In September, Sony launched Xperia 5 as a compact version of Xperia 1. The Sony Xperia 5 available in Blue, Red, Black, and Grey color options. The Sony Xperia 5 comes in 6GB of RAM and 128GB onboard storage. The phone has a $750 price tag for all color options.
Design and Body material
Xperia 5 built with Aluminum and the front and rear panel coated with Corning Gorilla Glass 6. In terms of dimension, the phone measures 158 x 68 x 8.2 mm, and its weight is 164 grams. The Sony Xperia 5 has a power button, volume rockers, and two-stage shutter release button and fingerprint sensor on the right side as well. On the left side, you get a dual SIMs tray, and the bottom has speakers’ grills and USB-C port for charging. On the rear panel, it has vertically shaped triple camera setup and the “Sony logo” held in the middle. There’s no notch on the front shell, and above the display, it has an earpiece in the center, selfie sensor in the left side, and ambient light/proximity pair on the right side. The company claims that this device is more efficient and durable than others with aluminum frame and small size.
Display
The Sony Xperia 5 flaunts a 6.1 inches OLED display that can support Full HD+ resolution with 1080 x 2520 pixels at plentiful 449ppi density. Along with the 21:9 aspect ratio, the phone has an 80.90% screen-to-body ratio. In the default mode, we measured a maximum brightness of 353 nits (slightly lower than modern OLED display’s brightness), and in the light mode, it measured as high as 574 nits.
Sony Xperia 5 offers Creator mode for sets the color balance to medium, and we measured a minimum brightness of 2.2 nits. It has HDR BT.2020 and DCI-P3 100% for best viewing and gaming experience. Moreover, the phone gets 4.2 scores in the average DeltaE term.
Battery life
The Sony Xperia 5 is powered by a 3140 mAh battery (Li-Ion), and you can charge a 53% battery in 30 minutes with an 18W fast charger.
An awesome thing! The phone with a small battery capacity of 3140 mAh gets a massive excellent 96h endurance rating. In the comparison, the Sony Xperia 1 has 79h endurance rating of 3,400 mAh battery while Galaxy S10 has 3330 mAh battery and its endurance rating is 79h. In our testing, the Sony Xperia 5 provides good battery timing for web browsing, video playback as well as 3G Talk Time. The phone can do about 28:34h of 3G Talk Time; we can web browsing 11:40h and spend 16:28h for watching videos.
Software
Like other flagship devices of this year, Sony Xperia 5 runs on Android 9 Pie out of the box. You can add a face or fingerprint to unlock the device as well, and of course, fingerprint security is most secure than Face unlock. On the other hand, if you want to more comfortable use, you can also choose Smart lock suggestions (Pattern lock, Pin lock, etc.). As we know, Xperia 5 has a small size than Xperia 1, but it also offers one-handed mode, and you can adjust the screen on the right or left side.
It has a side sense bar and a 21:9 customizable multi-window feature, so you can add any app inside sense bar like Facebook, messenger, Chrome, YouTube, etc. for easy user experience. For a smooth gaming experience, you can enable “Do not disturb” mode, and the phone offers DSEE HX up-scaler. Dolby Atmos include apTX HD features (for listening to music with wireless connection via Bluetooth). Sony Xperia 5 has Dark Mode and switches down from the top. It provides different toggles like – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, STAMINA, DO not disturb, Auto-rotate, Torch, Mobile Data, AirPlane mode as well as Hotspot.
Performance
Sony Xperia 5 draws power from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC constructed on a 7nm Octa-core processor and paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB onboard storage option. The phone has Adreno 640 GPU and packs a 1x2.84 GHz, 3x2.42 GHz, and 4x 1.78 GHz at Kryo 485. Xperia 5 gets different scores in the following ranks.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p off-screen)
Xperia 5 has 69 scores.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p on-screen)
Xperia 5 has 52 scores.
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p off-screen)
Xperia 5 gets 40 scores.
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p on-screen)
Xperia 5 gets 33 scores.
AnTuTu Scores
Rear Camera setup
On the rear shell, Sony Xperia 5 has vertically shaped triple camera setup, which includes a 12-megapixel primary sensor with f/1.6 aperture, a 12MP ultra-wide sensor with f/2.4 aperture and 12MP telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom and f/2.4 aperture. The 26mm wide main sensor offers dual-pixel PDAF and OIS for capturing beautiful images. The phone arrives with Sony’s Eye AF feature that can fix itself on an object and provide impressively accurate tracking.
The company improved the autofocus features of this device, and it can shot images at 30fps. It has 64-3200 ISO range and shutter speed between 1/4000s and 30s. Along with -2EV to +2EV range in 1/3EV, it hasn’t much focus peaking, and live histogram also missing. Images from Xperia 5 have lively colors and great contrast and look pretty and appealing at fit to zoom level. You can capture the best images with HDR features at Dynamic range, and telephoto camera and the ultra-wide camera also provides great multiple shots. In light mode, the phone provides well images result, and you can also adjust heavy options in HDR features. Sony Xperia 5 delivers beautiful effects and capture impressive in Portrait mode and also provides original skin toggles at blur background. It can record 4K videos at 24/30fps and FHD+ videos at 60fps and 30fps. The 4K video gets around 55Mbps; 1080p/60fps footage gets 30Mbps flat, while 1080p/30fps is treated to 17-17.5Mbps.
Front Camera
On the front panel, it has an 8MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture and 24mm wider at 1.12µm pixels. Along with the HDR feature, it takes nicely detailed selfies with spot-on color reproduction. The 8MP sensor gives us beautiful selfies in the day time, but low light (in night) performance not very well. The phone has a portrait mode so that we can capture incredible selfies with natural tones day time, but the night time front sensor also gives us the unfortunate result. Xperia 5’s front camera has an HDR feature, and it can record FHD videos at 30fps.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Notchless cinematic display
Outstanding battery life
Flagship 855 SoC
Eye-tracking autofocus feature shot well images
Cons
No audio jack
It can’t record 4K videos at 60fps
No wireless charging
No Wi-Fi 6 support