After 14 years of largely caseless handheld device ownership, I finally ended up with a cracked back panel after a drop. Hilariously, it happened when I had the case on. I brought it along this time because I needed to be able to use the stand it came with. Phone basically hit the ground on the frame where all the buttons are and I guess that impact got transferred to the back.

Anyway, it's not terrible, but it is just a little annoying since the panel now has a bit more flex to it when I press down on the area with the cracks. I can probably live with it but I did still decide to look around for replacement back panels. Maybe this is my sign to get a back panel from a silver phone so I can run with a panda 1 V (it's the black one). I digress however. After looking around a little, I've been presented with the following challenges:

1. I'm not confident enough to replace my phone's own back panel, which prompted me to reach out to my local repair shops. All of them came back to me saying their vendors didn't stock Xperia parts (which, well, fair enough), and most of them flat out refused to work on my phone even though the repair is very straightforward. I guess this is just how it is when you use Xperia in a country where they're not officially sold (Canada). I did find one shop who said they'd be happy to fix my phone if I supplied them with the parts though, which is nice....and that brings me to my next point.

2. Finding a replacement back panel hasn't proven as straightforward as I imagined. On a superficial search, there's tons of aftermarket options available on AliX, eBay, and Alibaba. $20-25, with adhesive, and they're all pretty well reviewed. eBay ones are a little more expensive, around $50ish. Seems pretty straightforward right? But then on deeper digging I find out that the third microphone and flash unit are actually screwed into the camera bump on the glass, and the aftermarket options all don't seem to have any place for this setup to be attached. There was another thread in here from someone who tried to DIY their back panel replacement and they messed up with removing the microphone and flash from their back panel, so the aftermarket back panel was functionally useless. I don't want this to be a possibility even if I do take it to a shop, so this rules out the super cheap options. There's a guy on eBay that's selling a back panel and it does appear to have the module thingy that has screw holes where the mic and flash are meant to go, but given that this is an eBay listing from a seller in China, I do still have my reservations. I've messaged them to confirm what the images show though. Other commenters here have suggested looking at sites like rounded.com as they sell the back panel with a new microphone and flash already attached. I did consider this, although these remain the most expensive options so far at $100 for the black panel and $110 for the silver/grey, not to mention the adhesive is a separate purchase at about $12. On top of that, the parts are either out of stock, or the vendor won't ship to me either because they don't ship to Canada or because they don't ship to individual buyers (this was the case with rounded).

All of this is to say, I'm kinda suffering from analysis paralysis right now, and I'd love some feedback or experiences from anyone else who's been in a similar position.

Today marks 2 years since I got my Xperia 1 V. I've been kinda teasing it in a few comments here and there on posts asking about the 1 V and in my post yesterday with my 2 year photoshoot with it as well. I want to also link my 1 year review, 6 month review (which includes a camera review), 1 month review, and initial impressions, which you guys can read through to, I guess see how my feelings have progressed over time and compare it with this post. So, without further ado, here goes.

The Good:

1. Battery. I will continue glazing the battery life on this phone until it dies. In the last year I don't think I've really seen a significant reduction in battery life. It was 8-10 hours on a consistent basis last year, and it continues to be the same today. I end most days with about 50-60% battery, and on days when I don't use the phone much, I'm somewhere between 70-80%. I should mention however, that I use my phone in 60hz mode most of the time. I don't personally see a huge benefit to my experience in 120hz, and there is a pretty significant reduction in battery life (I'm at 30% after 5 hours SOT as opposed to 50%), so it's more loss than gain for me. Thermals are also slightly worse in 120hz mode.
2. Display. Love it. Looks great.
3. Cameras. No notes here, at least for photography. The phone does what I want it to do. I have my A7R III for any serious photography, so all I ever really need of my phone is for it to take passable photos in a consistent manner, and it does that pretty well. It's pretty comfortably on par with something like a Pixel 8 or 9 (including Pro/XL models) for the main and ultrawide cameras. My brother recently got a Pixel 10 Pro and I've taken a few comparison shots. Indoors, I'd say the Xperia kinda nudges ahead. Outdoors, the Pixel has stronger HDR going on, so there are fewer situations where the highlights or shadows are clipped. However, overall colour accuracy still very handily goes to the Xperia......again, at least for the main and ultrawide. The telephoto is a completely different story though.
4. Headphone jack. Always a benefit. I dug up a bunch of old earbuds (two of which were some Sony MH750s that I remember came bundled with my XZs and XZ1) and it's so awesome to be able to actually try them out without having to hunt for an adaptor or just not bother. It's also nice to be able to get more out of my car's audio system by plugging my phone in via the aux.
5. Expandable storage. No further notes here vs my last review. Expandable storage is always a win.
6. Durability. It's been dinged and scratched up a bit more vs last year (you can see it in yesterday's photos as well), but there are no cracks in either of the glass panels, and everything still works great.
7. I'm happy to report that the fingerprint sensor is still working great. I've heard there aren't any issues with this generation onward as far as this is concerned, so it's nice to be able to confirm that for anyone else. Still gonna keep an eye out though.
8. Design. I always have to mention this, but I continue to love the way the phone was designed. This has to be one of the best phones to hold and use without a case. The aspect ratio makes it easy to hold, and the texturing + ridged frame are not only sublime to feel up, but also aid in grip, so there isn't a situation like with a lot of other phones where it feels slippery in the hand.
9. Thermals. Only time phone's every gotten outright hot is if I've left it to sit in the sun for a long time (I drive a convertible so this does happen often), and I figure this is entirely down to it being black and absorbing heat as opposed to anything processor related. I should note though, that the phone gets noticeably warm in 120hz mode when you've been using it uninterrupted for a very long time, and also when you decide to check the Play Store and perform 50+ app updates in one fell swoop. Otherwise, it stays frosty.

The Bad:

1. AOD. I still hate it. I will forever lambast Sony for getting rid of the old Ambient Display. I'm not going to get over this gripe and I don't care what anybody else says. The nicest thing I can say about the AOD is that it's there.
2. Android 15. I mentioned this in my last 2 reviews as a con. I still don't like it, but I've largely gotten over it. It's some comfort that there won't be any more UI updates that'll change the way the phone looks and feels anymore.
3. Side Sense. I'm still not a fan of Sony's current implementation of it because I don't like how it conflicts with the swipe gestures. There's nothing I can do about it though so I'm just gonna mention it in passing in the future.
4. Cameras. They do the job just fine for me but I still do think they're a bit undercooked, and the telephoto just kinda sucks most of the time. I've made my feelings about this clear in the 6 month post so I just don't really feel like complaining about this anymore. What I do wanna mention though, is that the video camera has kinda started being a bit fucky lately. I've run into a few situations where the phone would either take forever to start recording a video, or simply not record at all. I've tried fixing it by clearing cache, force stopping, clearing app data, restarting the phone, but none of these things would. However, this seems to have resolved itself randomly one day. Not sure what happened or how it happened. Can't replicate that bug anymore.
5. Software support. I'm like 95% sure there aren't any more security updates in the pipeline for this phone since it's pretty much been 3 years since release date. This isn't an issue for me personally, and I honestly would've put it in the "mixed" section, but I feel like the principle of charging 4 figures for a phone and only offering 2 OS updates + 1 extra year of security updates is pretty shitty and does warrant putting this into the "bad" category. Additionally, while I do commend Sony for improving on this with future phones, I also think it's shitty that they didn't extend this to previous generation phones the way certain competing companies did.
6. Standby battery drain. I mentioned this in my last post so I feel compelled to mention it here as well. While the standby drain is pretty bad, I haven't really run into any situations where it's been an active problem for me in the last year.

The Mixed:

1. Auto brightness. It's annoying that the phone takes like a full second or two to get up to normal brightness after I've taken it out of my pocket or moved to an environment with different lighting vs the previous one. Sometimes it isn't the right brightness even after it's adjusted to the ambient lighting. Idk if this is improved with future Xperias tbh and at this point I'm not sure how much faith I have in Sony to do anything about it since it's been an Xperia thing ever since I've been using Xperias.
2. Fingerprint scanner. Maybe a little too sensitive for its own good. I'm largely over it now though. Just gotta live with it. Would rather this hyper sensitive sensor over one that doesn't work anymore.
3. Paint chipping. This won't be an issue if you use a case, and it isn't even really an issue for me. I feel compelled to mention it though because if you are thinking about going caseless, you should probably be aware that you'll pick up a metric fuckton of paint chips over time. If this makes you uncomfortable, just use a case; ideally one that covers the sides too. The official Sony case does a good job of covering the back, but the sides of the frame are pretty much entirely unprotected.
4. Green tinting/black crush. More obvious in 120hz mode. Workaround for green tinting is to use it in 60hz mode and/or at maximum brightness. No real workaround for black crush though. It's kinda still there even at maximum brightness. Sometimes I boot up my old Xperia 1 if I ever wanna watch anything on my phone because that phone's screen just handles this stuff much better than the 1 V.
5. USB Preferences. Still a bit annoying that it's a 6 step process to start transferring my photos and music between laptop and phone, but I guess it's for security and shit. I wish there was a way for the phone to remember my USB preferences for my laptop.
6. Display. There's some burn in where the gesture bar and status bar are. It's very mild, but it is there. My wallpapers and stuff are all dark so it's not super visible, but if there's a bright or grey screen then yea you can see their shadows at the top and bottom. I think you can mitigate this by using Smart or Nova Launcher, as they have options to hide the navbar and status bar. It's a bummer that this happened though since my old 1 and 5 didn't end up having burn in. Interestingly, there's not been any burn in for the AOD, which is strange considering it's displayed waaaaaay more often than the navbar and status bar. Just thought that's worth mentioning.

Conclusion:

I was hopeful last year that my momentum with the 1 V would continue, and I'm happy to report that it has. While there have been kinks, the phone hasn't really let me down in any real way. I'd love any feedback about the issues I've been having (particularly the one with the video camera), and I'd love to answer any questions you guys might have about the phone. For any who may be wondering whether the 1 V is a good phone in 2026, I'm pleased to say that it is. My intention is to use this phone until it dies or is no longer supported by my carrier (after which point I'd either upgrade to the newest Xperia if I can afford it and can get it working with the carrier, or just move on to another brand and use the 1 V as my media device). As such, I really do hope this phone remains wonderful to use for those intended years ahead.

Looking forward to the 3 year review, which will, as you may imagine, come around the same time as this one next year.

Dumb question, but are the exhaust valve actuators the same across all AMGs/Mercedes that use them?

I was window shopping exhaust valve modules and came across a well reputed company (11Mode) that sells them for significantly less vs the Renntech and ASR modules. They don't list anything for the R172 SLK55, but they do list a module for its immediate successor, the SLC43.

I figure maybe it's a similar situation to Renntech where they list the part as being for the 43 but the fine print says it'll fit the 55 as well, so I reached out to them to confirm. Given how generally unknown the 55 is in the car community though, I figured it might be worth asking here too in case they get back to me with an answer that basically just reads "I didn't know this car even existed", since I've gotten that response quite a lot in the car community lol.