Xperia Z5
Last week we looked at one half of Sony's new flagship smartphones, specifically the Xperia Z5 Compact - a device with flagship specifications in a smaller form factor. As Sony has been very busy lately releasing new devices, we are going to continue where we left off and now take a look at the Compact's bigger brother and second half of this generations Sony Flagship, the full size Sony Xperia Z5.
Sony Xperia Z5
Sony have been running an accelerated release schedule for their full size 'Z' flagship line for a few years now. Despite every year there being repeated rumours Sony were to scale back the model releases amidst falling profits, Sony has so far held firm on the bi-yearly schedule, the only one of the big manufacturers to take this approach. The benefit has been that Sony have been able to consistently stay on top of the rapidly changing hardware game, with each flagship being a masterclass in cutting edge technology. The downside? The incremental releases have caused the models to begin blurring into one another; for almost three years now, the Xperia Zx design has almost been untouched and a certain degree of staleness has begun to creep into the outward identity evidenced by the poorly performing Xperia Z3+/Z4. Will the latest Xperia Z5 be able to reverse the trend? Only time will tell.
The Sony Xperia Z5 has returned with a 5.2 inch IPS panel and 1920 x 1080 resolution, so essentially no changes from the previous iteration. The device runs on a Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 with 2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A57 plus 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 processor and an Adreno 430 GPU, paired with 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and a MicroSD expansion slot capable of housing a further 200GB. The only improvement here is the increased expandable storage, up from 128GB. Powering all of this is a 2900mAh battery, slightly down on the previous model's 2930mAh. Standby time has dropped to 540 hours, from 590 hours and music playback time has dropped 4 hours, from 91 to 87. Talk-time remains the same, up to 17 hours on 3G networks. Other unchanged features include the IP68 certification for dust and water resistance, Bluetooth 4.1 with A2DP and apt-X support and a single nano SIM card slot.
At this point you may be asking yourself if anything has changed. Well, thankfully there are some new features, chief among them is the new 23MP rear and 5.1MP front camera units, finally getting an upgrade after seeing service since the Xperia Z1. The power button has been remodeled to incorporate a fingerprint sensor and a new frosted effect has been added to the rear glass panel, making it not quite the fingerprint smudge magnet it used to be. The handset is 0.4mm thicker and 10g heavier than the last generations model, probably in some part due to the new camera units and fingerprint sensor. The Xperia Z5 comes with all of the connectivity features you'd expect of a high end phone and is available in white, black, gold or green. Camera and fingerprint sensor excluded, very little has changed. In some respects it has even taken a step back. If you are still interested, the new model will cost you approximately $900.
Sony Xperia C5 Ultra
Dropping things down a notch, or up if we're talking screen size, now it's time to look at the more budget minded Xperia C5 Ultra. First up, the 'C' moniker on Sony products is used to denote a device with a photography slant, as opposed to the standard mid-range 'M' and the high end 'Z' monikers. Secondly, the 'Ultra' tag has traditionally been used to denote a smartphone with a 6 inch or larger screen, commonly referred to in the industry as a phablet, so with that having said you can guess the direction the Xperia C5 Ultra is headed. The model comes with a 6.0 inch screen with a FULLHD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, IPS technology and 16 million colours, which gives us a 367 ppi pixel density. Unfortunately there's no IP certification for dust and water protection and the casing is plastic instead of the glass we see on pricier handsets, however this is to be expected as the 'C' brand has never been considered premium.
Internally you get a MediaTek 6752 system on a chip which carries an octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU running at 1.7GHz and a Mali-T760 MP2 GPU. 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and a MicroSD expansion slot capable of holding a further 200GB is included as standard. Powering what are pretty respectable specifications for a smartphone aimed at the lower end of the market is a 2930mAh battery.In real use terms, this means up to 769 hours of standby, over 14 hours of talk time and around 60 hours of music playback. What is worth taking away from these specifications is that the Xperia C5 Ultra has over 200 more hours rated for standby than the Xperia Z5 which costs twice as much. The Xperia C5 Ultra ships with Android 5.0 Lollipop. With the Sony's standard Xperia UI tweaks, it is currently unknown if we will see an upgrade path to Android 6.0 Marshmallow at a later date.
Photography wise, there is a 25mm, 13MP rear camera with single LED flash, autofocus, 1080p video recording and hardware shutter key, paired with a 22mm, 13MP front camera also with autofocus, LED flash and 1080p video recording. Connectivity features include 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS/GLONASS, USB On-The-Go and NFC. Sony have also seen fit to equip the C5 Ultra with with a secondary microphone for active noise cancellation. Overall the C5 Ultra has average specifications and has clearly marked its territory with a focus on selfies with the 13MP front snapper. One other feature that makes the Sony Xperia C5 Ultra unique in its line is the super slim screen bezels which gives it an almost borderless effect. The C5 Ultra weighs 187g and is 8.2mm thick and for a 6.0 inch device this is entirely reasonable. The Sony Xperia C5 Ultra comes in single and dual SIM card options and is available in select regions for approximately $450.
Profiles and Combinations Update
- Last week we added 151 new devices to our database.
- The current number of Premium profile combinations in our database is 278,722.
- The current number of Enterprise profile combinations in our database is 343,942.
- Recently added software versions to our database:
- Nokia Series 60 5.0
- NetBSD 3.0
- Apple TV Software 7.1
- BeOS 1.8
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