Ben Keough, Reviewed.com 9:02 a.m. EDT September 12, 2015
The new Xperia Z5 comes in 3 different sizes.(Photo: Reviewed.com)
For the past few years, Sony has been pumping out excellent smartphones, but they've never had much of a chance with consumers. After all, it doesn't matter how great your hardware is if only one carrier is selling it. It's a real shame.
The phones boasted beautifully minimalist industrial design, a relatively clean re-skin of Android, and some excellent features, including one of the best smartphone cameras on the market. It's no wonder the original Z3 has reigned as our top Android phone since its release.
At this year's IFA trade show in Berlin, Sony announced the next generation of Xperia phones: the Z5, Z5 Premium, and Z5 Compact. The new devices represent a generally incremental upgrade over the Z3s, albeit with a few intriguing additions and alterations—4K screen, anyone? We went hands-on at Sony's booth to find out whether the changes can give them a better shot at mainstream success.
Sony's Xperia Z5 is one of the most promising new phones we've seen. (Photo: Reviewed.com)
Last time around, Sony offered the 5.2-inch Z3 and 4.6-inch Z3 Compact. Those sizes are back this year in the Z5 and Z5 Compact, but the company has also added the 5.5-inch Z5 Premium. With very few exceptions, the phones feature identical internals, which means you don't have to give up performance to get the phone size you want.
All three Z5s boast Qualcomm's top-of-the-line Snapdragon 810 processor. It's a 64-bit chip with eight cores. That's backed up by the Adreno 430 GPU and either 3GB (Z5 and Z5 Premium) or 2GB (Z5 Compact) of RAM. That's the same combo that powers the HTC One M9, which wowed us in the labs, so we expect similarly solid performance from the Z5 series.
The demo units on the show floor certainly felt zippy enough. Running Sony's lightly skinned version of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, all three phones plowed through heavy webpages with ease and seemed to have no issues with gaming or video playback.
We loved the design of the Xperia Z3 (with one noticeable caveat), and absolutely nothing has changed in that regard with the new Z5.
The Z5's glass back is unchanged from the Z3, except that the Z5 Premium gets a mirrored (rather than frosted) look. (Photo: Reviewed.com)
The edges of the Z5 and Z5 Premium are made of metal, while the smaller Z5 Compact uses plastic. It's a downgrade, sure, but it doesn't feel or look particularly cheap. Flip the Z5 and Z5 Compact over and you'll find a frosted glass back, while the Premium variant has a flashier mirrored finish.
That glass back was our biggest pain point with the Z3's design—when we put it on a smooth surface, it would sometimes walk itself right off and fall on the floor. Sadly, the Z5 hasn't addressed this glaring weakness. Chances are, you'll put a case on yours, but if not, be sure to keep an eye on it.
Like other Z-series phones, the Z5s have physical shutter buttons. They're a rarity among non–Windows Phone devices, sought after by serious photographers the world over. You can long-press the shutter button to launch the camera app, and it offers a nice two-step action to help you prefocus and snap your shots.
The power button is bigger this time around, to accommodate the new fingerprint scanner. It's the latest must-have feature for flagship phones, so it's little surprise to find it here. And the Z5s are just as waterproof as their predecessors, but this time around the USB port doesn't require any extra protection.
The two biggest changes in the Z5 line are numerical: 4K and 23MP. Let's start with the first.
The Xperia Z5 Premium boasts the world's first 4K screen in a smartphone. Yes, that's 3840 x 2160 resolution in a 5.5-inch screen, for more than 800 pixels per inch (PPI). For comparison, the iPhone 6 Plus (also 5.5 inches) offers 401 PPI, while the 5.7-inch Samsung Galaxy Note 5 claims 515 PPI.
Do you really need 4K resolution in a 5.5-inch phone? No, of course not. Can you see the difference in everyday use? We sure couldn't.
The Z5's screen is bright and colorful, and looks plenty sharp even in 1080p. (Photo: Reviewed.com)
Don't get us wrong—there's no denying it's a gorgeous display, and Sony continues to offer best-in-class screen calibration tools so you can tweak the color profile to your heart's content, though color accuracy appeared solid by default.
More so than the 4K screen, the new 23-megapixel, 1/2.3-inch Exmor-RS image sensor in all three phones seems likely to impress.
Sony CEO Kaz Hirai promised at the phone's unveiling it's the best camera the company has ever created for a smartphone. In particular, he touted its autofocus speed and low-light performance—two issues that can be a real sticking point for phone cameras.
We took some test shots on the busy show floor, but it's hard to tell much without being able to examine them more closely. On the phone screen, shots looked very sharp and well-exposed even in the murky trade show light, but there was clear evidence of hefty compression and noise reduction. We'll have to wait to get the phone into our imaging labs to draw any firm conclusions.
Sony's camera app is intuitive and feature-rich. Paired with the new sensor, it should make the Z5 a great choice for serious smartphone photographers. (Photo: Reviewed.com)
Minor quibbles about the UI and slippery glass back aside, the news here is all good. If you weren't aware the Z3 series even existed, here's your opportunity to put right what once went wrong: When you shop for your next Android phone, give the Z5s a look.
We'll confirm the Z5s' performance details once we get them into the lab for testing, but for now, these phones show a lot of promise.
For more of our coverage from IFA 2015, head over to Reviewed.com.
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Source: Hands-on with Sony's mobile camera powerhouse, the Z5
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