agencies on that list are the Treasury, which controls the money, and the Department of Energy, which controls the nuclear secrets. Less obviously significant but equally troubling is the General Services Administration, which is effectively the infrastructure of the government itself.
“Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even ‘read only,’ likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.”
The GSA, an agency most of us have never had to think about, is in charge of buildings, sure. But also it runs an awful lot of the technical infrastructure of the government — it is basically the feds’ IT. If the US government were a brain, the GSA is the brain stem, the part that manages heartbeats and breathing so they’re below the level of thoughts.
“This is the largest data breach and the largest IT security breach in our country’s history—at least that’s publicly known,” a contractor who’s worked on classified systems at government agencies told The Atlantic.
Here’s the threat intelligence team at the Treasury, as reported by Wired, just to underline the seriousness of Musk’s access: “We further recommend that DOGE members be placed under insider threat monitoring and alerting after their access to payment systems is revoked. Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even ‘read only,’ likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.” After The Washington Post inquired about that memo, the person who wrote it was ”removed” by contractor Booz Allen. But a second warning memo was also sent by a Treasury insider, warning of risks from DOGE.
Judge Paul Englemayer granted a temporary restraining order to 19 states seeking to halt Musk and crew’s access to the Treasury systems. Englemayer wrote that the states would experience “irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief.” Why? “Both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking,” he wrote.
Is anyone checking to see if the court order will be followed?
Fantastic. This is an agency that controls $5 trillion, and contains sensitive personal information for — among others — American spies abroad. It’s also, by the way, tax season. And now Trump says that “we have less debt than we thought of?” Boy, that sounds like a fun new way to default on a loan. It’s a terrifying prospect if you are a finance-knower: US bonds are the safest assets in the world, at least for now, and making them risky shakes the foundation of the global financial system. On the other hand, Trump might just be saying shit again.
Oh, sure, yes, there are those challenges in the courts to Musk’s access to the Treasury, and to shutting down USAID, which may well have been illegal. Here’s the thing: Musk doesn’t care about laws. Remember when he was meant to receive a “Twitter sitter” after the time he pretended he wanted to take Tesla private? The courts ordered one. It has never appeared. Or maybe we should talk about the depositions he hasn’t shown up for. Or all the government requests to fix Tesla’s so-called Autopilot that he’s ignored. And given the lying about the Treasury access, I don’t think we can rule out the possibility that Musk and co. simply lie under oath. He’s also got himself a cadre of elite lawyers, two of whom clerked for conservative Supreme Court justices, to argue for him in court.
So it’s no real surprise that he’s posting stuff on X that indicates he isn’t taking the court order to back away from the Treasury seriously. “Corrupt judges protecting corruption,” Musk wrote of the court order. Congressman Darrell Issa wrote that he was “immediately introducing legislation next week to stop these rogue judges,” which Musk quoted with American flag emoji. Vice President JD Vance, the nation’s highest-ranking kiss-ass, wrote on X, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Vance has always been in the running to be Yale Law School’s most embarrassing graduate, a competitive endeavor; calling for a coup in violation of his oath of office and a basic understanding of the Constitution pretty much cements him at the top of the list.
Are we still a nation of laws? Is anyone checking to see if the court order will be followed? About the only things Musk hasn’t taken over are the military and law enforcement. What happens if he obviously ignores a court order, and the court issues a warrant for his arrest? Does domestic law enforcement side with the court or with Musk?
The Republicans are ready to make a horse a consul
Regardless of Musk’s personal contempt for the law, there’s also the fact of the January 6th pardons, which sent a clear message: breaking the law is okay, as long as Trump thinks it’s okay. And since Trump is effectively Musk’s puppet, Musk has carte blanche. The most these court orders might do is give cover to staffers at these departments to deny Musk’s team access to the things they want. Of course, we already know those staffers can be fired and replaced.
What has our Congress been up to while this hostile takeover of our government has been happening in plain sight? Well, the Democrats are still writing strongly worded letters, and showing up at protests, and allowing glorified mall cops to turn them away from the departments Musk has already conquered. The closest they’ve come to action is Senator Cory Booker’s threat of a debt default or government shutdown. The Republicans… aside from the ones vociferously approving of Musk usurping their control over the nation’s spending, they appear to be Milford Men. They are ready to make a horse a consul.
Musk is now flexing his power. After his staffer Marko Elez resigned for saying he “was racist before it was cool,” Musk put up a poll on X, the go-to groyper platform, asking if Elez should be reinstated. As of this writing, the answer was “yes.” Elez had read and write access to the Treasury’s systems.
Should Elez come back? Local lapdog Vance thinks so! (Sure sounds like Vance is taking orders from Musk rather than the other way around.) Musk then posted that Elez “will be brought back.” That does rather make it clear who’s in charge, doesn’t it?
“The Man Who Knew Nothing about Risk.”
So now that Musk has control of the guts of the government, let’s consider his extraordinarily reckless history with payments and IT systems. When Musk was running the company that would become PayPal, it had what his coworker and buddy Peter Thiel called “a runaway fraud problem.” When Thiel thought about writing a book about the experience, he said he’d title the Musk chapter “The Man Who Knew Nothing about Risk.”
This may explain why Musk has hired Edward Coristine, who was fired from a cybersecurity firm for “leaking internal information to the competitors,” according to an internal message reported by Bloomberg. Oh, and also he’s on a watch list for federal cybercrime enforcement, and worked at a startup with convicted hackers. Now, of course, he’s got access to our government’s internal systems. Neat! Also there’s Gavin Kliger, who seems to have his own interest in white supremacy. It’s unclear what he does at the Office of Personnel Management, but he probably should not be in that building at all.
No wonder they’re hiding from the regular USDS employees.
This kind of sloppiness makes sense for those of us who followed Musk’s Twitter takeover. Musk has a real interest in moving fast and breaking things, with an emphasis on breaking things. For instance, there’s the time a “bug” restored deleted tweets. Or that time private tweets were made public. Or the older images that no longer displayed.
Bad news for Blue Origin and OpenAI: King Elon holds a grudge
Now, imagine this at the Treasury, with a bunch of children who don’t know COBOL toying with the systems. Even a slight bug can fuck up trillions of dollars — during tax season. I don’t want to think about what happens with a bug in the code at DoE, because one possible answer is a leak of our nuclear secrets — which is something we, as a nation, used to take so seriously that we executed people.
Oh sure, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright says that the DOGE dorks don’t have access to nuclear secrets but hey, remember when the Treasury said DOGE didn’t have write access and that was not true at all?
Even discounting the possibility of some catastrophic mistake, let’s think about what success would look like for King Elon. Judging by his constant, unhinged posts on X, his hiring practices, and his support of Germany’s far-right party, it seems like he’s down with white supremacy. That also clears up any question about his let’s-argue-about-whether-it’s-a-Nazi-salute “gesture” at the inauguration; it was meant both to signal he could say or do anything he wants without consequence and to fire up his base of racists. So that probably means immigration cutoffs except in the cases of H-1bs that now work like indentured servitude, and government pressure on anyone who hires women, trans people, or non-white men. The non-prosecution of hate crimes, obviously. I’m not confident in continued protections for abortion or even birth control, because of Musk’s weird pronatalist thing.
Musk’s paramount goal, however, is always for Musk to acquire more money and power. This usually comes at the expense of literally everyone else.
So it’s not hard to imagine that means his AI endeavor gets embedded in the government, X becomes the main platform for all government communications (and maybe also the main payment provider, just like WeChat, because that’s the kind of thing you can do in an authoritarian government), Starlink becomes the de facto internet provider, and suddenly every government official drives a Cybertruck. What happens to the other tech giants? Well, turns out they were sucking up to the wrong guy. Bad news for Blue Origin and OpenAI: King Elon holds a grudge.
The military has been suspiciously quiet about this direct threat to national security
Anyone who objects gets shipped to Guantanamo, or better yet, El Salvador. After all, Musk already has a pet prosecutor, Ed Martin, who (while not advocating for the last wave of insurrectionists) told Musk that he’d begin proceedings at Musk’s referral and anyone who has “broken the law or even acted simply unethically” can expected to be chased “to the end of the Earth.” This is to say nothing of the possibility of stochastic violence from white supremacists, spurred by posts on X.
The only thing we all really have going for us is that Musk has a tiny team. Sure, they can download a ton of sensitive government data — not great! — but they can’t run all of these agencies at once. And none of these people has the 20 years’ experience with COBOL that would be necessary to take this stuff over quickly. Leaving aside Musk’s propensity for fucking around and finding out, his ability to control all these systems remains somewhat limited by his staffing. Maybe he can get Trump’s people to help him, but given Musk’s arrogance, I suspect Musk will want to hand-pick a team; I’d guess he assumes Trump’s people are idiots, given how easily he’s run through them.
But the more systems Musk has access to, and the more data he can futz around with, the more likely it becomes that something catastrophic happens. Because it seems Congress won’t act, and Musk can ignore the courts at will, it seems that the defense of citizens’ private data, classified information, and all government payments falls on government staffers and their unions alone.
There’s a reason Musk-hater Steve Bannon has been daring him to start taking a look at the Pentagon. Bannon knows that’s where this all falls apart. The military has been suspiciously quiet about this direct threat to national security, and there’s no telling how the spies feel. Given how much of the government Musk has taken over, an anti-Musk junta isn’t beyond the pale — and while Musk presumably has private security, there are a lot more people in, say, the Army.
This strikes me as an all-or-nothing action for Musk. If he wins, he rules the most powerful nation on Earth. If he loses, he’s going to have legal headaches for the rest of his life, maybe even the sort that land him in jail. X continues to hemorrhage money, Tesla’s declining sales catch up with the company, and maybe worst for him, he’s publicly humiliated — having gone from King Musk to nothing at all. I expect him to fight tooth and nail to hold on to the power he’s grabbed. The question is if he’ll have to.
The history books are littered with the corpses of corporate record labels started by companies that had no business being in the music industry. Bose thinks it can be the exception to the rule. It thinks it can be Red Bull. And, while Bose has more of a right to dip its toes into the media world than Build-a-Bear, there’s little reason to believe it can succeed where so many others have failed.
In an interview with Business Insider, Bose CMO Jim Mollica said the company had created Bose Studios as part of a move away from traditional “campaign-driven marketing.” A big element of that is going to be Bose Records, a new label the company has formed to “help break underappreciated or new artists.” The competition isn’t the big three — Sony, UMG, Warner — it’s independent labels already being squeezed in an era of bedroom producers and self-distribution.
Mollica was transparent about the real goal, though: build a library of music that Bose could feature in its commercials without having to pay the licensing rights for. He said that the company wouldn’t own the artists’ masters or take a share of their streaming or sales revenue, and that they’d be free to sign with other labels. That sounds extremely artist-friendly on its face, which is great. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about the new business venture.
Bose is primarily known for making consumer-grade audio gear that tries to put on airs. Most audiophiles will be quick to tell you that Bose products are overpriced and, at best, merely okay. What the company is undeniably great at is marketing. But selling mediocre Bluetooth speakers at inflated prices is very different from discovering talent and promoting artists. Mollica didn’t mention poaching A&R talent from other labels or any splashy celebrity partnerships to launch. Though he did mention that some “legendary Hollywood names” were attached to films and TV series being commissioned by Bose Studios.
Which brings us to another issue: a lack of focus. Simply launching a record label is hard enough. Why does Bose — again, whose primary experience is in manufacturing audio hardware — think that it can also launch a movie studio, a podcast network, and a live event production company? These are all things that Mollica said are in the works, according to Business Insider.
Sure, you could argue that Bose, as an audio company, has more of a right to dive into the music industry than those failed ventures. But they featured celebrity endorsements, partnerships with bigger labels, or, at the very least, some specific cultural hook. Bose Studios just seems desperate and unfocused.
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A strange email lands in your inbox, and at first, it sounds helpful. It uses a familiar company, leans into family safety and warns that you may need to act before a deadline.
That is what makes this suspicious AAA-themed email we received worth warning you about. It reads like a friendly safety reminder from someone who claims to work in AAA’s member outreach. It isn’t the kind of message most of us would delete right away.
Still, something feels off. Before you click any link or trust the warning, it helps to slow down and look for the signs that this could actually be one big scam.
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FAKE TRAFFIC VIOLATION TEXT SCAM USES QR CODES TO STEAL PAYMENT INFO
A suspicious AAA-themed email can look harmless at first, especially when it uses a familiar company and a safety warning. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What this fake AAA email scam is
The email appears to use car safety as bait, then pushes you toward a link that should raise concern.
A message built around family safety
The email claims to come from someone named Sloane Garibaldi at AAA. It says the recipient’s household appeared on a member outreach list. Then it asks whether the family is “actually safe” in the car. That wording makes the message feel personal. It also turns a random email into something that sounds urgent.
A supposed rule with a deadline
The email says a new federal rule starts on July 1, 2026. It claims every passenger vehicle must carry a certified emergency rescue tool that can cut a seatbelt and break glass. Then it adds a warning about a $200 fine per occurrence. That kind of deadline can make any driver worry. However, the message does not point to a government site or an official AAA page. Instead, it pushes a shared Google link.
A fake status check
The email includes a small “compliance check” box. It lists the recipient as a member and says the check has not been completed. That detail makes the message feel like an account notice. It also creates a small task the reader may want to fix. Scammers use that tactic often. They make the action look quick, then hope you click before you question the message.
YOUR EMAIL DIDN’T EXPIRE; IT’S JUST ANOTHER SNEAKY SCAM
The email claims a new car safety rule is coming, but the message pushes the recipient toward a shared link instead of an official AAA website. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Red flags in the fake AAA email
Several clues inside the message suggest this email deserves to be treated as suspicious.
1) The real sender address looks suspicious
The display name says Sloane Garibaldi, but the expanded sender address shows pfiz@middlerunred.guru. That domain has no clear connection to AAA. Display names can be faked. The real sender address often tells a very different story.
The sender name looks familiar, but the real email address shown here has no clear connection to AAA. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
2) The email does not use official AAA branding
The message uses the AAA name, but it does not include the official AAA logo or the kind of polished branding you would expect from a real member safety notice. That alone does not prove an email is fake. However, it adds to the concern when combined with a strange sender address, a shared link and urgent language. A real company email usually looks consistent with the brand’s website, app and past messages.
3) The link goes through a shared URL
The message uses a share. Google link instead of an official AAA website. That should make you pause. Shared links can hide the final destination. They can also lead to fake forms that collect personal details, account information, vehicle data or payment details. A real AAA notice should point to an official AAA domain or tell you to log in through the AAA app.
4) The email pushes fear before facts
The message asks whether your family is safe. It mentions a deadline. It warns about fines. Then it says the check only takes 60 seconds. That is a pressure move. The scammer wants clicking to feel easier than checking.
5) The rule citation does not match the claim
The email cites NHTSA FMVSS 571.220. That sounds convincing until you check what the rule covers. That federal standard deals with school bus rollover protection. It does not appear to require everyday passenger vehicles to carry an emergency rescue tool. Scammers often use official-sounding language because many people will not look it up.
6) The tone feels too casual for a legal warning
The message uses friendly lines like “I promise I’m not being dramatic” and “I’d rather chase you about this twice.” That tone may be meant to lower your guard. It sounds like someone trying to help. Still, a real safety or compliance notice should not arrive from a strange domain with a shared link and casual pressure.
7) The fine print repeats the suspicious link
The bottom of the email includes a P.S. that says the link may “wrap oddly” in your mail app. Then it repeats the same shared link so you can click it again. It even adds, “I’ve had people miss it because their inbox cut it in half,” which sounds casual but also gives the sender another excuse to push the link. That may seem helpful, but it keeps steering you toward the same questionable destination. Legitimate companies do not need to explain why a safety link looks strange in your inbox.
The fine print also says the recipient’s email address is tied to a “member household” in an outreach queue for the July 1, 2026, FMVSS §571.220 rollout. That wording sounds official, but it gives no member number, no verified AAA account link and no official AAA contact path. Even the opt-out line deserves caution. Scam emails often include unsubscribe or opt-out links to make the message look legitimate. In this case, “opt out here” could confirm your email address is active or send you to another suspicious page.
10 WAYS TO PROTECT SENIORS FROM EMAIL SCAMS
The fine print repeats the same questionable link and adds an opt-out line that could be another trap. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
AAA says it did not send the email
We reached out to AAA, and the organization confirmed the message did not come from them.
“AAA did not send those emails, and they could potentially be malicious,” an AAA spokesperson told CyberGuy. “We remind members to avoid clicking on suspicious links and contact us directly if they have questions or concerns.”
That confirmation makes the warning even clearer: do not click the link in the email. Go directly to AAA if you have any questions about your membership or a safety notice.
Why this fake AAA email could fool drivers
The scam feels believable because it mixes a practical safety concern with a personal tone and an official-sounding reference.
Car safety gets attention
Most people want to protect their family on the road. A seatbelt cutter or window breaker can also sound useful in a real emergency. That makes the topic believable. The issue is the email, not necessarily the idea of keeping an emergency tool in your vehicle.
Personal details can lower your guard
The email uses the recipient’s actual first and last name. Scammers often use personal details to make messages feel legitimate. A name, city, phone number or family reference can make someone hesitate before deleting an email.
Official names add fake credibility
The email mentions NHTSA and a federal motor vehicle safety standard. Those details make the message look researched. However, one official name does not make the claim true. Scammers count on people trusting the reference without checking it.
SSA IMPERSONATION SCAMS ARE GETTING MORE PERSONAL
The fake AAA-themed email uses a familiar name and safety language to make a suspicious message look trustworthy. (Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto)
How to stay safe from fake AAA emails
A few quick checks can help you avoid bad links, fake forms and phishing attempts that pretend to come from trusted brands.
1) Check the sender address
Do not rely on the display name. Click or tap the sender to see the full address. If the domain does not match the company, treat the message as suspicious.
2) Look for missing or sloppy branding
Pay attention to the overall look of the email. Missing logos, odd spacing, plain formatting or generic design can be warning signs. Also, compare the message with past emails from the same company. If the style looks off, do not click.
3) Skip links in urgent emails
Avoid clicking links in surprise emails that mention deadlines, penalties or account problems. Instead, open your browser and go directly to the company’s official website. You can also use the company’s app.
4) Use strong antivirus software
Strong antivirus software can help block malicious links, phishing pages and dangerous downloads. It can also warn you before you land on a risky site. That extra alert can stop a quick mistake from becoming a bigger problem. Get my picks for the best 2026 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices at Cyberguy.com
5) Do not fill out surprise forms
A fake “readiness check” can collect more than you realize. Do not enter your name, address, phone number, vehicle details, payment information or account login through an unexpected email link.
6) Verify legal claims on your own
If an email cites a rule, law or government agency, search for it separately. Use official government websites or trusted legal sources. Do not use the link inside the message to verify the message.
7) Use a data removal service
Scam emails become more convincing when criminals know personal details about you. Data brokers and people-search sites can expose names, addresses, phone numbers and relatives. A data removal service can help reduce that exposure. It will not remove everything, but it can make you a harder target. Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com
8) Report and block the sender
Mark the message as phishing or junk. Then block the sender and delete the email. If the message claims to come from AAA, contact AAA through its official website or app to report it.
9) Warn someone who may click quickly
This kind of scam can fool anyone. It may be especially risky for older relatives, new drivers or anyone who takes safety notices seriously. A quick warning could help them avoid a bad link and major headaches down the road.
Kurt’s key takeaways
This fake AAA email works because it feels personal and practical. It talks about family safety. It uses a deadline. It cites a federal rule. Then it pushes a link that does not belong in a legitimate AAA notice. That is the real lesson here. When an email makes you feel rushed, slow down. Check the sender address. Look at the link. Notice the branding. Verify the claim somewhere else. You may still decide to keep an emergency tool in your car. Just do not buy one, register one or share personal information because a suspicious email told you to act fast.
Should companies and email providers be doing more to stop scam messages like this before they ever hit your inbox? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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The Xperia 1 VIII marks an attempt at a step change for Sony’s flagship phone line. Not only has it had an aesthetic overhaul, but Sony has also revamped the camera system, dropping the continuous optical zoom telephoto that’s defined the last four generations of Xperia phone.
It’s not all different. Sony staples like a 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD card slot remain, and a few specific design touches, like a thick front bezel that fits stereo speakers, have stayed intact. Sony’s ambitious pricing hasn’t changed either: The Xperia 1 VIII isn’t launching in the US, but in the UK and Europe, it starts from £1,399 / €1,499 (about $1,850), rising to £1,849 / €1,999 ($2,450) if you want 1TB of storage.
For Sony diehards, this delivers the flagship essentials, including a capable camera, and looks good doing it. For everyone else, you can find better Android phones at this price, like Xiaomi’s 17 Ultra or the Vivo X300 Ultra.
$1850
The Good
- Stark, striking design
- Headphone jack and microSD card slot
- Capable cameras
The Bad
- Middling battery life
- Uneven performance
- Only four years of Android updates
- Dreadful AI Camera Assistant
Sony’s Xperia 1 phones have looked almost identical to one another since 2020. It was a pretty handsome design, to be fair, but probably overdue sprucing up. The 1 VIII does just that, moving to a blocky new camera island and an unusual textured finish that make the phone feel very different to every previous Xperia.
I’m a big fan of the design, which has a stark, brutalist quality. The slightly grippy texture — a bit like an incredibly fine nail file — was designed to vary subtly between the back and frame, which helps prevent the phone from feeling like a monotone slab. The texture helps sell the phone’s high price even better than ultrasmooth glass might (not that this isn’t glass, with Gorilla Glass Victus on the rear and Victus 2 on the front).
I love the details, like how the camera island’s edges drop off steeply on three sides, while on the last it angles down to meet the frame. Sony’s usual knurled two-stage camera shutter button returns, adding another textural element and improved camera controls. Unfortunately, so does the recessed power button and fingerprint sensor, which is less reliable than modern under-display options. It fails about a third of the time I try it. I’m also confused by the odd rectangular patch above the volume button, which has an especially rough texture and looks like it should do something, but doesn’t. Is it some sort of antenna cutout? I’ve asked Sony.
Sony long ago gave up on using its unique 21:9, 4K displays on the Xperia lineup. The 1 VIII uses a less impressive 1080p display in a standard smartphone aspect ratio. The resolution is low for this grade of phone, but otherwise I can’t complain about the panel, which is a 6.5-inch, 120Hz OLED with decent brightness. I do still miss the taller screens Sony phones used to offer, though. Unlike most rivals, the display is also entirely uninterrupted by a camera cutout, notch, or Dynamic Island. The tradeoff is the rather thick bezel above and below the screen, which houses the camera and a pair of stereo speakers (good for phone speakers, but still phone speakers).
The Xperia 1 VIII’s internals are unremarkable, with the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset you’ll find on most comparable handsets. It’s paired with either 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage — available in black, red, or silver versions of the phone — or 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. That model is only available in gold, meaning that anyone tempted by the Trump phone’s lustrous finish and built-in headphone jack can enjoy the same luxuries here for quadruple the price.
What is remarkable is that Sony has managed to make the 8 Elite Gen 5 perform quite poorly. While the phone runs smoothly the majority of the time, I’ve run into repeated stuttering and slowdowns, especially in the camera or while switching between apps. It gets hot, too. Using the phone to record the audio of a recent press event, with real-time AI transcription running, it became worryingly warm after just 30 minutes or so, and as the hourlong call ended, it was hot to the touch.
I don’t love the battery either. Sony claims you’ll get two days of life out of the 5,000mAh cell, but I don’t see how. I’m a light-to-moderate user most of the time, and I’ve dipped into single-digit territory by bedtime more than once. This will last the day unless you push it hard, but expect to charge every 24 hours. That might take some time too, given the 30W max speed, substantially slower than most rivals. Only Google’s Pixel 10 Pro charges quite so slowly.
This is definitely Sony’s best phone camera yet
I have better news on the camera front. After years of carving its own path, Sony has taken the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach to its Chinese flagship rivals, abandoning its clever continuous zoom lens and instead packing the 1 VIII with the biggest telephoto sensor it could fit. That Sony dropped continuous zoom in the same year Xiaomi finally copied it and did it better feels like a cruel twist of fate.
Still, what the 2.9x (70mm-equivalent) telephoto lens here loses in versatility by giving up continuous zoom it more than makes up for in quality. That’s driven mostly by the move to a large 48-megapixel, 1/1.56-inch-type sensor — the same size as the ultrawide’s and almost as big as the 1/1.35-inch-type main camera sensor. Those other cameras, along with the 12-megapixel selfie shooter, are unchanged from last year.
1/19
The telephoto and the ultrawide are the two standouts, both using relatively large sensors compared to the competition. I’m a fan of Sony’s daytime processing, which leans toward higher contrast and slightly more muted colors than some other phones, and nighttime shots come out sharp and well-exposed too, though still struggle with bright streetlights. This is definitely Sony’s best phone camera yet and holds its own against the competition.
That is, except for the egregious new AI Camera Assistant. More often than not, when you’re trying to take a shot with the rear camera (not selfies — don’t ask me why), a pop-up appears with four AI-suggested edits to your photos, before you even take them. The overwhelming majority of these are simply overaggressive filters, either ramping up contrast or dialling back saturation, often to comically bad effect. Occasionally one will include algorithmically generated bokeh, and Sony claims it can also suggest lens swaps for better framing, but this has yet to happen to me. Every single suggestion has been markedly worse than the default camera settings, and the pop-up alone is a distracting annoyance that seems to make the camera app sluggish. Fortunately, you can turn it off, and if I wasn’t reviewing the phone, I would have done so immediately.
1/5
The AI camera suggestions feel emblematic of Sony’s Xperia line, which always delivers an impressive amount on paper and then contrives to trip itself up. The headphone jack, expandable storage, and stereo speakers are great. The new design language is striking and unique. The camera is the best it’s ever been. Sony’s relatively simple, streamlined take on Android 16 has its appeal too, but a meager promise of four OS updates and six years of security support gives me pause. It has its irritating quirks too: it keeps insisting on creating home screen folders, adding Facebook to my Instagram icon to make a Meta folder, and throwing a whole host of Google apps on top of Google Maps. Throw in the middling battery, performance problems, and high price, and the 1 VIII is hard to recommend to the average flagship buyer.
All of which leaves Sony back where it started. It redesigned the Xperia, rethought its camera, and simplified its software, but this is still what it always was: a phone for the fanboys. The rest of us can do better.
Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge
Agree to Continue: Sony Xperia 1 VIII
Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.
To use the Xperia 1 VIII, you must agree to:
- Google Terms of Service
- Google Play Terms of Service
- Google Privacy Policy (included in ToS)
- Install apps and updates: “You agree this device may also automatically download and install updates and apps from Google, your operator, and your device’s manufacturer, possibly using cellular data.”
- Sony warranty and usage guidelines
- Sony end user licence agreement
There’s also a variety of optional agreements, including:
- Provide anonymous location data for Google’s services
- “Allow apps and services to scan for Wi-Fi networks and nearby devices at any time, even when Wi-Fi or Bluetooth is off.”
- Google phone number verification
- Send usage and diagnostic data to Google
- Let contacts nearby find and share with you
- Google Gemini Apps Privacy Notice if you opt in to using Gemini Assistant
- Sony data collection to develop and improve products and services
- Sony data use for tailored marketing
- Sony data use for tailored support
- Sony data use for tailored marketing via the support app
Honor includes several more optional agreements during setup tied to specific features. Other Google features, like Google Wallet, may require additional agreements.
Final tally: six mandatory agreements and more than 12 optional agreements.
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