Sony xperia z5

mooseknunkle wrote: »

Still havent got it and i was onto them via live chat earlier and they told me its in the packaging stage ,yesterday they told me it had dispatched!

At this stage I'd be surprised to get it by the end of the week. I think they're just making it up as they go along

mooseknunkle wrote: »

No sign of mine yet and the postman is gone

Did you get the smartband too?

I did, it arrived using An Post business express. Couldn't see any date on it for when it actually shipped though

Yeah it's live on their site but I can't share the URL here as I am a new user

So how are users finding this phone? Is it still a Vodafone exclusive or is there any good SIM free options for it yet?

hey have you all tried with a diff sim card? Mine seems to be sim free even though I purchased it off Vodafone website

kala85 wrote: »

Otterbox are a great case. The otter box defender cases are brilliant. Almost bulletproof.

And makes the phone look like a tank. Never see the point of nice shiny glass / aluminium phones only to be incased in a crappy piece of rubber and plastic with a useless built in screen protector that ruins the tactility of the screen. In any case Otterbox don't make a case for the Z5 so it's not relevant.

The standard RoxFit flip case you will find in most stores is protection enough and slim.

Spend a bit more and you can get a Casemate from Amazon. Or wait for Tech 21's Impact case.

dots104 wrote: »

Anyone got this phone? Any first hand reviews

Yes I'd be interested in peoples experiences, between this and Nexus 5x

mooseknunkle wrote: »

I have it the past 3 weeks so ill try give you a review..

Ill start with the camera which is fantastic,it got great reviews beforehand and its lived up to my expectations i had a Galaxy S6 and i thought the camera was great on that but the Z5 is a lot better..

Now the battery is also great i can get easily a full day with heavy usage and thats without the stamina mode on,i had Z3 last year and the battery was great in that too and even though the Z5 is a smaller battery its still more or less the same usage as i had with the Z3....

The screen is nice not as good as the S6 or the Nexus 6P but still very clear and crisp great for watching videos etc,the 2 front speakers are kind of hidden but still a nice sound from them..

The call quality is excellent i switched from 3 to Vodafone and the difference is very noticeable...

When i first got the phone it was very slow and a lot of lag,i mean really slow,so i deleted a lot of apps that i just never use and now its unreal how fast it actually is,switching between apps its lighting fast,sending messages everything there is just no lag with it now....

The phone itself is thinner and lighter than i thought,not much has changed in design from the Z3 apart from the frosted back glass which is a bit slippery when im holding it with one hand,im not a fan of cases but i will need to put one on it and there isnt much choice out there at the moment for it..

Overall im very happy with it,i change phones every couple of months and this year alone i think ive had about 6 different ones,but im going to stick with the Z5 for at least a year it has everything ive been looking for...

One issue I've read about is over-heating, or even been quite hot when using apps, browsing etc. Have you noticed this? Thanks for review!

I've had the Z5 for a week now. I was previously using the Lumia 920 since release in 2012 so I can't really compare the Z5 against any other Android phone. I have a Nexus 7 tablet that has me mostly familiar with Android.

So it's a very nice phone to hold and to use, but seems very delicate so I am now rocking this semi-transparent case which makes it easy to grip and will provide some protection. It also looks quite well. Having said that the naked phone was knocked out of my hand onto a wooden floor at a wedding and it survived with nary a scratch. The frosted glass back is really nice.

The first day or two with the phone I had a lot of apps installing and running for the first time and it got pretty hot. But since then it is cool in standby and only moderately warm during browsing / reddit / camera / simple games. Fairly cool when messaging, simple reading, watching video etc. Even when it does get warm the heat is primarily at the top of the device between the camera and the sony logo so it's nowhere near where your hand would usually hold it in portrait. I don't game a lot so I can't comment on heat issues there.

I don't have any lagging issues, it's a very fast phone in every regard except one (more on that later) and I would suspect that some cheeky apps are the reason for other people seeing lag issues. Since moving to android I've found it alarming how much junk it is possible to install on your phone that can cripple performance and battery life. Never had that with Windows Phone. Battery life is good and is well over a day; I wouldn't expect to have to charge the phone during daylight unless I'm using it a lot for navigation in the car. I can't see myself getting two full days out of it unless I turn on Stamina mode though.

So the camera: I read a lot on it before buying and there was some wildly varying opinions out there. But having looked at sample photos online I was happy enough. A physical shutter button is also crucial IMO on a phone as I'm used to it on all my previous smartphones. Having used the camera quite a bit now I am very pleased with the results; photos look natural and good, both on the phone and when viewed on my laptop later. There is a very wide field of view with this lens so the edges are soft, but if you zoom when shooting (or crop later) then you are getting the same field of view as any other phone (eg my old Lumia) without any fuzzy edges. My old Lumia takes excellent shots (even 3 years later) but I feel the Z5 is an improvement. It oversamples 23mp shots into an 8mp image with reduced noise, but results so far are still kinda noisy (compared to the Lumia) if you pixel-peep. Photos indoors and out look good.

However, launching the camera from standby by holding the camera button is hit and miss; it doesn't launch the camera in about 1 in every 5 cases. And sometimes the delay launching the viewfinder can be up to 3 or 4 seconds. But then it can be as fast as under a second sometimes. So consistency here is not good. Viewing previous shots is also maddeningly slow at times. Shot to shot speeds are pretty lame when using the default Superior Auto camera mode, but are better in Manual mode. However Superior Auto is the default when launching from the camera button so you're stuck with it. This is all software stuff though and this is a brand new sensor for Sony so I'm sure they are working hard on it. A scheduled update to the Camera UI is coming in November so I wait with bated breath.

Everything else with the phone is good; nice screen, very thin and light compared to my Lumia, good speakers, etc. The fingerprint reader is one of the features which lured me to the Z5 as I am sick of unlocking my Lumia with a pin. The reader is excellent and you can register any number of fingers. Works 9 out of 10 times for me and even in the event where it doesn't recognise the first attempt it gets it on the second; still faster than manually entering your pin. The position of the reader in the power button makes absolute sense.

Things I miss from my Lumia: the Start Screen with live tiles, Glance (time and notifications on the screen in a kind of low-power mode), Kids Corner, wireless charging, overall reliability of the OS. What I don't miss is the patchy app support, the feeling that Windows Phone has "reset" yet again with the move to 10, the "Resuming.." message every time I switch apps, the lack of SD card in my Lumia, and entering the PIN 100 times a day.

Nice phone, would recommend.

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

What launchers did you try out?

I assume coming from a Lumia, you obviously tried this launcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lx.launcher8&hl=en

But did you try others like...
The Smart Launcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ginlemon.flowerfree&hl=en

The Google Now Launcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.launcher&hl=en

The Nova Launcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslacoilsw.launcher&hl=en

I haven't tried launcher 8 as it would probably only bother me to use an imitation start screen lacking some of the live tile features of the real thing. I installed Nova Launcher with the Elun icon pack so it looks pretty nice now.

I'm going to look more into widgets to try to emulate the live tile feel.

Jelle1880 wrote: »

Bought one yesterday, what a delight.

Fantastic device so far.

Cool. Have you recorded any 4k video. Wondering how long it can go before it warns about overheating. My S6 is limited to a measly 5 minutes.

Great. By all accounts it beats all the other phones hands down for 4k.