Sony's Xperia Z5 premium is the flagship phone Sony has owed us for a long time. While the standard Z5 was a fairly uninspiring reissue of the brilliant Z3,
the Z5 Premium packs a bigger screen with a whopping 4K resolution,
which is 3,840x2,160 pixels. It's the first phone to have a 4K
resolution and it's the highest resolution I've ever seen on a phone.
Cue wild applause.
But
wait: Don't get too excited about seeing your photos with revolutionary
levels of resolution. I personally could tell no difference in clarity
on a high-resolution image between the Z5 Premium's display and that of
the iPhone 6S Plus -- even though the iPhone display has half the resolution of the Sony.
View full gallery
We've debated before whether the step up from full HD to ultra HD displays
is worth bothering with on small devices like phones, and that argument
is even more pertinent having spent serious time with this phone. The
major selling point of the Z5 Premium is its 4K display -- that's also
how Sony tries to justify its whopping asking price -- but when you
can't see any real difference, it's more of an empty marketing boast
than a real benefit.
Fortunately, the Z5 Premium has other
bragging rights, such as a meaty processor, a waterproof design and a
23-megapixel camera that puts it on par with any of today's top-end
flagships. Yet it's all let down by a design so dull it could send a
hyperactive toddler to sleep and a price tag somewhere north of
ridiculous. Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge costs less and looks far more stylish. It's where I'd spend my money, over the Z5 Premium.
In
the UK, the Z5 Premium can be yours for an eye-watering £630, SIM-free,
directly from Sony. In Australia, it'll set you back AU$1,199 but comes
bundled with a digital noise-cancelling headset worth AU$79. Sony has
yet to announce whether it'll be available in the US, but that UK price
converts to around $960. Better start saving now.
Pin-sharp display
- 5.5-inch screen size
- 4K (3,840x2,160-pixel) resolution
The
Z5 Premium's resolution equates to a massive 801 pixels per inch.
That's the highest resolution I've seen on a phone, beating both iPhone
6S Plus (401ppi) and the Samsung Galaxy S6 (577ppi). On paper, that's an impressive feat, but the reality isn't quite as groundbreaking.
While
you might think that cramming a truckload more pixels into a screen
will make everything look sharper, I couldn't see any real difference in
clarity between high-resolution images seen on the iPhone 6S Plus and
the Galaxy S6 and the Z5 Premium -- even when I looked very close up at
the displays to try and pick out individual pixels. The same goes for
video. I showed comparison photos to several people and they agreed that
the difference was so marginal, you'd never notice it was there.
View full gallery
More
importantly, does it make your everyday tasks of emailing, calling and
tweeting any crisper? No, absolutely not. Does it even give your mobile
photography an extra level of clarity? Nope. Given the significant
premium placed on it, I'd really want to notice it more.
While 4K might be worth having on a massive TV in your living room, cramming that many pixels into a small phone screen doesn't achieve anything except a higher selling price.
That's
not to say this display is bad though. Far from it. It's unquestionably
pin-sharp, and the colours are rich and vibrant, with great contrast
too. I sometimes found it a little too vivid, with colours looking
unnaturally oversaturated, so I tweaked the colour balance in the
settings to find a more realistic look. It's bright too, once you go
into the settings to disable the auto brightness. Oddly, you can't do
this from the pull-down quick settings panel, and I found the auto mode
to heavily restrict the brightness.
Tired design
- 154 by 76 by 7.8mm (6 by 3 by 0.3 inches)
- 181 grams (6.4 ounces)
- Water resistant
I'm
disappointed with the Z5 Premium's design. Sony has stuck rigidly to
its usual Xperia look, which is beginning to look a little tired. The
minimalist style, with its buttonless front, is as stark and monolithic
as ever, but the squared-off sides make the phone look too blocky. The
back panel is extremely glossy, and easily picks up fingerprints. I much
prefer the frosted glass back of the standard Z5.
View full gallery
I
once applauded the older Z phones for their slick, minimalist style,
but Sony has done nothing to give its flagship phones a fresh look. Now,
they're just boring, a worse fate. That's dangerous when its main rival
Samsung has overhauled its top-end Galaxy S6 Edge with a gorgeous, curving design. Even LG is doing more to tickle the senses with its leather-clad G4 and textured, baby blue V10.
You'll
find the Z5 Premium in black, mirrored silver or gold. The black model I
reviewed is really very dull and is without doubt the last colour
variation I would ever choose for this phone.
The phone has an
IP68 level of water resistance, which technically allows it to withstand
being submerged in water up to 1.5 metres (5 feet) in depth, for up to
30 minutes. Sony, however, no longer recommends fully submerging its
phones in water. That's a real shame, as the ability to take underwater
photos was one of the main reasons to buy one of the previous Z phones.
View full gallery
What
this means for you is the waterproofing is there to keep the Z5 Premium
safe from spilled beers, and for taking calls in the rain. The latter
of which I'm pleased about, given I live in perpetually damp Britain.
You'll need to firmly secure the rubberised flap over the combined
nano-SIM and microSD card slot, although thankfully the 3.5mm headphone jack on top and Micro-USB port on the bottom don't need a seal to keep the water out.
Android software and Sony's skin
- Android 5.1 Lollipop
- Custom Sony skin
- Too much pre-installed bloatware
The
Z5 Premium comes with Android 5.1 Lollipop as standard, and there's no
word yet on when this phone might receive an update to the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
I can't hold this against Sony too much, as it announced the Z5 Premium
last September before Marshmallow was even available. Sony doesn't tend
to roll out software updates to its phones quickly either, so I
wouldn't recommend buying the Z5 Premium if you really crave your first
taste of Marshmallow.
Sony's thick Android skin is one of the main
reasons updates are so long in coming. I don't mind Sony's tweaks on
standard Android though. It looks quite neat, it's easy to use, and you
can easily sort apps in the apps tray by alphabetical order, most used
or by name, which makes it easy to find the tool you're looking for.
View full gallery
Sony
typically adds in quite a handful of software extras and the Z5 Premium
is no exception. Beyond Sony's own calendar and email clients (the
latter a baffling addition, given the phone also arrives with Google's
Gmail on board), you'll find Amazon's shopping app pre-installed, as
well as various PlayStation stores, Kobo's e-book app, OfficeSuite, a
news app, AVG antivirus, and various other bits and bobs. It all helps
the phone feel somewhat cluttered before you've even downloaded your
first app. The various widgets you'll find scattered across the home
screens don't help either.
Mercifully, you can uninstall many of
the pre-loaded apps and I recommend you do. Before you start adding your
own stuff on board, spend a bit of time clearing out anything unwanted
and give yourself a blank slate to start from. You'll appreciate the
reduced clutter in the long run.
Processor and cellular performance
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor
- 3GB RAM
The
beating heart of the Z5 Premium is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor,
with 3GB of RAM. As that's exactly the same setup as you'll get inside
the Xperia Z5, it's no surprise it gave almost identical results on my
benchmark tests.
On the Geekbench 3 test, it achieved 609
(single-core) and 2,861 (multi-core), while the standard Z5 achieved 610
and 2,926 respectively. Similarly, the Premium racked up an impressive
26,180 on the 3DMark Ice Storm: Unlimited graphics test, while the
standard Z5 achieved 26,887. Clearly then, there's no difference in
performance between the two sizes.
No comments:
Post a Comment