Sony Xperia Z5

With technology in smartphones hitting something of a ceiling, it’s hard to differentiate in a crowded and fierce market. Sony, like HTC and others, is finding it hard to compete with the likes of Samsung and Apple, but hopes the new Xperia Z5 will give it a needed boost.

In terms of design, Sony hasn’t really changed its formula, which has been in place since the original Xperia Z. The Xperia Z5 has that square industrial style, look and feel that makes it instantly recognisable as a Sony handset. That said, there are some tweaks, which are nice.

In our opinion, the Z5 looks more desirable than previous models. This is largely due to the new frosted glass rear cover that gives it a matt finish, and the graded metal frame, which matches the colour of the phone. Colour options incldue white, gold, graphite black and green.

Once again, Sony offers full waterproofing and there’s only one flap to cover the card slots, so you don’t need to faff around with headphone or USB ports, which makes things hassle-free. The iconic round power button has gone, here replaced by a flat and slightly recessed button, which also houses a fingerprint scanner.

Something we don’t like, although it’s a small detail, is that the volume rocker has been moved further down the side of the phone. It’s now close to the bottom and, in our tests, we found it difficult to use – above the power button seems to make more sense.

Unfortunately, the device is thicker and heavier compared with the previous model. It’s now 7.3mm and 154g, compared to 6.9mm and 144g. Although that’s not a big difference, the Z5 doesn’t feel as nice in the hand compared to its rivals. The square shape just isn’t as ergonomic, and there are places where the edge of the glass or metal is sharp. This might seem like a small thing to point out but in day– to-day life it matters more than, say, a few extra frames per second in a graphics benchmark.

Hardware

Let’s get a couple of things out of the way on the specs side of things. The Xperia Z5 still has a 5.2in screen with a Full HD resolution, so that’s the same as the Xperia Z2. The new screen tech is found on the Xperia Z5 Premium, which is the first 4K smartphone we’ve seen.

The quality is still good, but we would have preferred it if the regular Z5 was Quad HD. The only new thing to talk about here is that the display can be used normally even when covered in water droplets.

Another thing that remains the same is that the Z5 has a Snapdragon 810 processor. We found the phone extremely nippy in use, even launching the camera.

In normal use it doesn’t overheat like the Xperia Z3+. However, it can if you push it hard enough. When recording 4K video we got a warning at around 19 and a half minutes – an icon notifies you of the high temperature, too – but we did reach 30 minutes of continuous recording without the camera switching itself off.

Benchmark results are good, outpacing its predecessor and keeping up with rivals across the board (see our tables opposite).

RAM remains at 3GB, plus there’s 32GB (21GB available on our sample) of internal storage and a microSD card slot, which can accept up to 200GB. It’s good to see Sony sticking with expandable storage with so many devices (the OnePlus 2, iPhone 6 and Galaxy S6 to name just three) not having this feature.

The Xperia range has long touted good battery life and the Z5 is no different with Sony still claiming two days of usage. The still nonremovable battery is 2900mAh in capacity, which is oddly 30mAh lower than the Z3+. You’ll be able to quick charge the phone, getting five and half hours usage from a 10-minute charge – however, the QCH10 charger is not included in the box and will cost you £19 from Sony.

In our battery benchmark test using Geekbench 3, we recorded a time of five hours 37 minutes with a score of 3376. This is respectable but just over an hour short of rivals like the Galaxy S6, which we didn’t expect due to the lower-resolution screen. We have found battery life to be good from a user point of view and should last most of the advertised two days.

So what has changed? Well Sony is going big on two features: the