Apple's latest non-Pro iPhone is superb - it's just that it's strikingly similar to last year's effort.

Still an incredible smartphone, Brilliant battery life gets a bit better, Excellent camera system gets a bit better

Last year’s Pro hardware, Wireless charging slow by modern standards, No USB-C; it’s now well overdue

Most camera marques now have an inexpensive 50mm lens in their ranges. These are often described as "nifty fifties" or "plastic fantastics", the implication being that they are cheap and cheerful, but often superb performers as well.

I read reviews explaining this was a great lens, but I was now prepared for how great. I've had it for 4 months, and it is a dream to work with. The images look great even wide open, and I love the bokeh effect.

Image Quality; Build; Steady Shot

no focus distance indicator

The Sony FE 50mm f1.8 is an affordable standard prime lens for Alpha mirrorless cameras. It delivers standard coverage on full-frame bodies making it an ideal walk-around lens, and becomes a short telephoto on APSC bodies, equivalent to 75mm, making it perfect for portraits.

The Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 Lens is a compact, lightweight lens with an extremely popular, "normal" focal length and a very attractively wide aperture. Stopped-down somewhat, this lens produces very sharp images.

My overall rating of 4 is for those occasions when I'm using the lens for rapid, point-and-shoot *interior* photography with the Sony NEX 7 set to "autofocus", in poor to average shopping mall lighting conditions.

very sharp; lightweight

Difficult to autofocus when used for rapid; candid; interior photography

Fast and accurate autofocus is achieved with a newly developed DC motor focus actuator system which drives all lens groups for optimum focus precision and speed as well as quiet operation.

The AF performance is very good for a contrast detection system (albeit highly dependent on the base camera). AF operations are basically noiseless. Manual focusing works "by wire" so the focus ring is not directly coupled to the focus gears but to the AF motor.

If you turn a blind eye to the build quality, the Sony FE 50 mm f/1.8 might be a very attractive alternative for the more expensive Zeiss Sonnar T* 55 mm f/1.8 FE. The cheaper lens is weaker at the maximum relative aperture, that’s true, but on stopping down it provides even higher MTFs while...

Very good image quality in the frame centre,, Good image quality on the edge of the APS-C sensor,, Low longitudinal chromatic aberration,, Imperceptible lateral chromatic aberration,, Lack of spherical aberration problems,, Negligible distortion,, Slight astigmatism,, Low vignetting on the APS-C...

Image quality near the maximum relative aperture on the edge of the frame could have been a bit better,, Huge coma,, Significant vignetting on full frame,, Slow autofocus.

The new Sony FE 50mm F1.4 ZA is impressive. Our friend Roger Cicala over at LensRentals notes its central sharpness performance to exceed even the venerable Zeiss Otus , as well as the Sigma 50mm Art. He even found it to out-perform the 55/1.8 centrally, but fall behind it peripherally.